Across the country, coal-fired power plants consume 7.4 billion cubic meters of water each year, enough to meet the basic needs of about 30 percent of the nation’s population. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images BEIJING — China’s consumption of coal, a major contributor to climate change and the country’s horrific air pollution, is worsening a severe water shortage in the northern part of the country, Greenpeace said in a report released Tuesday. China ’s coal-fired power plants consume more water where water is scarce than plants in any other country, according to the report, which assessed global water depletion from coal use. A decades-long drought in northern China — home to the bulk of the country’s coal production and consumption — is worsening, and the central and local governments are grappling with widespread desertification. Officials have relocated millions of people. Beijing, the […]