Here in England we now drag the coal over on smoke spewing ships from Japan and Australia, rather than mine it here. The sum total of CO2 is higher than if we just mined it here. Net zero box ticking.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-by-end-user-uk
Your emissions are dropping fast
https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/united-kingdom
It’s not box ticking it’s the complexity of change.
Per ton, yes. In practical, it’s far more complicated. Ships turn “heavy fuel oil” which is one tiny step from crude. It’s literally the byproduct that we have no better use for except for extremely large slow diesel engines.
If the tankers had to burn more useful fuel, we wouldn’t do it. The emissions on this unrefined bulk fuel is extremely bad.
Rail competes for efficiency depending on sea factors, and truck never does. But mining locally is far far more efficient that shipping literally to the other side of the world on ships that are burning 45 tons of fuel per day.
Australia I see but Japan? Japan is the world's third largest coal importer. I don't think they are sending much coal to England.