Coal-dependent countries around the world face two wickedly interlinked challenges: accelerating the phase out of coal to prevent catastrophic global warming, while sustaining economic prosperity and political support.
As UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres recently said, keeping global warming close to 1.5 degrees requires all new coal investments to stop now with coal phased out in OECD economies by 2030 and everywhere else by 2040.
Energy supply and economic impacts of the war in Ukraine have clearly made these tasks even tougher. But the war has also provided a powerful reminder of the huge strategic and environmental risks of fossil fuel addiction.
