Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

For a while, things in the West African country of Liberia were looking up.

After a 14-year civil war, international aid poured in, and a new president swept to power promising reform.

But now, both the money and the hope are drying up.

And cruises to the Caribbean are becoming even less authentic travel experiences.

Cruise lines are snapping up property and building literal walled gardens to coddle their passengers,

who don't even need visas to visit.

We ask who's benefiting.

First up, though.

Coal drives Asia, and yet the region's passion for the stuff threatens the health of the planet.

Despite every Asian country signing up to the Paris Agreement on climate change,

it's estimated the deadlines for both the construction and the closure of coal-fired power stations will be missed by decades.

Can all this change in order for the climate not to?

Asia digs up and burns three quarters of the world's coal.

Miranda Johnson is the economist's Southeast Asia correspondent.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal by an extremely long way. And largely,

as a result, it also emits more carbon dioxide than any other country in the world.

India is the second biggest consumer. Japan and South Korea are also big consumers of coal, while Australia and Indonesia are big producers.

Southeast Asia was the only region in the world last year in which coal share of power generation

actually grew.

So coal is increasingly becoming a truly Asian phenomenon.

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