OECD countries phasing out coal while China continues new projects

• 2 years ago (2022-11-16)
• David Flin

Coal 296

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The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) has reported that countries within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are on track to close over 75 per cent of coal-fired electricity generation by 2030.

The scale of proposed new coal-fired power plants has also collapsed globally by the same amount since 2015. PPCA said that this will lead to an irreversible transition away from coal, despite short-term energy security concerns resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Since 2015, the global capacity of operating coal-fired power plants increased by 170 GW to a total of 2067 GW as of July 2022. However, if China is excluded from consideration, the rest of the world has seen a net decrease of 54 GW (5 per cent) since 2015.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said that China was: “Continuing to invest in coal-fired power plants and steel facilities at alarming rates, despite its carbon neutrality targets.”