Uncle Sam is showing the world that carbon emissions can be cut sharply and cheaply. For the first time in recent history, the U.S. has been able to produce increasing amount of economic output over the last five years, while at the same time experience huge reductions in C02 emissions. Most of the credit for the historically unprecedented reduction in CO2 emissions goes to the shale gas revolution, which started in about 2007 with the technological breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing.—WHILE coal production and use plummet in America, in Europe “we have some kind of golden age of coal,” says Anne-Sophie Corbeau of the International Energy Agency. The amount of electricity generated from coal is rising at annualised rates of as much as 50% in some European countries. Since coal is by the far the most polluting source of electricity, with more greenhouse gas produced per kilowatt hour than any other fossil fuel, this is making a mockery of European environmental aspirations.