Because of its high CO2 emissions, coal is the greatest climate killer among fossil fuels.

Experts therefore warn that without a rapid phase-out of coal-fired power generation, the world has little chance of effectively containing climate change.

In the spring, the International Energy Agency (IEA) even called for no more coal-fired power plants to be built with immediate effect.

So far there can be no question of that.

But at least: A new study gives hope because it shows that the phase-out from coal-fired power generation is already in full swing globally.

Marcus Theurer

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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Since the UN climate summit in Paris in 2015, the number of planned new coal-fired power plants in the world has fallen by 76 percent, according to an analysis by the London think tank E3G.

The authors speak of a “collapse of the global coal pipeline”.

The end of coal-fired power generation is now in sight.

Since 2015, the plans for new coal-fired power plants with a total output of 1175 gigawatts have been abandoned worldwide.

For comparison: this corresponds to roughly five times the installed capacity of all power generation systems in Germany, from coal-fired power plants to wind turbines.

44 countries are not building any new coal-fired power plants

In a total of 44 countries around the world, the governments have decided since 2015 not to build any new coal-fired power plants, according to the report.

In another 40 countries there is no formal political decision to phase out coal, but no new power plants are planned there either.

The analysis highlights China, where around every second coal-fired power plant in the world is located: On the one hand, the country is continuing to build more plants on a large scale.

More than half of all new coal-fired power plants in the world are planned in the Middle Kingdom.

China continues to fund the construction of new plants in other countries.

On the other hand, the world's second largest economy has at least throttled the construction of new coal-fired power plants: The planned additional coal-power generation capacity in China is two-thirds lower than in 2015, E3G calculates.

Big topic at climate conference in Glasgow

The farewell to coal, which is urgently needed for climate protection, will be an important topic at the upcoming UN climate conference in November in Glasgow, Scotland.

In Germany, too, there is increasing discussion about a faster exit from coal.

The Greens want to bring this forward to 2030, because otherwise the German climate protection goals cannot be achieved.

So far, however, it has been agreed that the last German coal-fired power plant will go offline by 2038 at the latest. Last year the power producer Uniper put the new coal-fired power plant Datteln 4 in North Rhine-Westphalia into operation. However, with the price of CO2 emissions in European emissions trading, which has risen sharply this year, the particularly pollutant-intensive coal-fired power plants are tending to become increasingly uneconomical.