It’s Tuesday, September 21, and the world is turning its back on coal. More than three-quarters of the world’s proposed coal power projects have been canceled since the Paris Agreement was adopted in late 2015, according to a new report by the climate think tank E3G. Globally, the scuttled plants would have created about 1,175 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, which is comparable to “adding a second China,” the report states. The analysis notes that 44 countries have committed to stop initiating new coal projects, signaling a substantial shift toward more sustainable energy sources, as the economics of coal become increasingly uncompetitive with renewable energy. Because coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, the continued operation of existing coal power plants represents the “biggest single risk” to staying below the warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) laid out in the Paris Agreement, according to the report. The […]