Coal is set to surpass oil as the world’s top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published yesterday.
“Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand during the first decade of the 21st century,” said Maria van der Hoeven, head of the International Energy Agency.
Economic growth is expected to push up further coal’s share of the global energy mix, “and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade,” she said in a statement.
The latest IEA projections see coal consumption nearly catching oil consumption in four years time, rising to 4.32 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2017 against 4.4 billion tons for oil.
