China burns more coal than the rest of world combined, equivalent to almost 92 exajoules of energy in 2023 compared to 72 exajoules for the rest of planet.

For a sense of scale 92 exajoules would power 2.4 billion average U.S. homes for a year. In 2021 it was estimated that there are 2.3 billion homes in the world.

Producing 92 exajoules from coal requires the burning of 4.38 billion metric tons of the sooty stuff. This produces a little more than 9 billion metric tons of CO₂, close to 25% of all anthropogenic CO₂ produced in the world in 2023.

Source: Statistica. Visual Capitalist. MIT. EPA. Architecture and Design. Graphic: Coal, AI generated.