Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Covid-19 and Hydrogen Energy - New Realities of Coal Mining and Consumption in the EU and Asia in the Period until 2040
The damage caused by burning of coal is currently much higher than that produced by using alternative energy sources. This explains the growing urgency to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which, as of November 2020, has already been signed by more than 170 countries. The study analyzes the volumes of coal production by the world's coal market leaders over the period from 2000 to 2019. Despite an overall increase in global coal production by 1.5% in 2019 as compared to 2018, which reached 7.9 billion tons, there was a decrease in coal mining rates by 3.4% and 3.5% against the previous two years. The rapid decline in the importance of coal-fired power plants in the electric power generation of the European Union and Asia who seek to shift to renewable energy sources and hydrogen power, makes further growth in exports of Russian thermal coal quite problematic in the post-crisis period. Most probably, the declining trend in coal production and consumption will continue and even intensify in the coming years. The fall in coal mining and consumption in 2020 alone can reach 25% in the USA, 5-10% in Japan and South Korea, 20% in the EU countries, and 9% in China. The use of hydrogen fuel will make significant changes in the supply not only of the Russian coal, but also of the Russian natural gas and oil. The demand for these commodities will be decreasing.