"David Jones and Panner Selvam don't have much in common. The two are separated by thousands of miles of ocean. One lives in Baltimore, Maryland, the other in a small town north of Chennai, India. One is a highway maintenance and traffic operator, the other a fisherman. But Jones and Panner both pay the price for a single trade route of coal that connects the mines of central Appalachia in the United States with heavy industrial factories across India."
"This trade route has grown dramatically over the past five years, weaving American coal companies and India's power, steel, and cement sectors into a web of fossil fuel dependency. Facing two decades of declining domestic coal use, America's largest coal companies have turned outward, increasingly sending their product abroad, largely to India. Nearly a quarter of all the coal America shipped overseas last year, the largest share by far, was purchased by Indian companies."
U.S. coal exports to India have surged in the past five years, linking Appalachian mines to heavy industry across India. American coal companies have shifted toward foreign markets after two decades of declining domestic coal use. Nearly a quarter of the coal the United States shipped overseas last year was purchased by Indian companies. Coal exports recently reached a six-year high, with roughly one-quarter of domestically mined coal now exported. The expanding trade route increases global fossil fuel dependency, undermines decarbonization efforts, and places environmental and health burdens on communities at both ends.
Read at The Nation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]