The world used less coal in 2016 than year before: BP

Worldwide demand for coal decreased in 2016, for the second year in a row.

Humans used 53-million tonnes of coal less than in 2015, according to this year’s statistical review of energy provided by BP. It’s a decrease of 1.7 per cent.

It is the second-straight year that coal demand has declined.

It also said that worldwide production of coal decreased by six per cent. Production at U.S. coal mines fell by 19 per cent while China’s coal production fell by nearly eight per cent.

On the whole, coal’s share of global energy consumption fell to 28 per cent, the lowest since 2004.

The numbers reflect the trend of nations shunning coal in favour of cheaper, cleaner ways of producing electricity — chiefly natural gas, wind and solar.

The statistics are at odds with U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent reasons for pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord; in which he said he wanted to bring coal back to the U.S.

As Trump doubles down on coal, the rest of the world appears headed in the opposite direction.

In Trump’s reasons for backing out of the Paris accord, he listed job losses.

Trump recently opened the first coal mine of the Trump Era, according to a headline from Fox News. The mine added only 70 new jobs in Somerset County, Pa., while over 400 people applied.

Critics say that focusing on renewable energy will bring the same number of jobs to the U.S. that would leave because of declining coal production. In fact, by focusing on coal, experts say the country risks losing the chance to lead the world in developing environmentally friendly technology – and generate the jobs that come with it.

The report shows that China, where the government is investing hundreds of billions in green energy programs, overtook the United States as the world’s largest producer of renewable energy.

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Renewable energy made big gains, according to the report, growing 14 per cent in 2016. More than half that growth came from new wind turbines.

With coal’s demise, growth in planet-warming carbon emissions has flattened even as global demand for energy continues to rise. CO2 emissions from energy consumption increased by only 0.1 per cent in 2016. Since 2014, the average emissions growth has been the lowest over any three-year period since the early 1980s.