Piles of coal waiting to be transported at Guoyuan Port container terminal in Chongqing, China.
Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images
The world won’t be able to release its grip on coal anytime soon.
“Nothing can destroy coal,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at the recent World Economic Forum. “Not the weather, not a bomb.”
U.S. exports of coal have been rising steadily to satisfy growing global demand for the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel, even though its domestic consumption has decreased.
On top of that, the world’s coal capacity reached a new record high of nearly 2,175 gigawatts in 2024, data from Global Energy Monitor showed on Feb. 6. Coal capacity is the overall power output that can be generated from coal-fired power plants.
“The global shift away from coal remains challenging, largely driven by rising demand in Asia, even as Europe and the U.S. see significant declines in coal consumption,” said Dorothy Mei, project manager for Global Energy Monitor’s Global Coal Mine Tracker.
Global coal demand is also expected to have breached another fresh record high of 8.77 billion tonnes in 2024, and will remain at similar levels until 2027, the International Energy Agency predicted.
The main culprits?
China recently reported that its coal imports surged 14.4% to a record high in 2024, amounting to 542.7 million metric tons compared with 474.42 million tons the year before.
The world’s second largest economy is also the largest coal consumer globally, accounting for more than 56% of global demand in 2023, latest figures by IEA showed.
China’s record-high coal stockpiling strategy is largely geared toward preparing the country for potential power shortages caused by extreme weather events, said Mei.
There is little focus on using energy efficiently, when coal is so cheap.
Hydropower, wind and solar energy made up almost 30% of China’s electricity mix in 2023, data from energy think tank Ember Energy showed. When hydropower output drops as a result of insufficient rainfall, the Chinese government often relies on coal power to ensure energy security, Mei added.
“Additionally, another major barrier is not the availability of renewable energy infrastructure, but the difficulty of transmitting solar and wind power across provinces,” she said, adding that coal will continue to be a “critical energy backbone” in China until grid integration and management is fully developed across the entire country.
In India, climate-induced extreme heat has led to soaring energy demand for cooling, and clean energy sources are not built fast enough to meet the country’s growing power demand, said Mei.
India’s focus on economic and infrastructure development has also boosted the consumption of cement and steel, industries that are heavily reliant on coal, according to analysts CNBC spoke to.
The South Asian nation’s demand for steel is set to grow by 8-9% in 2025, outpacing that of other economies, owing to a pickup in steel-intensive construction in the infrastructure and residential sectors, data from consulting firm Crisil showed.
As recently as last December, India extended its directive for imported coal-based power plants to run at full capacity until Feb. 28.
But that’s not to say that India has been neglecting its renewable energy targets. The country has set an ambitious goal of fulfilling 50% of its electricity needs through renewable energy by 2030. And it has made progress. And as of last October, renewables account for more than 46.3% of the country’s electricity generation capacity, according to India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
Beyond China and India
Outside of India and China, other top countries building new coal plants are Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam, Global Energy Monitor noted.
Vietnam is expected to have surpassed Taiwan as the world’s fifth largest importer of coal, after the country’s coal imports reached a record high in more than a decade last year.
Indonesia’s coal production rose to around 831 million tons to notch a fresh high last year, data from the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources showed.
And the share of coal in Philippines’ electricity mix surpassed that of China in 2023, becoming Southeast Asia’s most coal-dependent country, Ember Energy reported.
“There is little focus on using energy efficiently, when coal is so cheap,” said Dave Jones, an electricity analyst at energy think tank Ember Energy.
Strong coal demand in Asia across the board is also partly a consequence of the surge in gas prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, given that a number of major thermal coal importers like China, India and Vietnam had scaled back plans for gas-based power buildouts following the high gas prices that ensued, said Ian Roper, commodity strategist at Astris Advisory Japan KK.
The AI factor
Global electricity consumption is expected to keep rising in 2025, the IEA said.
“The world needs more energy, and it needs it now,” said Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital. “For the global economy to grow, it needs efficient, cost-effective, and reliable energy supply sources,” he told CNBC.
Artificial intelligence has also accelerated the world’s need for energy. Reports have shown that power needs driven by data centers around the world will also prolong the demand for coal.
“The U.S., China and the world are in a race for AI superiority,” said Tim Winter, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds. AI data centers are huge power users, making it harder to retire a reliable and affordable energy source such as coal, he explained.
By 2030, electricity demand from data centers could exceed 35 GW, more than double the 17 GW recorded in 2022, a report by Moody’s Ratings showed.
Is the energy transition still possible?
With global electricity demand rising faster, other industry watchers are beginning to echo IEA’s forecasts of coal demand remaining at all-time highs.
“There can be no transition when the demand for oil, for natural gas, for coal, continues to hit record highs,” said Eric Nuttall, senior portfolio manager at Ninepoint Partners.
Governments agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global heating to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius, it is estimated that emissions must be cut by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Others are less pessimistic, though they recognized the challenge of reaching those targets in time.
An ongoing pledge toward renewables, alongside a looming surge in global LNG supply may ensure that coal imports continue to weaken in some coal-importing markets, said Roper, who noted that coal consumption has been falling in Europe and Northeast Asia in recent years.
Additionally, if countries commit to its promises of tripling renewables by 2030, coal could start to see a meaningful decline in this decade, said Ember Energy’s Jones.