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COP26: 77 countries pledge to end coal use as carbon emissions rebound to pre-pandemic levels

  • India and China, home to almost half the over 2,600 coal-fired plants operating around the world, did not sign the non-binding pledge
  • A new report forecasts carbon dioxide emissions will rise by 4.9 per cent this year

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Steam rises from cooling towers at a power plant in Beijing, China. Photo: EPA-EFE
Reuters
UN climate conference host Britain said 77 countries had pledged to phase out coal, dirtiest of the fossil fuels that drive global warming, as a study showed the carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere had rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels.

“We were expecting to see some rebound,” said the study’s lead author Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate modelling researcher at the University of Exeter. “What surprised us was the intensity and rapidity of the rebound.”

Alok Sharma, British president of the COP26 conference in Glasgow, said the two-week meeting was on its way to gradually ending use of the world’s most widely used fuel – for which demand is set to hit a record this year.

He said on Thursday 77 countries had signed a pledge to phase out coal-fuelled power plants – which produce more than 35 per cent of the world’s electricity – and stop building new ones.

“Today I think we can say that the end of coal is in sight,” Sharma told the conference.

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China increases coal production to ensure winter supplies, easing energy shortage

China increases coal production to ensure winter supplies, easing energy shortage

He said progress had been rapid since 2019: “Who’d have thought, back then, that today we are able to say that we are choking off international coal financing or that we would see a shift away from domestic coal power?”

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