How China uses countries like Egypt to shirk climate change duties: It appears China seizing the reins of leadership on climate change from the US is a little disingenuous considering that the country is engaged in a number of big coal developments, writes Hiroko Tabuchi for the New York Times. While China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal. Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43%. Some of the countries targeted for coal-power expansion include Egypt, where Tabuchi says coal projects by Shanghai Electric and other global developers are set to bring the country’s coal-fired capacity to 17,000 MW, from near zero, citing data by German environmental group Urgewald. The piece provides an interesting insight into some of the downsides of the Belt and Road initiative. Plus the Global Coal Tracker is actually pretty cool.