At breakneck speed, the rich countries that built their wealth on coal-driven industrialization are turning their backs on dirty energy.
Coal consumption in Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, fell last year to less than 10% of levels a decade earlier and fell by almost a third year-on-year in January and February, according to government data. Last month, the share of fossil energy as a whole fell to just 2.4% of electricity generation in Britain, according to the news site Carbon Brief. In the US, coal consumption fell by 17% in 2023 and will fall another 12% in 2025. In the European Union, the decline in electricity generation from coal last year was 26%.
There is one notable exception to that illuminating picture: Japan.
