China faces uphill battle in coal transition, but ditching fossil fuel crucial to stave off climate change impact: IEA

Name: Calls for ‘climate justice’ as COP27 puts focus on compensation for poorer, vulnerable countries
Uploaded: 2022-11-15T06:00:16.000Z
Duration: 2 min 16 s
Description: Calls for ‘climate justice’ as COP27 puts focus on compensation for poorer, vulnerable countries

China accounts for over half of the 2,185 gigawatts global coal‐fired power capacity, according to the IEA

Global coal demand has been stable at near record highs – averaging around 5,500 million tonnes per year for the past decade

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Thousands of heavy-duty trucks loaded with coal extending as long as 130 kilometres from the Mongolia-China border on a road in the Gobi desert. Photo: Reuters

Yujie Xuein Shenzhen

Published: 2:00pm, 15 Nov 2022Updated: 8:08pm, 15 Nov 2022

The world must steeply reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal use to avoid severe consequences of climate change, but the transition will be most challenging in countries such as China, where dependency on the fossil fuel is high and is seeing a rebound due to power security issues, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA called for immediate policy actions and rapid mobilisation of massive financing for clean energy alternatives to coal to ensure secure, affordable, and fair transitions, especially in emerging and developing economies.

“Over 95 per cent of the world’s coal consumption is taking place in countries that have committed to reducing their emissions to net zero,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA.

“But while there is encouraging momentum towards expanding clean energy in many governments’ policy responses to the current energy crisis, a major unresolved problem is how to deal with the massive amount of existing coal assets worldwide.”

02:16

Calls for ‘climate justice’ as COP27 puts focus on compensation for poorer, vulnerable countries

Global total coal‐fired power plant capacity stands at a little under 2,185 gigawatts and is made up of around 9,000 plants with an average age of 20 years per unit, according to the IEA. Around a quarter of this capacity is in advanced economies and the rest in emerging and developing nations. China alone accounts for over half of the global coal‐fired power capacity, which has an average age of only 13 years.

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