‘The market has moved, the world has moved’: 20 countries join global alliance to phase out coal by 2030
Many of the world’s biggest coal users – such as China, India, the United States, Germany and Russia – have not joined
Twenty countries and two US states have joined an international alliance to phase out coal from power generation before 2030, environment ministers said on Thursday.
Since signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, which aims to wean the world off fossil fuels, several countries have made national plans to phase out coal from their power supply mix.
The Powering Past Coal alliance brings together many of these countries and others that will commit to phasing out coal, sharing technology to reduce emissions, such as carbon capture and storage, and encouraging the rest of the world to cut usage.
Coal is responsible for more than 40 per cent of global emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
The alliance includes Angola, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Fiji, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Marshall Islands, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Niue, Portugal and Switzerland, ministers said.
The US states of Washington and Oregon, as well as five Canadian provinces, have also signed up.
