Coal: most new power plant projects have been blocked since 2015
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, most projects for the construction of new coal-fired power plants have been abandoned.
Coal: most new power plant projects have been blocked since 2015
Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, most projects for the construction of new coal-fired power plants have been abandoned.
Since 2015 — the year in which the Paris Agreement was adopted — the vast majority of projects for the construction of new coal-fired power plants have been abandoned. This is explained in a report produced by the think tanks E3G, Global Energy monitor and Ember, according to which there are 44 countries around the world in which no new plant is any longer planned.
The global pipeline of proposed coal power plants has collapsed by 76% since the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The end of new coal power construction is in sight.
Read the report e3g.org/publications/n…
The end of new coal power construction is in sight.
Read the report e3g.org/publications/n…
31 nations still plan new coal-fired power plants
This is a positive development, since coal — as is well known — is by far the most harmful fossil fuel for the climate. "Only five years ago," Dave Jones of Ember told the British daily The Guardian, "we had a large number of new coal power plant projects in front of us. Most of them have today been shelved or at least suspended." The activist called on other states to follow the same path, with a view to bidding a definitive farewell to the fossil fuel.
While 44 nations have decided not to build new plants, 31 have decided, at least for now, to maintain their programmes. But a further figure that gives grounds for optimism: half of them plan to build just one new power plant.
Saying goodbye to coal is necessary to meet climate targets
Even that is too many, since science has repeatedly shown that, if we are to keep the rise in average global temperature to a maximum of 1.5 degrees centigrade by the end of the century relative to pre-industrial levels, we will need to stop using all fossil fuels as soon as possible. Not just coal, then, but also gas and oil.
Globally, 1,175GW of planned #coal-fired power projects have been cancelled since 2015.
➡️e3g.org/publications/n…
➡️e3g.org/publications/n…
For states and companies, however, this should represent not a problem but an opportunity, as confirmed by Chris Littlecott, director of E3G: "renewable energy is increasingly more advantageous from an economic standpoint than fossil fuels." Without forgetting the risk of ending up saddled with "stranded assets" — that is, activities that prove unprofitable if not outright toxic.
A handful of nations could wipe out 90 per cent of projects
According to the report, if China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh were to give up building new coal plants, we would at a stroke have cancelled 90 per cent of the projects. That would represent a major victory ahead of the twenty-sixth United Nations world climate conference (Cop 26), to be held in November in Glasgow.