Essay by Eric Worrall
Sustainability Magazine laments despite the success of green energy, the world is burning a lot of coal.
Coal Use Hits All-Time High Despite Renewable Energy Boom
By James Darley
October 24, 2025A report from the World Resources Institute shows global coal consumption reached record levels in 2024, threatening 1.5°C warming target as emissions rise
Global coal consumption reached a record high in 2024, according to the World Resources Institute’s annual State of Climate Action report published this week.
The increase occurred despite rapid expansion of renewable energy capacity worldwide.
While coal’s share of electricity generation declined as clean energy surged, overall power demand grew sufficiently to push total coal use to unprecedented levels.
The findings cast doubt on whether countries can meet their climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
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“The message on this is crystal clear. We simply will not limit warming to 1.5C if coal use keeps breaking records.”
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India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, celebrated surpassing one billion tonnes of coal production this year.
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Read more: https://sustainabilitymag.com/news/coal-use-hits-all-time-high-despite-renewable-energy-boom
The World Resources State of Climate Action 2025 report is available here, though you need to supply a lot of personal details to download a copy.
It seems pretty obvious what is happening – coal is still be used by manufacturing intensive economies. All green energy policies in places like Europe have done is to relocate manufacturing jobs to India and China. As global energy intensity rises, some of the slack is being taken up by gas, hence the gas boom.
The AI boom is also driving a surge of energy use. Even tech companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft, once champions of green energy, have been forced to embrace high carbon energy to compete with Asia.
One thing is clear, coal is and will continue to be the backbone underpinning the global manufacturing economy. All green politicians have achieved to date is to push manufacturing jobs out of their countries, into more coal friendly jurisdictions like India and China.
Coal is and will continue to be used until centuries from now when it all finally runs out.
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