“Fossil fuels are going to be with us for a long time,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in the report. “That is why the only way to tackle our long-term climate goals and address the urgent health impacts of air pollution, while also ensuring that more people around the world have access to energy, will require an approach that integrates strong policies with innovative technologies.”
In 2023, the IEA sees the world consuming just over 5.4 billion tons of coal equivalent.
At that level, coal would provide 25 percent of the world’s energy, down from 27 percent today. The agency sees cheap, cleaner-burning natural gas and renewable energy sources continuing to eat into coal’s share of the global energy mix.
Falling consumption in China, the world’s biggest market for coal, will be a major headwind for the fuel in the coming years. The nation’s coal consumption is poised to fall by about half a percent each year through 2023, the IEA projects.
That’s due to policies aimed at improving the nation’s notoriously poor air quality, as well as China’s ongoing transformation from an energy-hungry industrial behemoth to a services-oriented economy. By 2020, the IEA expects growth in coal-fired power generation in China to peak.
Meanwhile, the IEA sees India’s appetite growing by 4 percent per year through 2023. That’s down from an average of more than 6 percent growth over the last decade. Nevertheless, India’s appetite for coal will increase by 150 million tons of coal equivalent by 2023, which means the subcontinent will account for the biggest absolute growth in consumption.
Coal demand will grow at the fastest clip in Southeast Asia, where countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam are building new coal-fired power plants to support economic development. Growth in the region is expected to rise by 5.7 percent through 2023, the IEA forecasts.
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