Either China's screwed, or everybody is. [View all]

China is currently burning half the world's coal, which supplies 68% of their primary energy consumption. If China were to keep increasing their coal consumption at the same rate as the past decade for the next 18 years, in 2030 they would be burning all the coal produced in the world today. China cannot keep up their current expansion of energy use based on coal because a) there isn't enough production and shipping capacity in the world to support it; b) the CO2 emissions would be insupportable.

They don't have enough other energy resources (gas, renewables or hydro) to replace coal use over the next two decades.

The implication is that the Chinese coal consumption is probably going to peak quite soon, perhaps within the next 5-10 years. The effect that will have on the Chinese economy could easily be catastrophic, and the knock-on effects for the world economy will be only somewhat less serious.

If the Chinese economy does crash, we could be within a decade of seeing global CO2 emissions stop rising, but at the cost of a significant slowdown or decline in the world economy - even when taking energy efficiency improvements into account.

Either that or China keeps increasing their coal use, their economy continues to boom, but the world loses its last vestige of hope for avoiding a climate calamity.