Coal has few friends around the world, but China isn’t giving up on the world’s most polluting power-plant fuel just yet. European nations from the U.K. to the Netherlands and Germany are leading the effort to eradicate the fuel from their power mix. Global efforts to drive the most polluting fossil fuel out of the electricity mix last year saw the biggest drop in coal generation and carbon dioxide emissions since at least 1990, according to Ember, the London-based think tank formerly known as Sandbag.
Coal generation worldwide slumped by 3% in 2019 on falling power demand, a surge in wind and solar generation and coal-to-gas switching. That resulted in a 2% drop in carbon emissions from the power industry. But China’s thirst for burning the combustible sedimentary rock is preventing the world from hitting its climate targets, Ember said in a report.
Cleaning Up
Annual coal generation slumps most since at least 1990
Source: Ember
The scale of efforts needed to phase out fossils fuels, install enough renewable energy, and electrify the world’s systems to slow global warming will need a concerted mix of ambitious climate policies and investment of hundreds of billions of dollars per year.