Countries pledge to cut heavily polluting coal, with caveats

By FRANK JORDANS and SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — In the fight to curb climate change, several major coal-using nations have announced steps to wean themselves off of the heavily polluting fossil fuel. Though some will only do it slowly. The pledges to phase out coal come on top of other promises made at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The head of an international energy organization said those earlier pledges trimmed several tenths of a degree from projections of future warming. But outside experts called that “optimistic.” Optimism also abounded in relation to the promises on coal. Coal has the dirtiest carbon footprint of the major fuels and is a significant source of planet-warming emissions.