A study published this month by the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed that global demand for coal, and global coal production, broke records in 2024, largely as a result of both supply and demand coming from communist China.
China – the world’s worst polluter on several metrics, including carbon emissions – “consumes 30% more coal than the rest of the world put together,” according to the IEA study. Its government approved hundreds of new coal power plants in the past two years, suggesting that it will grow its outsized share of the world’s fossil fuel consumption and production of greenhouse gases despite being a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement.
Chinese state media arms openly boast of how much coal the country has amassed to meet its skyrocketing demand for electricity and, in winter, heat. Beijing does so by insisting that the alleged “climate crisis” requires the Western world to dramatically diminish its use of fossil fuels and absolving itself of any responsibility by demanding countries adopt “common but differentiated responsibilities” on pollution.
The IEA is a global intergovernmental organization, initially part of the structure of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). On December 18, it published its annual study of coal consumption and production around the world, titled Coal 2024.
“Global coal use has rebounded strongly after plummeting at the height of the pandemic. It is poised to rise to 8.77 billion tonnes in 2024, a record,” the IEA documented. “Coal prices today remain 50% higher than the average seen between 2017 and 2019. Coal production reached an all-time high in 2024, though growth is expected to flatten through 2027 as structural changes take hold.”
The study identified China and India as the most prominent nations dramatically increasing coal consumption.
“At the regional level, coal demand in China is expected to grow by 1% in 2024 to reach 4.9 Bt, another record,” the report noted. “India is poised to see demand growth of over 5% to 1.3 Bt, a level that only China has reached previously.”
In contrast, “in the European Union and the United States, coal demand continues to fall, but at a significantly slower pace. It is on track to decline by 12% and 5% respectively this year, compared with 23% and 17% in 2023.”
China’s National Bureau of Statistics corroborated the IEA’s estimate of record-high coal production on December 16, publishing statistics showing that China mined 427.98 million metric tons in November, a record average of 14.27 million tons.
The study found a dramatic spike in both demand for coal and coal prices in the past two years that it attributed to the return to normal following the end of global civil rights restrictions imposed to allegedly contain the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. China imposed some of the most barbaric civil rights limitations in the world within its borders, including brutal city-wide lockdowns forcing tens of millions of people into essentially a form of house arrest and reports of officials welding doors shut to trap civilians inside. The restrictions limited demand for energy as people could not go to work or conduct their daily business freely.
Despite the record high use and production of coal that the IEA recorded, its report was bizarrely optimistic, expecting coal demand not to increase significantly through at least 2027 and prematurely crediting China with replacing much of its coal use with “renewable energy.”
“In 2024, China continued to diversify its power sector, advance the construction of nuclear plants and accelerate its huge expansion of solar PV and wind capacity,” the IEA claimed. “This should help limit increases in coal consumption through 2027 … though it also highlights a number of key uncertainties in its analysis.”
The report did not mention that China has approved hundreds of new coal plants in the past two years, whose expected shelf life indicates no interest on Beijing’s part in rapidly shutting down coal operations. Reuters, reporting on China’s coal output statistics, noted this month that, in “November, the state-owned asset regulator urged state enterprises to increase output in anticipation of winter heating demand, leading analysts to expect production increases in the final two months of the year.”
China regularly pressures coal producers to increase production to meet demand in the winter and, via state propaganda outlets, boasts of coal production as key to “energy self-sufficiency.”
“China’s energy self-sufficiency rate has remained at about 80 percent in 2024, thanks to enhanced national energy security guarantee capacity and green low-carbon development,” the state-run Global Times reported on December 15. “National energy security guarantee capacity,” the article makes clear, involved a tremendous push to increase the country’s fossil fuel production.
“Data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) expected national coal production to reach about 4.76 billion tons for the year 2024,” the Times noted. “Crude oil production is expected to rebound for the sixth consecutive year, with natural gas production expected to increase by more than 10 billion cubic meters for eight consecutive years.”