China and India accounted for 87% of the new coal-power capacity put into operation in the first half of 2025, whereas other regions continued to move away from coal.
These developments, highlighting a growing global divide between many countries phasing out coal power and a handful continuing to expand new capacity, are revealed in Global Energy Monitor’s latest Global Coal Plant Tracker results and reported here for the first time.
The results include Ireland becoming the fifth EU country to phase out coal power and Latin America becoming a region with zero active proposals for new coal capacity.
Meanwhile, the results show the US is on track to retire more coal capacity in 2025 than it did under the Biden administration last year, despite the efforts of the Trump White House.
Moreover, rather than follow the US in turning away from clean-energy leadership, other countries have continued their efforts to phase down coal power, with “just energy transition partnerships” (JETPs) advancing in Vietnam, Indonesia and South Africa during 2025 to date.
EU and Latin America pave the way for coal phaseout
The EU and Latin America are emerging as the global leaders in phasing out coal power, according to GEM’s analysis.
On the heels of the UK coal phaseout in 2024, Ireland stopped the use of coal power in June 2025, with nine EU countries expected to follow suit through 2029, including Spain, France and the Netherlands.
In total, all but three EU countries are planning to phase out coal by 2033, as shown in the chart below.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), coal power should be virtually phased out in advanced economies by 2030 and the rest of the world by 2040 to keep warming below 1.5C, as the Paris Agreement targets.
Development has also ceased in the region. No new coal plants have been proposed in the EU since 2018 and no coal plants have entered construction since 2019.
The coal phaseout in the EU and UK has been driven by a combination of country commitments and supporting policies and regulations, including air and carbon pollution limits on power plants, carbon pricing and policy support for clean-energy deployment.
Coal-power capacity retirements in the EU stalled for two years, following gas shortage concerns in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but they have since accelerated.
Coal capacity retired in the first half of 2025 (2.5GW) has already nearly exceeded all of 2023 (2.7GW) – with another 11GW planned for retirement in the EU by the end of the year.
GEM data shows that, in Latin America, the shelving of two coal-plant proposals in Honduras and Brazil in 2025 has left the region with no new coal plants actively proposed, as shown in the chart below – a collapse of the 18 plants totalling 7.3GW of capacity proposed in 2015.
This followed the entry of Honduras into the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) in May and the lack of new coal plants proposed in Brazil’s 2025 national energy auctions, with a decrease in coal-power generation projected through 2034 in Brazil’s most recent 10-year energy plan.
Latin America is also nearly on track for a coal-power pathway that would be aligned with the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement. More than 60% (10GW) of its 16.3GW of operating coal-power capacity is scheduled to come offline by 2040.
China and India continue to dominate
China and India dominated coal development in the first half of 2025, as the two countries had more new proposals, construction starts and coal plants commissioned than the rest of the world combined, GEM’s tracker shows.
As the chart below shows, there were 74.7GW and 12.8GW of newly proposed coal projects in China and India, respectively, in the first half of 2025, compared to just 11GW in the rest of the world.
Construction starts and restarts in China also reached 46GW, putting the country on track to match the record levels of 2024, when more than 97GW of coal-power plants began construction.
As discussed in GEM’s recent joint report with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), major coal-producing provinces, including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shandong and Shaanxi, are among the provinces commissioning and building the most new coal power, as shown in the chart below.
This expansion is backed by established permitting pathways, strong local power companies and a reliable flow of investment.
Yet, China has also been installing record amounts of clean energy, with more than 500GW of solar and wind power expected to come online in 2025. The increased generation from solar and wind power exceeded the increase in power demand in the first half of 2025, helping drive down China’s CO2 emissions by 1% compared to last year.
As clean energy has gained growing significance in China’s energy mix, more attention is being placed on renewables’ role in energy security and on coal power’s future as a flexible, supporting resource rather than as a primary generator.
Despite this narrative shift, coal remains deeply embedded in China’s power system, with little public discussion of its phasedown or eventual exit.
Coal-plant development is also on the rise in India, GEM’s tracker shows.
Commissioning of new coal plants in the country in H1 2025 (5.1GW) has already exceeded all of last year (4.2GW), as shown in the chart below.
Proposed coal-power capacity in India has also been on the rise, led by a record 38.4GW of coal-plant proposals in 2024 – driving up proposed coal capacity to over 92GW as of July 2025.
