Coal use climbs worldwide despite promises to slash it

The burning of coal for electricity, cement, steel and other uses increased in 2022 despite global pledges to phase out the fuel that is the biggest source of planet-warming gases in the atmosphere, a report found Wednesday.

The coal fleet grew by 19.5 gigawatts last year, enough to light around 15 million homes, with almost all of the coal projects newly commissioned in China, according to a report by Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks a variety of energy projects around the world. .

That 1% increase comes at a time when the world needs to retire its coal fleet four and a half times faster to meet climate targets, according to the report. In 2021, countries around the world have pledged to phase out coal use to help meet the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“The more new coal projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be going forward,” said Flora Champenois, lead author of the report and project manager for GEM's Global Coal Plant Tracker.

New coal plants were added in 14 countries and eight countries announced new coal projects. China, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Zimbabwe were the only countries to add new coal plants and announce new projects. China accounted for 92% of all new coal project announcements.

China added 26.8 gigawatts and India added about 3.5 gigawatts of new coal power capacity to their power grids. China has also authorized nearly 100 gigawatts of new coal-fired power projects, with construction likely to begin this year.

But "the long-term trajectory is still towards clean energy," said Shantanu Srivastava, an energy analyst at the New Delhi-based Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Srivastava said the pandemic and the war in Ukraine temporarily pushed some nations towards fossil fuels.

In Europe, where the Russian invasion of the Ukraine meant a scramble for alternative energy sources and droughts stifled hydropower, the continent saw only a very small increase in the use of coal.

Others went the other way. There were significant blackouts in the US where 13.5 gigawatts of coal power was retired. It is one of 17 countries that closed plants last year.

With nearly 2,500 power plants worldwide, coal accounts for about a third of the total number of power installations globally. Other fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewables make up the rest.

To meet the climate targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, coal plants in rich countries must close by 2030 and coal plants in developing countries must close by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. That means about 117 gigawatts of coal must be retired each year, but only 26 gigawatts will be retired in 2022.

“At this rate, the transition from existing to new coal is not happening fast enough to avoid climate chaos,” Champenois said.

Srivastava added that it is important to ensure that the millions of employees in coal and other dirty industries are not left behind in the transition to clean energy, although that becomes more difficult as more coal projects are blocked.

“Every day we delay a transition to clean energy,” Srivastava said, “it not only makes it harder to achieve climate goals, but it also makes the transition more expensive.”

Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage is supported by several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.