Coal remains undisputed king

Urgent action needed to fight warming: IEA

Paris, Nov. 30: Coal remains the most widely used means of electricity production in the world. It also happens to be the biggest emitter of climatechanging CO2 of any fuel.

Despite efforts to tackle global warming, worldwide demand for coal was up one per cent last year, mainly due to demand in Asia. China is by far the biggest consumer of coal which is mainly used to produce electricity.

However even in China there is now political pressure to improve air quality in urban areas, with a new trend towards using natural gas and renewables.

In 2017, after two years of fall, IEA figures showed global coal demand rising to 5.357 million tonnes of coal equivalent (TCE).

While many advanced economies, such as the UK, Canada and Germany are considering how to phase out coal use in power generation, the same is not true everywhere.

India seems set to replace China as the world’s biggest coal consumer while countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam have also registered big increases. “Many developing economies view coal as important to their economic development because of its ready availability and relatively low cost,” the IEA said in it report. The prediction is for demand to breach 5,400 million tonnes before 2040 with an expected drop in use in China, the EU and the US set against the rises in India and Asia. Coal is key to the climate change issue as it was responsible for 40 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions last year, ahead of oil and gas.

IEA warns that “urgent action” is needed to boost levels of carbon capture and storage.