New! The U.K. will go coal-free in about three years

The United Kingdom will phase out coal-fired electricity by October 2024, a year ahead of schedule, as part of an effort to encourage other countries to raise their climate ambitions ahead of a global warming meeting it will host in November.

In a statement released yesterday, Energy and Climate Change Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan stated, “Coal propelled the industrial revolution 200 years ago, but now is the time for decisive action to remove this polluting fuel from our energy system.”

It won’t have to travel far. According to the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, coal accounted for only 1.8 percent of the country’s power mix last year, with renewables such as wind and solar accounting for about 43 percent.

According to the administration, legislation on the coal phaseout would be introduced “at the earliest opportunity.” It will only apply to coal used in the generation of power, not other industries like steel.

The United Kingdom has come a long way since the 1950s when a heavy layer of coal-fueled pollution blanketed London. Coal accounted for nearly 40% of the country’s electricity output just a decade ago.

The decision, according to Trevelyan, is a “clear indication that the United Kingdom is leading the way in consigning coal power to the dustbin of history.”

It’s possible that it won’t appeal to everyone.

Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners LLC, said, “I don’t think a country with a de minimus residual coal fleet is going to shame major coal customers into drastic change.”
“There are nations where transitioning off coal will be a major problem, and there are countries where it will not,” he continued.

Now China eradicates malaria, becoming the world’s largest.

Leaders of the Group of Seven nations agreed last month in Cornwall to phase out financial support for worldwide coal power generation without carbon capture by the end of the year and to transition to an “overwhelmingly” decarbonized power grid by the 2030s (Climatewire, June 14).

However, given local politics in nations like Japan and the United States, where it might derail President Biden’s infrastructure plan, convincing them to agree to an end date for coal power has been more difficult. Last year, Germany enacted legislation to phase out coal-fired power generating by 2038.

Nonetheless, coal has been on the decline internationally as mining and production prices have risen, and more governments have committed to tighter greenhouse gas emission reduction objectives. According to the International Energy Agency, coal is a major contributor to rising emissions.

According to Climate Analytics, coal must be phased out globally by 2040 to achieve the Paris climate agreement’s targets.
In 2019, the United Kingdom approved laws to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and it has been pressuring other nations to commit to coal phaseout dates ahead of the United Nations climate meeting in Scotland in November.

“If we can bring the world with us, the impact of this move would be considerably greater,” Alok Sharma, president of the climate conference known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP 26, said yesterday.
Given the United Kingdom’s coal-dependent history, Book believes the phaseout has a lot of symbolic value.

New! In the heatwave, how do you keep cool?

“However, when expressed as a percentage change from the status quo, it tells a different story: It says, ‘This is what it’s like on the other side of an energy transition,’ which may inspire when one considers where the United Kingdom began,’ he added. “However, it also highlights the enormous disparities that still exist for some of the nations that are still in the same place that the United Kingdom was 50 years ago.”