In their Coal 2025 report the IEA (International Energy Agency) notes that the world saw coal consumption “rising by 0.5% to 8.85 billion tonnes, a record high.”
They go on to project that “Global coal demand is expected to effectively plateau over the coming years, showing a very gradual decline through to 2030 in our latest forecast.”
Out of curiosity I went back five years to their Coal 2020 report to look at their forecast. It was, of course, the year of the covid plague, and coal demand dropped some 5%. They note that “The overall decline in global coal demand in 2020 has turned out to be lower than was estimated in the early months of the year…”
As for their five-year forecast, “By 2025, global coal demand is forecast to flatten out at around 7.4 billion tonnes.”
Note that actual use was 20% higher than projected. The plateau prediction appears to be their default assumption.
Please don’t tell Leap any of this; he will think the IEA is planting false information.
DB2