China, where coal has helped to drive impressive economic development, has reached the pinnacle of its coal consumption and entered a new phase of economic development, according to a commentary published this week in Nature Geoscience. “We argue that China’s coal consumption has indeed reached an inflection point much sooner than expected, and will decline henceforth — even though coal will remain the primary source of energy for the coming decades. We suggest that China has entered the era of post-coal growth,” the article’s authors wrote.
According to the article, China’s coal use decreased by 29 percent in 2014 and another 3.6 percent in 2015 while the nation’s GDP grew by 7.3 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively, in those years. ”Historically, peak coal consumption has been an important milestone in the process of economic development. In transitioning to post-coal growth, China is following the path of affluent industrial economies: coal consumption grew with per-capita income before peaking and then declining,” according to the article.