Coal Consumption Booms Amid Rising Climate Concerns: IEA Coal Report 2012

In a report destined to frustrate advocates for global action on climate change, the Paris-based International Energy Agency projected Tuesday morning that in five years' time, the amount of coal burned around the globe every year will increase by an additional 1.2 billion metric tons -- an amount roughly equivalent to the current annual coal consumption of the U.S. and Russia combined.

The uptick, virtually all of it attributable to rapid economic expansion in China and India, comes even as the U.S. continues to experience decreases in coal use for electricity generation amid the availability of cheap and plentiful natural gas -- which has a smaller carbon footprint than coal when burned.

Without even including India and China, however, the drop in U.S. coal consumption is easily negated by a commensurate uptick in coal use elsewhere in the world. And adding in those two countries, whose voracious appetite for cheap electricity has altered the global coal market over the last decade, presents what the IEA's executive director, Maria van der Hoeven, called "a troubling paradox."

- Huffingtonpost.com