World coal use is set to reach an all-time high in 2024, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday, in a year all but certain to be the hottest in recorded history.
Despite calls to halt humanity’s burning of the filthiest fossil fuel driving climate change, the energy watchdog expects global demand for coal to hit record highs for the third year in a row.
Scientists have warned that planet-warming greenhouse gases will have to be drastically slashed to limit global heating to avoid catastrophic impacts on the Earth and humanity.
Earlier in December, the European Union’s climate monitor Copernicus said 2024 was “effectively certain” to be the hottest on record — eclipsing the record set just last year.
Published on Wednesday, the IEA’s “Coal 2024” report does however predict the world will hit peak coal in 2027 after topping 8.77 billion tonnes this year.
But that would be dependent on China, which for the past quarter-century has consumed 30 percent more coal than the rest of the world’s countries combined, the IEA said.
China’s waxing demand for electricity was the most significant driving force behind the increase, with more than a third of coal burnt worldwide carbonised in the country’s power plants.
Record Chinese demand
Though Beijing has sought to diversify its electricity sources, including a massive expansion of solar and wind power, the IEA said Chinese coal demand in 2024 will still hit 4.9 billion tonnes — itself another record.
Increasing coal demand in China, as well as in emerging economies such as India and Indonesia, made up for a continued decline in advanced economies.
However that decline has slowed in the European Union and the United States. Coal use there is set to decline by 12 and five percent respectively, compared with 23 and 17 percent in 2023.
With the imminent return to the White House of Donald Trump — who has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax” — many scientists fear that a second Trump presidency would water down the climate commitments of the world’s largest economy.
Coal mining also hit unprecedented levels by topping nine billion tonnes in output for the first time, the IEA said, with top producers China, India and Indonesia all posting new production records.
The energy watchdog warned that the explosion in power-hungry data centres powering the emergence of artificial intelligence was likewise likely to drive demand for power generation up, with that trend underpinning electricity demand in coal-guzzling China.
The 2024 report reverses the IEA’s prediction last year that coal use would begin declining after peaking in 2023.
At the annual UN climate change forum in Dubai last year, nations vowed to transition away from fossil fuels.
But its follow-up this year ended in acrimony, with experts warning that the failure to double down on that landmark pledge at COP29 in Azerbaijan risked jeopardising efforts to fight climate change.
Set up in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, the IEA styles itself as “the world’s leading energy authority”.