# Coal > Beijing has won international praise for announcing that it will stop funding coal projects in the developing world – but it is still heavily reliant on the fossil fuel for rapid economic growth at home > > – [Can China help end the world’s addiction to coal? | News | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/sep/29/can-china-help-end-the-worlds-addiction-to-coal) > Coal offered the possibility of placing factories in towns, near barracks and a pliable industrial reserve army of proletarians, many of whom had been driven from the countryside by enclosures > > [[Half-Earth Socialism]]