China's inefficient power plants and heavy reliance on coal are dragging down global efforts to curb climate change, a Greenpeace report warned yesterday. The report found that major Chinese power companies are responsible for a huge amount of the country's coal use and emissions, with the top three producers alone creating more carbon dioxide emissions than the total for all of Britain, the Guardian reports.
"China is suffering the pains of extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, typhoons and floods, worsened by climate change," a Greenpeace campaigner in Beijing said. "These power companies can and must help China to prevent climate disaster." He added that China is ideally placed to become a world leader in renewable energy. (More China stories.)