BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct.13
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
European coal production is expected to drop by 2050 in line with the EU green deal, Trend reports with reference to the data of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The table below shows the coal production and demand in Europe in 2030 and 2050 (in metric ton of coal equivalent)
|
Stated Policies |
Announced Pledges |
Sustainable Development |
||||
|
2030 |
2050 |
2030 |
2050 |
2030 |
2050 |
|
|
Coal production |
88 |
41 |
65 |
29 |
51 |
8 |
|
Coal demand |
197 |
151 |
157 |
124 |
116 |
54 |
“Coal demand declines in all our scenarios, but the difference between the 10 percent decline to 2030 in APS and the 55 percent decline in NZE is the speed at which coal is phased out from the power sector. This has four components: halting the approval of new, unabated coal plants; reducing emissions from the 2 100 GW of operating plants, which produced more than onethird of the world’s electricity in 2020; investing – at sufficient scale – to reliably meet the demand that would otherwise have been met by coal; and managing the economic and social consequences of change.
Approvals of new coal-fired plants have slowed dramatically in recent years, stemmed by lower cost renewable energy alternatives, rising awareness of environmental risks, and increasingly scarce options for financing. Yet some 140 GW of new coal plants are currently under construction and more than 400 GW are at various stages of planning. China’s announcement of an end to support for building coal plants abroad is potentially very significant: it could lead to the cancellation of up to 190 GW of coal projects that are built in the APS. This could save some 20 gigatonnes in cumulative CO2 emissions if these plants are replaced with low emissions generation – an amount comparable to the total emissions savings from the European Union going to net zero by 2050,” said IEA.
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