In the past few decades, China has lifted more than half a billion people out of destitution--an astonishing accomplishment. That advance was driven by industrialization, and that industrialization was driven almost entirely by coal. More than three-quarters of China's electricity comes from coal. More coal goes to heating millions of homes, smelting steel (China produces nearly half the world's steel), and baking limestone to make cement (China is responsible for almost half the world's cement). In its frantic quest to industrialize, China burns almost as much coal as the rest of the world put together.