Global use of coal is on the rise and is unlikely to phase out of the energy mix for decades despite climate protection and carbon emission targets, according to the International Energy Agency's recently released 'World Energy Outlook 2014' report.
Coal's share in the global primary fuel mix has increased by 5 percent to 29 percent over the past decade up to 2013. It has reinforced its role in becoming the second most important fuel behind oil.
The world meets 40 percent of its electricity demand from coal. In the EU where coal is an abundant and indigenous resource, 28 percent of its electricity demand is met by coal and 240 thousand people are directly employed in the EU coal industry.
Given the demand growth of coal, 'it is too early to eliminate coal - we need the next perhaps three to four decades to be able to start to eliminate it as a fuel and even that is subject to the new developments in yet unknown technologies,' Pawel Smolen, president of European Association for Coal and Lignite, told The Anadolu Agency.
The recent EU summit in Brussels set the targets to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent and increase energy efficiency and renewables by at least 27 percent each by 2030.
'Effectively the EU has only a climate goal, not an energy policy and member states have nothing but their own chaotic approaches through which they try to combine three aspects; climate, energy prices and security of supply,' Smolen said.
'At the moment there is no clear vision how to optimize those three. The reality differs substantially from the wishes of the EU and European Energy policy is still not clear - and it needs to be developed,' he added.
Smolen underlined that because renewables cannot fully replace coal, gas or nuclear energy 24 hours a day as they are weather dependent, climate change concepts and emission targets do not reflect the reality of global dependence on fossil fuels.
By Nuran Erkul
Anadolu Agency