Abstract

The global energy system is undergoing a rapid transition, with profound consequences for the fossil fuel industries, most notably the one with the highest greenhouse gas emissions – coal. Having played a significant role in recent decades, especially in rapidly growing emerging economies such as China and India, coal is being phased out across much of the world, as its environmental and health impacts have become prohibitively costly while its supposed economic advantages are rapidly disappearing as its relative affordability is undermined by the falling cost of renewable energy in many parts of the world. Coal also has disproportionally significant adverse environmental and economic externalities in that its emissions degrade local agricultural, water and human resources.