Coal Regions

Background

JHCGA's vision is that the tipping point to global climate action is through the energy transformation of global coal-producing regions, specifically in the U.S. and China through locally-led strategies that create new jobs and scale up clean energy industries. 

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The U.S. and China are the globe’s two largest economies, two largest carbon emitters and two largest energy consumers. There will be no significant climate action without significant energy transformation progress in both nations.

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Since our founding in 2002, JHCGA has worked closely with policymakers, business leaders, technical experts, and civil society from the U.S. and China's largest coal producing regions - notably Wyoming and Shanxi. Wyoming is the U.S.'s largest producer of coal - in the past nearly 400 millions tons annually.  Shanxi is China's largest coal producer - around 1 billion tons. Together, the two regions produce nearly 15% of the globe's coal.  Coal has and continues to play a key role in powering the U.S., providing good-paying jobs and supporting coal-producing communities.  The same is true in Asia.  However, coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and plays a central role in contributing to global climate change. 

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The International Energy Agency projects that, though global coal use could peak this decade, coal will play a significant role in providing energy to global economies for decades to come.  Coal is cheap and provides dependable power. Future projections show that Asian economies will urbanize largely by depending on coal.  Unlike aging coal-fired power plants in the United States, in China, the majority of coal plants are less than 10 years old and are unlikely to retired soon.

At the same time, coal communities like Wyoming and Shanxi that have traditionally depended on coal face an uncertain economic future.  With the advent of cheap natural gas and increasing demand for renewable energy, coal production and consumption has been on the decline in the U.S. These communities have lost or are losing economic opportunity by way of jobs and tax revenue. To aggravate this challenge further, coal communities have economies that are largely undiversified. 

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These are the global, macro, economic and environmental challenges that we grapple with.  How can coal communities in the U.S. and China achieve economic diversification while also reducing their global carbon emissions role?  To respond to these important questions, since our founding, through meetings, site visits, partnerships, and Memoranda of Understanding organized as part of this project, JHCGA has helped facilitate clean energy approaches between Wyoming, Shanxi, the U.S., and China, and by extension all impacted by global climate change.