Short-term given the current political situation burning coal is better than burning oil or natural gas. Coal is distributed much more evenly among countries th

Short-term given the current political situation burning coal is better than burning oil or natural gas. Coal is distributed much more evenly among countries than oil and gas. Wars like in Ukraine or Yemen are only possible due to money Russian or Saudi Arabia earns from the energy export. And pollution from wars may offset any savings from supposedly cleaner energy sources. Plus coal transportation is much more distributed operation making it resilient in case of natural disasters or terrorism. Plus the latest coal plants approaching 50% efficiency with proper capture of bad things in coal are not that bad. Longer term wind and especially solar are way better precisely because they allow very local production, but full switch to those is a far future especially with the current realization that cloudy sky with no wind can lasts for months even in supposedly sunny places.