Ronald Bailey Witnesses the "Last Coughs" of a Dying Coal Industry at U.N. Climate Meeting
The second week of the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP-19) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) kicked off today. The goal of the meeting of 10,000 or so participants is to establish a pathway toward wringing firm commitments out of the 195 signatory countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, chiefly carbon dioxide, by the COP-21 meeting in Paris in 2015. The climate treaty is intended to limit the increase in the mean global temperature to no more than two degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial average. Watching the festivities, Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey wonders if the activists are right that the coal industry is dying.