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| - Fact Check: Viral post falsely claims building of coal plants shows CO2 does not cause climate change
A viral Facebook post claims that 10 different countries are building new coal power stations, suggesting that they don’t believe CO2 affects the climate. However, scientific evidence clearly shows that CO2 emissions from human activities are a major contributor of climate change.
Claim :
Building of new coal power stations implies CO2 does not affect the climateFact :
Scientific evidence confirms that human-caused CO2 emissions cause climate changeIndia’s coal power plants fulfil about three-quarters of electricity needs. Even though the country is planning for the rapid deployment of clean power capacity, it is still heavily dependent on fossil fuel to meet surging power usage. According to Statista, India has about 285 operational coal power plants.
The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament in January 2025 stated that India is the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change. In 2024, the country faced significant climate events such as heatwaves, cyclones, and floods. Last July, Minister of State for Power Shripad Naik informed Lok Sabha that India has already achieved 45.5% Installed Capacity from non-fossil fuel-based resources.
Meanwhile, a Facebook post is being widely shared on social media claiming that 10 countries from East Asia to Europe are “building coal power stations, because CO2 does not change the climate.” The post has been shared 100 times on the same platform.
The viral claim link is here and the archive link here.
Here’s the screenshot of the viral post.
During the investigation, the Telugupost fact check team found the claim that regardless of building of new coal power plants, research has revealed that coal power plants are sources of carbon dioxide emissions, a major greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and climate change.
The research has shown that fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – have together contributed 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions envelop the Earth’s atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat and it results in global warming and climate change. Generating electricity and heat by burning fossil fuels causes a large chunk of global emissions. Most electricity is still generated by burning coal, oil, or gas.
Not just degrees of warming the Earth, "parts per million", or ppm is also another component the researchers use to measure the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to Copernicus, the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane continued to increase and reached record annual levels in 2024, at 422 parts per million (ppm).
NASA’s climate change report states that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere did not exceed 300 ppm until 11,700 years ago. Here you can see the eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods.
The above tabular data on the coal plants in the listed countries does not match the numbers provided in the viral Facebook post. The number of under construction coal plants in the viral post is far higher than the data obtained through Global Energy Monitor.
The construction of coal power stations may be attributed to the respective country’s national energy policy and in no way demonstrates how the molecules behave in the atmosphere. In the above data, China seems to be building more coal plants than other countries, however, it does not shed light on the country’s investments in wind and solar energy which have twice as much capacity under construction as the rest of the world combined. Hence, the claim is misleading.
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