China and India coal usage dropped for the first time in 52 years[1].
It's also silly to look at anything other than per-capita metrics. If China arbitrarily splits in half or expands, the per-capita metric remains invariant to the historical luck factor behind why national borders are the way they are.
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coal-power-drops-in-chi...
No, it's because of renewables. Share of oil in total energy consumption hasn't increased since the sanctions, while wind and solar have been consistently increasing. Coal is down (again, as a share of total energy consumption).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?c...
gas (ofss fuel) is increasing a lot... So yeah, there is some renewables, but we're still pretty far from what is needed...
China is trying to eliminate oil because of the Malacca Dilemma. The US and allies control the seas as part of containment policy. The US also has the Middle East on lockdown, every gulf country in particular. China has a little base in Djibouti and influence over a collapsing IRGC I guess, but not enough to secure any routes. China only has land-based power projection in Eurasia which exerts some limited but insufficient control over land corridors. This is the real incentive behind China's renewables and electrification efforts. That it also addresses global warming is a very welcome side-effect.
>China and India coal usage dropped for the first time in 52 years
Isn't it because they're now getting Russian oil and gas at rock bottom prices from western sanctions?