Canada aligning with U.K. to fight global growth in coal-fired electricity
OTTAWA — Canada and the United Kingdom are aligning to help wean the world off coal at the same time as the United States is proposing to subsidize it.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced the partnership with Claire Perry, British minister of state for climate change, during a trip to Britain this week.
The International Energy Agency says the world’s reliance on coal has to start diminishing by 2020 if there is any hope of meeting the Paris climate change accord goal of keeping global warming to less than two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times.
About 40 per cent of the world’s power is generated from burning coal. In June, German environment organization Urgewald released a list of 850 new coal-fired plants on tap to be built in 62 nations. Thirty-three of those countries don’t already burn much, if any, coal to make electricity and if all 850 plants are built, they will expand global coal power by 45 per cent.