IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the increase was “a worrying sign of how far off track the world is in its efforts to put emissions into decline towards net zero.”
China is responsible for more than half of global coal-fired power generation and is expected to see a 9% year-on-year increase in 2021, the IEA said. Generation in India is forecast to grow 12% this year. Cutting coal use was a major bone of contention at climate talks in Glasgow last month, with countries finally agreeing to “phase down” consumption as part of their efforts to keep global temperature rises as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible. China has already made a pledge to start reducing coal consumption, but will do so only after 2025, giving developers considerable leeway to raise generation capacity further in the coming four years. According to a report published this week by researchers with China’s State Grid Corporation, energy security concerns mean the country is likely to build as much as 150 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity over the 2021-2025 period, bringing the total to 1,230 GW. NN: Wish upon a star. Is that reality? The more they push their anti fossil fuel imitative the more they lose. Forget golbal warming… Just from a pollution stand point mankind need to stop using coal for electric generation. As far as steel making coal will be with us for a long time in the future. As far as 100% renewables meeting mankind’s energy demand keep wishing on that star. I find the predictions of a carbon free world by 2040 comical. The pompous pricks want you to believe they can predict energy sources 20 years in the future. They could not even predict energy demand for this winter. As they fire up the coal generation stations…