That’s great news, and it comes just about all from soaring renewable generation in China, right where it matters most for the climate. The 85% record was as recently as February of this year, and the 73% record is from August, 7% lower than August 2011.
These numbers are from an article in the “Financial Review”, which seems to be an Australian publication aimed at business readers. They don’t like the development, since it means that they have less market for their dirty coal exports to China.
Chinese domestic coal production is also down 5.3%.
They cite an analyst based in Shanghai with the comment “We’ve never seen this happen before.”
I hope that a lot more of the same happens. The Australians will need to find some other way to export energy. With their great desert resources, they could start making some limestone.
Lenz Blog 
Prof Ross Garnaut is the author of Australia’s carbon pricing mechanism.
Australia worships the mining industry which is largely owned overseas and sends 80% of it’s profits there as well. In direct employment it is a minor player, but our politicians are terrified of it. It will take a visionary to enable energy-from-the-desert or as you suggest making limestone – we don’t have someone like that.
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Thanks for the background on Prof Garnaut. I left him out since I had some problems with the language he used. 🙂
To Australia’s credit, you did manage to put a cost on carbon, so while I don’t know much about your politics, it looks like the coal industry doesn’t call all the shots.
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Green energy is really safe for both the environment and our budget. Therefore many people switch to this energy source.
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