Retirements also remained sluggish in India, with 0.8GW retired in H1 2025 and just 0.2GW retired in 2024 and 2023, according to GEM’s tracker.
The decline follows 2023 guidance by India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) advising power utilities not to retire any thermal power capacity until 2030. In 2025, the country’s environment ministry again delayed long-pending sulfur dioxide regulations on coal plants.
Yet India also added more than 28GW of wind and solar power in 2025, a nearly 50% increase over the previous year. Despite the growth, the Indian government has stated that it is planning a coal expansion, with coal use not projected to peak until 2040, according to India’s Ministry of Coal.
In both China and India, coal retains its policy support, with clean energy framed, not as a replacement, but as a supplement – reinforcing a dual-track energy strategy that postpones difficult decisions on coal phaseout.
The US goes big on ageing coal plants
Like China and India, the US under President Donald Trump is also supporting coal power. Unlike China and India, however, the US has reversed course on clean energy in the first half of 2025.
During his tenure, former US president Joe Biden reached an agreement with other G7 nations to phase out coal power by 2035, offered incentives for clean energy under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and moved to finalise pending power plant regulations – effectively helping replace the nation’s ageing coal plants with lower-cost solar and wind power while boosting domestic cleantech manufacturing.
The Trump administration has moved to derail Biden’s agenda by phasing out the clean energy tax credits, repealing coal plant regulations and slowing or halting solar and wind power permitting and financing.
It has also been using “emergency powers” to keep coal plants online, racking up $29m in costs to extend the life of Michigan’s Campbell plant through the summer – costs the utility is seeking to pass on to ratepayers for power the grid operator said was not needed.
Despite the political support for coal, the US remains on track to retire more coal power in 2025 than in 2024, with 3.7GW retired as of July.
Whether this trend continues in an increasingly uncertain environment for clean energy remains to be seen, as plant closures are often part of long-term plans and economic considerations, usually extensively negotiated with state regulators and based on broader considerations than just current federal policy.
In all, US utilities are slated to close nearly 100GW of coal capacity by 2035, as shown in the chart below. By then, the average age of a US coal plant will be 55 years.
The US also saw a new coal plant proposal in H1 2025, bringing the total to three proposals according to GEM’s tracker, the most of any OECD country. All three plan to incorporate carbon capture and storage, although none have the necessary permits for construction.
Just energy transition partnerships advance despite hurdles
Despite delayed documentation, ongoing negotiations and the withdrawal of the US from International Partner Group participation, JETP agreements in Vietnam, Indonesia and South Africa are all continuing to progress.
In Vietnam, three clean-energy investment projects have officially penned financing agreements as of July 2025, getting the country one step closer to mobilising JETP capital.
Just a few months prior, Vietnam released an adjustment to its latest power development plan, which featured substantial increases in projected wind and solar capacity and a modest increase in projected hydropower capacity.
However, the plan also includes a 1GW increase in projected coal power by 2030, as shown in the chart below.
The new figure for peak coal, 31.1GW, coincides with the interest from state-owned utility EVN to revive a coal plant previously considered to be cancelled.
In Indonesia, the release of the latest electricity supply business plan (RUPTL 2025–2034) in May 2025 resulted in a spike in new and revived proposals for on-grid coal capacity. This was alongside the continued growth of off-grid, captive-coal plant proposals to power industrial areas, as GEM’s tracker shows.
Accounting for these captive-coal plants in Indonesia’s JETP documentation has presented a challenge, but Indonesia’s JETP secretariat has reiterated that updates to the country’s JETP comprehensive investment and policy plan are ongoing through the first six months of 2025 to address emissions from captive plants and incorporate efficiency targets.
Disparity remains between the government’s stated renewable energy ambitions and the reality of present advancements at the project level. Presidential regulation 112/2022 targets a 2050 national coal phaseout date in Indonesia and President Prabowo Subianto has more recently made overtures to an even faster 2040 coal phaseout.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s proposed coal-power capacity grew by 5.1GW in H1 2025, to 17.1GW overall, as shown in the chart below.
In South Africa, the government has also reiterated its commitment to its JETP agreement. While Vietnam and Indonesia have substantial numbers of recently built coal plants and plants in continued development, South Africa operates a fleet of old, unreliable coal plants.
