Photos by Michael Yamashita yamashitaphoto | With more than 650 mines, Shanxi Province in northern China is the country’s top producer of coal, with the Inner Mongolia region a close second. China is also the world’s largest consumer of coal and such dependence has its costs, namely the environmental impacts of rising greenhouse gas emissions. In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced that China would become carbon neutral by 2060. Smaller mines were shut down and others consolidated into fewer but larger power companies, all with an eye toward shifting to wind- and solar-powered electricity. But change is hard. Because of a power crunch, China has had to ramp up coal production and, according to a recent report by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air and the Global Energy Monitor, has approved construction permits for new power plants at the rate of two a week in 2022. #coalmines #energy