Energy and climate: a turning point looms

WORLD Bank president Jim Yong Kim told the Climate Action Summit in Washington in early May: ". . . if (Asia) implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished".

Dr Kim's concerns about current plans by China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam to build three-quarters of the world's new coal power plants by 2020 were widely reported. His frank departure from prepared remarks coincidentally follows research indicating that the world is on the brink of mean global warming beyond 2 degrees Celsius.

In April, Lindee Wong and her colleagues at Ecofys energy consultancy found that new hig…