World Bank-linked funding for South Africa’s energy transition was approved in June 2025. While solidifying a climate investment fund, the plan also included the delayed closure of three coal plants that already average more than 50 years of age (Camden, Hendrina and Grootvlei).
All three countries are continuing down the dual paths of simultaneously extending coal’s lifetime and maintaining just energy transition commitments, banking on “all of the above” approaches and, ultimately, causing misalignment with JETP principles.
Yet, the continued progress of their just energy transition programs, despite global political and economic volatility, is a strong indicator that policy and planning priorities could soon align towards the phaseout of coal.
The post Guest post: China and India account for 87% of new coal-power capacity so far in 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: China and India account for 87% of new coal-power capacity so far in 2025
At Climate Home News, we found this year a pretty depressing one to cover, shaped as it was by Donald Trump’s attacks on climate science and action at home and abroad – and rounded off by the UN declaring global warming will break through the key 1.5C limit the world set itself in 2015.
But it wasn’t all bad. Nobody had decided to follow the US out of the Paris Agreement by the time it turned 10 this month. Anti-climate candidates in Canada and Australia, backed by Trump, lost elections convincingly. And 2025 may also have been the year carbon dioxide emissions fell for the first time.
What’s more, our reporting this year saw results in the real world. After we revealed that Chilean doctors believe pollution from copper mines in the northern hub of Calama is causing autism, campaigners sued state-owned mining company Codelco. The case is ongoing.
One of the lawyers representing the campaigners said “when [Climate Home News] revealed our silent suffering and our fight, we felt we had finally been heard and had entered the national conversation thanks to international media coverage. That was the final push to file the lawsuit.”
If you want to fund more impactful reporting like this in 2026, please subscribe and unlock all of our content for just the price of a coffee per week. Or to keep up with our latest coverage, you can sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, BlueSky and Facebook.
Below are nine of our best stories this year and, if that’s not enough, here’s nine more from 2024.
1. Solar squeeze: US tariffs threaten panel production and jobs in Thailand
In the year of trade wars, Trump extended Biden-era tariffs on solar panels from China to neighbouring countries. Nicha Wachpanich spoke to some of those workers who subsequently lost their jobs making panels at Chinese-run factories in Thailand and found that the US levies and bad behaviour by bosses had combined to crush their dreams of a better life.
2. Business-as-usual: Donors pour climate adaptation finance into big infrastructure, neglecting local needs
Trump being Trump, and axing US climate finance, is no reason to let other wealthy donor nations off the hook. We examined the latest spreadsheets for annual adaptation aid and found Japan is counting support for massive infrastructure projects in its figures, despite them having only a dubious role in helping people adapt to climate change.
Our reporter Tanbirul Miraj Ripon visited one such project – the Matarbari port in Bangladesh. He found that the port handles coal and gas imports and has destroyed locals’ homes and livelihoods. Despite this, on paper it represents $363 million in Japanese climate adaptation finance, the biggest single climate resilience project being funded by a wealthy country in 2023.
3. Ethiopia’s bold EV ambitions hit bumps in rural areas
Other nations are trying hard to go green but finding it tricky. This year, Ethiopia hosted the Africa Climate Summit, was selected as the host of COP32 and opened the continent’s biggest hydropower dam.
It plans to use some of this clean power to charge electric vehicles, after banning imports of cars with internal combustion engines (even as the European Union is softening its own 2035 ban on ICEs). While that will reduce Ethiopia’s already tiny emissions and its fossil fuel import bills, it won’t be easy in a nation where only half the population has electricity access, as Solomon Yimer and Vivian Chime reported.
4. Ending poverty and gangs: How Zambia seeks to cash in on the global drive for EVs
Other African governments are trying to cash in on their minerals, which big players like China, the US and increasingly Saudi Arabia want for green technologies and/or making equipment for wars.
Pamela Kapekele went to look at the situation in Zambia’s Copperbelt province – where you can probably guess what they produce! She found that good tax regulations and working conditions will be needed if locals are to see the benefits of surging demand for the metal.
Later in the year, an acid spill from a copper-mine tailings dam that contaminated the country’s main river showed the value of environmental regulation too. Reporting from Nigeria’s lithium and South Africa’s platinum mines also highlighted the challenges of making minerals mining and processing cleaner and fairer for communities.
5. Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
Some sectors – like international aviation and shipping – tend to fall outside the scope of national media, and it’s a gap we’ve aimed to fill. Together with Singapore’s Straits Times, we tracked the supply chain for what the airline industry calls “Sustainable Aviation Fuel” (SAF) and found that virgin and barely used palm oil – which threatens rainforests – is being passed off as waste cooking oil and used to power planes in Europe.
Malaysia is a particular hotspot for this fraud, as government subsidies there make virgin palm oil cheap in the shops – and it can be sold for a higher price as “used” cooking oil, providing a profit motive for flipping it. Our investigation was picked up by the Financial Times, Bloomberg and the Malaysian authorities, who have since launched a crackdown on this kind of fraud.
But with verification of the materials used for SAF relying on just a handful of commercial auditors conducting mainly paper-based checks, airlines currently cannot know for sure if their green jet fuel is actually sustainable. Their advertising to passengers should – but often doesn’t – reflect this uncertainty.
6. Brazil’s environment minister suggests roadmap to end fossil fuels at COP30
Our reporting was often prescient this year. We called it correctly that the US would leave the Paris Agreement but not the UNFCCC, that Argentina would not follow America out of Paris, that Ethiopia rather than Nigeria would be chosen as COP32 host and that petrostates would try to kill a new green shipping framework at the International Maritime Organization.
We are also pretty sure we were the first – at least in English – to pick up on Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva’s proposal for COP30 to agree on a roadmap away from fossil fuels, which she aired back in June at London Climate Week. That proposal was pushed by President Lula at the start of COP30, dominated much of the conversation at the summit and will continue to be discussed throughout 2026.
8. PR firm working for Shell wins COP30 media contract
In the summer of 2025, our crack investigative reporter Matteo Civillini got the scoop on how the Brazilian government, via a contract tendered by the UN, was working with Edelman on international media relations for the COP30 climate summit while the global PR giant was simultaneously engaged in promoting Shell’s fossil fuel interests in Brazil.
This story was picked up by a range of other media, and amplified calls for agencies whose clients include fossil fuel firms to be excluded from the climate negotiations. Advocacy group Clean Creatives was inspired by Matteo’s reporting to launch a campaign against Edelman’s COP involvement. That culminated in an open letter from influencers and creators with a combined audience of over 24 million calling for Edelman to be dropped. The drumbeat on this theme is likely to get louder in 2026.
8. “House of cards”: Verra used junk carbon credits to fix Shell’s offsetting scandal
And talking of smoke and mirrors, just when we thought the murky web of carbon offsetting linking oil and gas major Shell to sham rice-farming projects in China couldn’t get any more convoluted, it did exactly that.
By combing through the records of carbon-credit registry Verra – the world’s biggest – Matteo confirmed that nearly a million bogus offsets from 10 disqualified methane reduction projects had been compensated for with the same number of junk credits from another four such projects that were also axed by Verra.
“It’s frankly unbelievable that Verra considers it appropriate to compensate for hot air credits with other hot air credits,” Jonathan Crook, policy lead at Carbon Market Watch, told us. “To pretend this is a satisfactory resolution is both absurd and deeply alarming.”
Verra insists the replacement credits were technically available to plug the gap left by the first batch – even though the second set, too, now need to be swapped out. Shell is keeping its distance, saying it does not manage or operate “the projects in question” despite being earlier involved in the Chinese rice-farming programmes as their “authorised representative”. Mind-boggling indeed!
9. Self-taught mechanics give second life to Jordan’s glut of spent EV batteries
In what was on balance a bad year, we brought you some hope too. A landmark advisory opinion on climate change and human rights from the International Court of Justice in The Hague was stronger than anyone imagined and may open the door to lawsuits against polluting countries and companies in 2026.
Other good news stories included analysts suggesting China’s fossil fuel use could peak this year, the UN’s loss and damage fund launching its first call for proposals, South Korea and Morocco moving to phase out coal and a boom in imports of solar panels to Africa.
Hope came too from ordinary people and their ingenuity – like the untrained Jordanians interviewed by Yamuna Matheswaran, hooking up solar panels to old Tesla batteries, lowering both their electricity bills and their carbon emissions into the bargain.
The post Nine of our best climate stories from 2025 appeared first on Climate Home News.
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Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
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