{"id":11856,"date":"2017-10-25T06:23:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.p4.greenpeace.org\/international\/uncategorised\/11856\/5-reasons-why-coal-is-on-the-way-out\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:48:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:48:51","slug":"5-reasons-why-coal-is-on-the-way-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/11856\/5-reasons-why-coal-is-on-the-way-out\/","title":{"rendered":"5 reasons why coal is on the way out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"While some politicians \u00a0– ahem, Trump!<\/a> – are trying to prop up the fossil fuel industry, there\u2019s been a quiet revolution happening around the world.<\/p>\n

People are ditching coal – the main global energy source since 2003 – like never before!<\/p>\n

Burning coal is the biggest single source of carbon dioxide emissions<\/a> from human activity, and mining it also releases the potent greenhouse gas methane.<\/p>\n

So why is King Coal no longer the energy of the future? New research from Greenpeace and CoalSwarm <\/a>shows why.<\/p>\n

1. More governments are completely ditching coal than ever before!<\/h3>\n

23 countries, states and cities will have either phased out coal-fired power plants<\/a> or set a timeline to do so by 2030. Before 2014, no major jurisdiction had completely phased out coal. How things have changed!<\/p>\n

\"Activists

Greenpeace activists, including brand new executive directors of Greenpeace Netherlands: Anna Shoemakers and Joris Thijssen, block the coal ship \u2018Paquis\u2019 which plans to unload coal from Russia for the largest coal-fired power plant in the Netherlands.<\/p><\/div>\n

2. The capital cities of China and India are going coal free!<\/h3>\n

Three of the G7 economies have decided to phase out coal – with Italy looking like it might also be phasing coal out soon.\"\"<\/p>\n

\"Air

The air in Beijing is heavily polluted. People wear masks on a day with air quality index of 320.<\/p><\/div>\n

3. 25% of companies in the coal business have completely pulled out!<\/h3>\n

This represents nearly 370 large coal-fired power plants<\/a> shut down or not built in the first place – enough to power around six United Kingdoms, and equivalent to nearly half a trillion US dollars in assets retired or not developed.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a9

Greenpeace activists climb the cooling tower of the largest and dirtiest lignite power station in Greece.<\/p><\/div>\n

4. In the USA, 14 coal plants have decided to close this year alone.<\/h3>\n

And that\u2019s despite Trump\u2019s pro-coal agenda.<\/p>\n

\"Keep

Iris Carter of Norco, Louisiana, speaks at a Keep It In the Ground Rally.<\/p><\/div>\n

5. \u00a0More people are taking action to stop coal than ever before.<\/h3>\n

From the UK\u2019s Kingsnorth protests<\/a>, the Beyond Coal <\/a>movement in the USA, to artists in Beijing<\/a> to clean air activists in Delhi<\/a>, people around the world are protesting dirty, polluting coal in favour of clean, renewable, affordable energy.<\/p>\n

\"Concentrating

The PS10 Concentrating Solar Tower Plant uses 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats. The mirrors concentrate the sun’s rays to the top of a 115 meter (377 foot) high tower where a solar receiver and a steam turbine are located. The turbine drives a generator, producing electricity.<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s time we end the age of fossil fuels and help workers and communities transition over to renewables.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lauri Myllyvirta is the Energy Analyst at Greenpeace East Asia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While some politicians \u00a0– ahem, Trump! – are trying to prop up the fossil fuel industry, there\u2019s been a quiet revolution happening around the world. People are ditching coal –…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":12438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[88,91,65],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-11856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-coal","tag-health","tag-energy-revolution","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11856"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26058,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11856\/revisions\/26058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11856"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=11856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}