Hanoi, Vietnam – Coal, fuel that fueled the industrial era, has led the planet to the brink of catastrophic climate change.

Scientists have repeatedly warned of the dangers that threatened it, especially on Friday, when a major scientific report published by 13 US government agencies concluded that the damage caused by climate change could reduce by 10% the size of the US economy by the end of the century measures are not taken to curb global warming.

At the international level, a report published in October by the US panel on global warming recommended a quick exit from coal.

And yet, three years after the Paris Agreement, when world leaders promised to act, coal shows no signs of disappearing. Although the use of coal eventually declines worldwide, it is not about to happen fast enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change, according to the latest assessment by the Agency International Energy Conference. In fact, last year, global production and consumption increased after two years of decline.

Cheap, abundant and the most polluting of fossil fuels, coal remains the largest source of energy in the world to generate electricity. This, even though renewable energies such as solar and wind energy are rapidly becoming more affordable. Soon, coal could no longer have financial meaning for its sponsors.

Why is coal so hard to stop?

Because coal is a powerful player. It's there by millions of tons underground. Powerful businesses, backed by powerful governments, often in the form of grants, are in a hurry to develop their markets before it's too late. Banks are still benefiting. Large national power grids have been designed for this purpose. Coal fired power plants can be a surefire way for politicians to provide cheap electricity – and retain their own power.

And even though renewable energies are growing rapidly, they still have limitations: wind and solar energy flows when the breeze blows and the sun shines, which requires retooling traditional power grids.

"The main reason coal stays in place is because we've already built it," said Rohit Chandra, PhD in Harvard's energy policy, specializing in coal in India.

The battle for the future of coal is being conducted in Asia.

Asia, home to half of the world's population, now accounts for three-quarters of global coal consumption. More importantly, it represents more than three quarters of the coal plants under construction or under planning – of which 1,200 are huge, according to Urgewald, a German rights group following the development of coal. Heffa Schücking, who heads Urgewald, called the factories "an assault on the Paris objectives".

Indonesia is digging more coal. Vietnam is clearing new coal plants. After the disaster at the 2011 nuclear power plant, Japan resurrected coal.

The mastodon of the world, however, is China. The country consumes half of the world's coal. More than 4.3 million Chinese are employed in the country's coal mines. China has added 40% of global coal capacity since 2002, a significant increase in just 16 years. "I had to do the math three times," said Carlos Fernández Alvarez, senior energy analyst at the International Energy Agency. "I thought it was wrong, it's crazy."

Encouraged by the global outcry over air pollution, China is now the world leader in solar and wind energy installations, and its central government has tried to slow down the construction of coal-fired power plants. But an analysis by Coal Swarm, a US-based team of researchers advocating for alternatives to coal, concluded that new plants continue to be built and that other proposed projects have simply been delayed rather than stopped. Coal consumption in China has increased in 2017, but at a much slower pace than before, and is expected to increase further in 2018, after declining in previous years.

The Chinese coal industry is now trying to find new markets, from Kenya to Pakistan. Chinese companies are building coal plants in 17 countries, according to Urgewald. Its regional rival, Japan, is also in the game: nearly 60% of planned coal projects developed by Japanese companies are outside the country, mainly financed by Japanese banks.

This competition is particularly striking in Southeast Asia, one of the last frontiers of coal expansion in the world.

Nguy Thi Khanh saw the competition closely in Vietnam. Born in 1976, a year after the end of the war, she remembers doing her homework by the light of a kerosene lamp. In his northern village, electricity was cut off several hours a day. When it rained, there was no electricity at all. When that happened, he was coming from a coal power plant not far away. When her mother hung up the clothes to dry, ashes were deposited on her clothes.

Today, almost all Vietnamese households (95 million inhabitants) have electricity. Hanoi, the capital where Nguy now lives, is plagued by a frenzy of new construction, with a growing demand for cement and steel, two energy-intensive. The economy is galloping. And, all along the coast, for a distance of 994 km, foreign companies, mainly from Japan and China, are building coal plants.

One of these projects is at Nghi Son, a former fishing village south of Hanoi, now home to a large industrial area. The first power station opened its doors here in 2013. The Japanese overseas aid organization, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, paid for it. The Japanese trading house Marubeni has developed it.

A second, much larger coal-fired power plant is under construction next door. Marubeni also builds it with a Korean company. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation, an export credit agency to reduce the financial risk for private lenders, contributes to its financing.

Coal represents 36% of the country's electricity generation capacity; According to the government, it is expected to reach 42% by 2030. To supply these plants, Vietnam will have to import 90 million tons of coal by 2030.

In the shade of the chimney, Nguyen Thi Thu Thien was drying shrimp on the side of the road and was complaining bitterly. She had left her house after the power plant had built a pond of ashes right in front. "Coal dust has blackened my house," she spat. "Even the trees are dying, we can not live there."