The good news is that the energy transition is well underway. We are electrifying almost everything that was powered by greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels. The bad news is that the transition to electricity is largely driven by coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels and the biggest contributor to climate change.
A quarter of a century after humanity first got serious about global warming at the time of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the world this year will burn a record 8.74 billion metric tonnes of coal, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).
The consensus of climate change experts is that meaningful progress in fighting global warming requires that coal consumption drop at least to 2000 levels by 2030. But that’s unlikely to happen until 2050 at the earliest, the IEA’s projections show.
For the rest of this column: https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/were-losing-the-battle-to-dethrone-king-coal/article_19c9d612-92f1-11ef-ae7a-d335c4b434ce.html