Trudeau: Canada will stop exporting thermal coal by 2030

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Tuesday that Canada will stop exporting thermal coal by 2030 at the latest.

Achieving this commitment will not be easy, and the vast majority of thermal coal currently mined in Canada is absorbed by its domestic market, although the country's thermal coal exports have been growing over the past few years, and exports are likely to grow further as some of Asia's new power plants come into service.

Among the G7, Canada is the only country in the G7 that saw an increase in carbon emissions between 2015 and 2019, much to Trudeau's criticism for his failure to curb climate change. The burning of coal is an important cause of global climate change and one of the main sources of toxic pollution.

The data shows that Canada produced a total of 51.8 million coal in 2019, of which 47% is thermal coal for power generation and the rest is metallurgical coal for steelmaking, and coal burning provides less than 10% of Canada's national demand. The Canadian government had previously pledged to completely phase out coal-fired power generation by 2030.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global coal consumption, including metallurgy and thermal energy, peaked in 2013 and will decline further as countries accelerate their transition to clean energy.

But the use of coal is recovering, especially in the United States. Last year, U.S. natural gas production fell as shale oil production was forced to stop production and drilling spending plans were cut. Reduced supply has led to soaring natural gas prices, prompting power plants to burn more cheap coal.

The rise in coal use is expected to be short-lived, with the IEA predicting that if global climate policies are tightened and net-zero emissions are achieved, total global coal consumption will fall by 55% by 2030 and by 90% by 2050.