The UK government announced on Wednesday that the phasing out of the use of coal to generate electricity in Great Britain will be brought forward by a full year, to October 2024. (The only coal-fired power plant in Northern Ireland was already scheduled to close by 2024.)

This is part of the British government’s programme to decarbonise the country’s electricity supply. To this end, it will introduce new legislation in Parliament as soon as practical. London is also urging all other countries to accelerate their phasing out of the use of coal for electricity generation.

A decade ago, coal accounted for 40% of the UK’s electricity generation; by last year, coal’s share had shrunk to a mere 1.8%. Indeed, during last year the country went for 5 000 hours (equivalent to 208.33 days) without using coal-fired electricity. Renewables provided 43.1% of the country’s electricity in 2020, divided into 24.2% from wind, 12.6% from bioenergy, 4.2% from solar and 2.2% from hydropower. Nuclear accounted for 16.1%.

“Coal powered the industrial revolution 200 years ago, but now is the time for radical action to completely eliminate this dirty fuel from our energy system,” affirmed UK Energy and Climate Change Minister (equivalent to Deputy Minister in South Africa) Anne-Marie Trevelyan. “[W]e’re sending a clear signal around the world that the UK is leading the way in consigning coal power to the history books and that we’re serious about decarbonising our power system so we can meet our ambitious, world-leading climate targets.”

The UK’s original goal of ending the use of coal to generate electricity by October 1, 2025, was adopted in September 2017, following a consultation process in November 2016. In February last year, the government proposed bringing this target forward by a year, and another consultation process was undertaken. The results indicated that accelerating the phase out would be unlikely to affect the country’s already much-reduced coal-mining sector. The result was Wednesday’s announcement.

In its statement, the government pointed out that this decision applied only to coal used to generate electricity. It did not apply to the use of coal in steelmaking or other industrial processes, nor to coal mining.