“We have never burned so much coal in the world” | Environment

From 2024, global demand for the polluting fuel is expected to decline. In concrete terms, the IAE expects a kind of plateau phase until 2026, even if governments do not announce and implement stricter clean energy measures. “Overall, coal consumption in 2026 would be 2.3 percent lower than in 2023, although China will have the final say,” predicts the international institution from Paris.

Last year, global demand for coal reached 8.42 billion tons, already a record at the time. In 2023, the energy agency expects a decline in demand in almost all industrialized countries. The European Union and the United States take the cake, with an estimated -20 percent. There would be a smaller decline in countries such as South Korea, Japan, Canada and Australia.

However, due to increasing consumption in China (+5 percent), India (+8 percent), Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, there would still be an increase for the entire planet to 8.53 billion tons. In China and India, the high demand for electricity mainly plays a role. At the same time, less electricity is produced in hydroelectric power stations. The war in Ukraine remains difficult to predict what Russia – the fourth largest consumer of coal – will do.

The report comes two days after the end of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. The final text of the summit calls for “a transition away from fossil fuels” to slow down global warming. Coal is a major contributor to CO2 emissions, a greenhouse gas.

2023 will certainly go down as the warmest year ever recorded in history. “November in particular was extraordinary,” said the European climate service Copernicus. A monthly record was recorded for the sixth time in a row.