New scramble for coal a reminder of how hard it is to go green

On the eve of a climate summit where governments will be asked to pledge lower carbon emissions, demand for fossil fuels has spiked. That could shift the focus from targets to action.

In the blue corner, the world’s accelerating drive to stem carbon emissions and turn back global warming. In the red corner, a sudden spike this month in global demand for fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal.

There’s a heavyweight fight going on over energy priorities, and it has dramatically raised the stakes for the most important international climate change conference since the Paris Agreement of 2015, due to open in Glasgow, Scotland, at the end of the month.

But it has also done something else, which could fundamentally change the debate over climate change: It has provided a stark reminder of just how far the world’s developed economies remain from kicking their carbon habit.

And it is shifting the focus away from the fine words of targets and commitments toward the nuts-and-bolts business of actually meeting them amid real-world economic pressures and technological constraints.

As ever, it was Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, whose climate activism has spurred a worldwide youth movement, who put it most succinctly. Promises of greener policies from the United States, Britain, and a number of other governments were “blah, blah, blah,” she declared last month.