Posted on :Monday , 16th November 2015

But as to the sources of growth in electricity markets, coal’s relevance is going to diminish with every year and it’s going to diminish much faster than anyone had been thinking. The world is on track to hit the 1°C milestone this year.

He says it’s the first time the IEA has properly acknowledged the rise of renewable energies and the inevitable decline of coal power.

Instead, China is passing the baton to India, according to the worldwide Energy Agency in its recently published 2015 World Energy Outlook.

The use of low-carbon fuels and technologies is on the rise, and the share of non-fossil fuels in the total mix is set to increase to 25 per cent by 2040 from 19 per cent now, the report said.

But countries in east Africa, such as Mozambique and Tanzania, are becoming significant natural gas exporters and users.

Take coal, for example. With 60 percent of the 290 GW of electric capacity made up by coal, India is a big player in global coal markets. These two leading economies of the world are heavily investing in coal-based projects.

The repercussions for coal exporting countries like Australia and Indonesia could be enormous.

Since 2013, China’s cities and provinces with heavy air pollution have been asked to reduced their coal consumption and have been eliminating old coal-fired boilers and equipment, replacing them with more efficient equipment, combined heat and power, and switched to natural gas.

India’s 1 billion tons of coal consumption still pales in comparison to China’s (more than 4 billion tons annually).