Limiting how much coal countries can burn is considered an urgent priority for restraining global heating. After all, coal is the most carbon-rich of all fossil fuels and its combustion has contributed the most to planetary warming. For the first time in international talks, negotiators agreed to “phase down” coal use to prevent global temperature rise exceeding 1.5°C in the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact.
Coal’s primacy in climate negotiations is partly because of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has devised pathways to halting warming at 1.5°C. These scientific assessments prioritise the rapid phasing out of coal burning not only for the fuel’s carbon intensity and the need to head off CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere, but also because cost-competitive alternatives are available in the form of solar and wind farms.
Researchers also stress the importance of decarbonising the power sector early in the green transition to enable other sectors, such as transport and industry, to run on clean electricity from the grid.
