“Slow death:” World adds smallest amount of new coal power capacity in two decades

Coal’s “very slow death” has begun with the world adding the smallest amount of new coal-fired power capacity in two decades, a new report has found.

The latest report by the Global Energy Monitor tracks the pipeline of new coal projects and found the world added just 44GW of new coal capacity in 2024, a fraction of the 585GW of new renewable capacity installed last year.

It found the rate the EU was retiring coal plants increased by a factor of four and noted the UK had become the sixth country in the world to phase out coal power entirely when the country that began the industrial revolution shut down its last coal plant.

New coal capacity was growing in India and China but both countries were planning to build less than they were previously. This is notable given the massive amount of solar China installed last year, allowing the country to hit its 2030 targets six years ahead of schedule.

Australia received a mixed report card. There is only a single coal-fired power plant planned for Australia – the Collinsville power station in Queensland – a project described in the report as existing “more on paper than in reality”.

Despite plans to begin construction next year, the report notes the project has received no federal or state approvals, no financing and withdrew its application to connect to the grid.

Australia was also mixed on financing where Australian bank NAB’s decision to rule out providing finance for new greenfield metallurgical coal was countered by investment bank Macquarie partly walking back a ban on new coal deals to allow financing where the coal is being used in steelmaking.

The decision comes as Macquarie joined a mass-exit of North American financial institutions from the Net Zero Banking Alliance after the Trump administration began tearing up climate commissions and threatening to punish those who maintained them.

Australia was also singled out for sluggish action on climate change, with the report noting that 40% of Australia’s coal capacity is currently expected to still be operational in 2035.

Coal is supposed to fall to just 1GW of the country in 2035 under the country’s Step Change scenario limiting warming to 2C before being phased out entirely in 2038. To bring down warming further, Australia has to move even faster.

A sizable take up in solar, wind and hydro was driving the transition, the report said, but Australia remained a globally-significant supplier of coal with the Albanese government has refused to place limits on the country’s exports.

“The country’s domestic CO2 emissions are estimated to be 60% below its emissions from coal exports — a contradiction that will only grow as the country aims to lower domestic emissions but not coal exports,” it said.

“Australia is second only to Indonesia in terms of coal exports and third for proposed new coal mining capacity, behind coal giants China and India,” the reports authors said in comments to Renew Economy on Thursday.

“The country’s domestic CO2 emissions are estimated to be 60% below its emissions from coal exports. So while the country may be lowering its domestic emissions, it is still contributing substantially to global emissions.

“And there is a risk that as the country’s domestic coal plants are retired, the coal is simply exported instead, limiting global emission reductions.” 

Climate Energy Finance founder Tim Buckley, who was not involved in the report, said the death of coal has been called many times but now the numbers are showing the “beginning of the end”, particularly as the Chinese solar and wind juggernaut continues.

“It’s going to be a slow death for coal,” he said. “It’s not a decline, it’s a plateau, so it’s not going to be rapid.”

The implications for Australia “are profound”, Buckley said, with the country’s economic policy seemingly built on the assumption its Asian trading partners would make no serious efforts to transition their economies to renewables.

“We don’t as a country realise the magnitude of the threat to our key exports today and our government continues to sleepwalk on the resources curse,” he said.

“When you think about it, our number two export is LNG. Our number three export is coking coal. Our number four export is thermal coal. We are structurally challenged if our key trading partners if they decide to honour their Paris Climate Agreements.”

“We are working on the assumption our trade partners are going to abrogate their Paris commitments. That is a very unrealistic assumption when you look at the cost of ignoring climate science.”

The report comes as Australia recorded its hottest 12-month period on record, ending with the hottest March on record, with temperatures above 2.41C above average, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.