Forecasting fossil fuel demand in this age of unprecedented geopolitical and economic uncertainty coats crystal balls with a layer of coal dust, and in the short term projections could be raised as financial taps to the sector reopen. This past Christmas it seems Santa had an abundance of coal to dish out to those who were naughty rather than nice. According tothe International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest annual coal report, demand for the fossil fuel that is fanning the flames of climate change climbed for the third year on the trot in 2025, reaching a new all-time high.
“For 2025, global coal demand is projected to reach 8.845 billion, setting a new record,” the report says. “In China, which consumes more coal than the rest of the world combined, demand is on course to mirror its 2024 level, as expected.” Production reached a record high of 9.1 billion tonnes in 2024 – driven largely by China, India and Indonesia – and the IEA projects that coal output remained steady at those levels in 2025. But the IEA sees coal production and demand peaking soon and then gradually declining.
“Global coal demand is expected to effectively plateau over the coming years, showing a very gradual decline through to 2030 in our latest forecast. Global power generation from coal is forecast to sink below its 2021 level by the end of this decade,” the report says. The IEA, it must be said, never claims that its projections are set in stone, and forecasting in this age of unprecedented geopolitical and economic uncertainty coats crystal balls with a layer of coal dust.
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But it is of more than passing interest to look at its previous projections. For example, in 2022,it forecast that global coal demand would plateau at around 8 billion tonnes through to 2025. And production was seen peaking in 2023 at just over the 2022 levels of 8.3 billion tonnes.
A key reason behind these projections for an imminent plateau in supply and demand was a chilling of investor sentiment towards coal because of its links to climate change. A growing number banks were no longer providing finance for new coal projects, a state of affairs that was seen depriving the sector of the capital it needed to sustain itself.
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