"To meet our goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, we need to phase out unabated coal," Mr. Kerry said in a Dec. 2 statement, in which he announced that the United States had officially joined a coalition of 56 other countries who all plan to ditch coal in the name of climate change.Wasn't Germany going to re-start coal plants?
"We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities," Mr. Kerry said in his statement. "The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants."
"Unabated"? Like without 'carbon credits'? Does Kerry know how to distinguish 'unabated’ coal?
The 1.5°C threshold, first established in the Paris Agreement in 2015, aims to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2100.
How much progress have we made, John, toward that lofty goal?
In 2022, coal-fired plants generated 36 percent of global electricity, outstripping all other sources. Over half of this output was in China, which is building new coal plants at a fast pace, undeterred by various climate pledges and goals that the country's leadership has paid lip service to. The next three largest contributors to global coal-fired electricity are India, the United States, and Japan, which jointly account for around 25 percent of the total.
Meanwhile, a recent report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found that roughly a million coal jobs could be lost by 2050 as mines retire—even without any climate policies being implemented.
The vast majority of job losses would be in Asia, with China and India taking the brunt.
Power-plant coal hauled by the railroads has been declining for 15-20 years.
As for the United States, the GEM report estimates more than 15,000 jobs in the coal sector will be lost per decade in the 2030s and 40s, and less than 15,000 jobs to be lost in the 2050s.
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