Rich countries stick to coal phase-out timelines as China expands fleet: Report

According to the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) policy forum and the European Union are on track to shut down over 75% of their coal power capacity from 2010 to 2030,  Reuters reported.

Some countries such as Britain and Germany have delayed the closure of coal plants this winter owing to a crunch in energy supplies in the midst of the Ukraine conflict, overall phase-out dates are unchanged, according to the report released to coincide with the COP27 climate summit of world leaders in Egypt.

While greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal are the single biggest contributor to climate change, it is also the single biggest fuel to make electricity.

"Accelerated retirements (of coal plants) within the OECD and the collapse in the scale of new project proposals in the rest of the world have been counteracted by the ongoing expansion of the coal fleet in China," said the PPCA, an international campaign aimed at phasing out the fuel.

China has vowed to cut down its carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

On Monday, China said it had no objection to stating 1.5 degrees Celsius as a goal to check global warming.

However, this is contrary to China's climate envoy, Xei Zhenhua's remarks last week that the country would still need some coal plants to maintain the stability of its power grid.

There are still plans for almost 300 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity globally with around two-thirds of this slated to be built in China, the report showed.

This is likely to worsen the situation as the emissions from the existing mines alone would push the temperature beyond the 1.5°C limit with global coal demand hovering near record highs for the past decade, the International Energy Agency said in a report also released on Tuesday.