alt Hacker NewsAren't the former coal-mining regions badly impoverished today because we dramatically cut back our usage of their primary economic product?
I'm not sure that supports your point. I don't think they are stagnating and decaying because they want to keep mining coal specifically, it's just that the coal miners and their next generation don't have any capital to found cool innovative startups, and not enough people with capital have any incentive to go there and make job-creating ventures to employ them.
It absolutely supports my point. Countries and regions that stopped using or depending on coal early are now doing better than regions that are still clinging to it.
Yes, in the past coal was useful, and having access to coal was linked to prosperity. Oil is associated with prosperity now. But the writing is on the wall for oil.
And speaking of the current meeting, I don't know a single example of a country that decided to buck the trend and got rich by selling coal when the world started switching to oil/gas.