The amount of coal power capacity in pre-construction planning fell 14 percent in the first half of 2016, according to a report Wednesday by environmental research group CoalSwarm. “Overall, the ‘coal plant pipeline’ … dropped from 1,090 gigawatts (GW) at the beginning of 2016 to 932 GW in July. The total reduction, 158 GW, or 14% of the previous total, is nearly equal to the entire coal-fired generating capacity of the European Union (162 GW),” the report says.
While CoalSwarm welcomes the decrease in future coal capacity, it is only a drop in the bucket, according to the report. “Despite the global reduction in the coal power pipeline, the level of capacity still in planning and construction worldwide is enough to alone exceed the global carbon budget for limiting [global] warming to 1.5°C,” the report says.
