The New York Times has recently carried two important stories on China's coal consumption, indicating that the situation is even more serious than previously appeared to be the case. On November 3 the NYT carried a front page report that China has revised its estimates of how much coal it has been burning, and concluding that its carbon emissions have been higher than had been previously reported and assumed (“China burns much more coal than reported, complicating climate talks” (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/world/asia/china-burns-much-more-coal-than-reported-complicating-climate-talks.html?_r=0), Nov 3 2015). This was then widely taken up, with the emphasis invariably on the “new fact” that China's coal burning is higher than previously reported. Then on November 11 the NYT carried a second story concerning a glut of new coal-fired power plant approvals, with the implication that again carbon emissions were likely to be higher in future than previously anticipated (“Glut of coal-fired plants casts doubt on China's energy priorities” (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-power-energy-policy.html?_r=0), Nov 11 2015) This second story followed similar reports from both Deutsche Bank and from Greenpeace East Asia. Given the global significance of energy and emissions data from China, we explore some of the causes and implications of these developments.