Record year for coal in 2024, the hottest year on record December 19, 2024

A coal-fired power plant along the mountains in Tangfang City, Zhenxiong County, Yunnan Province, southwest China, on January 23, 2024. [EPA-EFE/MARK R. CRISTINO]

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Record year for coal in 2024, the hottest year on record

World coal use is set to hit an all-time high in 2024, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday (December 18), in a year that is certain to be the hottest on record.

Despite calls for humanity to stop burning the most polluting fossil fuel driving climate change, the energy watchdog expects global demand for coal to hit record highs for the third year.

Scientists have warned that planet-warming greenhouse gases must be drastically reduced to limit global warming and avoid catastrophic impacts on the Earth and humanity.

At the beginning of December, Copernicus, the European Union's climate monitor, said that 2024 was “effectively certain” to be the hottest year on record, eclipsing last year.

2024 will be the hottest year on record, say EU scientists

The year 2024 will be remembered for severe droughts in Italy and South America, deadly floods in Nepal, Sudan, and Europe, heatwaves in Mexico, Mali, and Saudi Arabia that killed thousands of people, and disastrous cyclones in the US and the Philippines.

Published on Wednesday, the IEA's “Coal 2024” report predicts, however, that the world will reach peak coal in 2027 after exceeding 8.77 billion tons this year.

But that would depend on China, which has consumed 30% more coal in the last quarter of a century than the rest of the world's countries combined, the IEA said.

China's growing demand for electricity was the most important driving force behind the increase, with more than a third of the coal burned worldwide being carbonized in the country's power plants.

Record Chinese demand

Although Beijing has sought to diversify its sources of electricity, including a massive expansion of solar and wind power, the IEA said that Chinese coal demand in 2024 will still reach 4.9 billion tons - another record. The increase in coal demand in China, as well as in emerging economies such as India and Indonesia, has offset the continuing decline in advanced economies.

However, this decline has slowed in the European Union and the United States. Coal use in these countries is expected to decline by 12% and 5%, respectively, compared to 23% and 17% 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 will dilute the climate commitments of the world's largest economy.

Coal mining was also hit by unprecedented levels, surpassing the production of nine billion tons for the first time, according to the IEA, with the main producers, China, India, and Indonesia, all registering new production records.

The energy watchdog warned that the explosion of energy-intensive data centers, driving the rise of artificial intelligence, is also likely to increase demand for power generation, with this trend underpinning electricity demand in coal-intensive China.

The 2024 report reverses the IEA's prediction last year that coal use would begin to decline after peaking in 2023.

At the annual UN climate change forum in Dubai last year, nations promised to transition away from fossil fuels.

But this year's follow-up ended in acrimony, with experts warning that failure to double down on this historic promise at COP29 in Azerbaijan could jeopardize efforts to combat climate change.

Created in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, the IEA calls itself “the world's leading authority on energy.”

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