The world saw the lowest amount of new coal mine capacity brought online for at least 10 years in 2025, according to a new report, as clean energy displaces coal for electricity generation in East Asia.
A report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found that new coal mine capacity declined by nearly 40% from 2024, the second consecutive year new mine capacity has hit a decade low. This represents an acceleration of a steady decline that began in 2019.
The slowdown in new coal mine openings was driven by China and Australia, where new additions fell by 44% and 96%, respectively. In China, the report said this was partly due to solar and wind displacing coal for electricity generation – although coal rebounded in the first half of 2026 – and the National Energy Administration implementing new rules to curb new mine openings.
In Australia, a 96% reduction in new coal mine capacity was driven by shrinking demand from the countries that import Australian coal for electricity, like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the report said.
This trend is likely to continue, according to GEM, as the Australian state of New South Wales recently banned new coal mines on undeveloped greenfield land. South Korea has promised to stop building coal-fired power plants that cannot capture and store the emissions produced. Meanwhile, Japan is pushing for a post-Fukushima nuclear revival to displace coal.
This Australian coal community is co-designing its own green future
Globally, growth in coal demand has slowed over the last few years and the International Energy Agency expects it to plateau through to 2030 because of the growth of renewable energy, nuclear and fossil gas.
Openings down, pipeline up
But while new coal mine openings fell, the amount of global coal mine capacity proposed increased by 11%. This was almost entirely driven by a spate of projects in the eastern Indian states of Jharkhand and Odisha.
“If built,” the GEM report says, “the projects would commit India – a country with no formal coal phaseout timeline – to years of coal expansion and would put a 1.5C-aligned transition away from fossil fuels farther out of reach”.
The Indian government says it needs to increase coal production to meet growing electricity demand from economic growth and from dealing with heatwaves. It plans to open more than 20 new coal mines to meet its coal production targets.
Because of energy security concerns, India is also aiming to produce chemicals with Indian coal rather than imported gas. China is also pursuing this strategy, although the Global Energy Monitor report said that Indian coal’s high ash content means the South Asian nation will find it harder to make chemicals from coal.
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Nations agreed at COP26 five years ago to “phase down” coal power – a commitment that China and India successfully pushed to weaken from “phase out”. At COP28 in 2023, governments agreed to transition away from all fossil fuels in energy systems.
Since then, wealthy nations have partnered with coal-producing countries like South Africa, Vietnam and Indonesia on plans to transition from coal to clean energy. But, after preliminary talks, India and these governments did not agree a JETP.
The post New coal mine openings slow as East Asian demand plateaus appeared first on Climate Home News.
For the first time, new-energy vehicles (NEVs) made up 67% of new car sales in China in September, according to the latest data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
The figures show that NEVs, which include battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids, captured a record share of sales, even though fewer were sold than last year.
This is because sales of combustion-engine cars are falling steeply, a trend that the CPCA has attributed to rising petrol prices following the start of the Hormuz crisis.
Indeed, sales of fuel-only cars were down 31% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2026, with plug-in hybrid sales down 26% – whereas battery EV sales were only down 4%.
One analyst tells Carbon Brief that China’s rapidly growing EV fleet has offset demand for 143m barrels of oil since the start of the Hormuz crisis.
Another says that the crisis is “reinforcing China’s electrification of road transport”.
Meanwhile, amid slowing domestic sales, Chinese carmakers’ exports of NEVs more than doubled [in 2026 to date / in September] from a year earlier.
NEV record
A record two out of every three cars sold in September in China were NEVs, according to CPCA data, as shown in the figure below.
(NEVs predominantly include battery electric vehicles – BEVs – and plug-in hybrids – PHEVs. BEVs only run on electricity, whereas PHEVs also have a combustion engine.)
This marks a rapid rise for NEVs from just 6% of new car sales in 2020 up to 58% in 2026 to date – and a record 67% in the month of September.
This year, NEVs’ share of sales has also bounced back from a low of 39% in January, after the full purchase tax exemption that had been in place for more than a decade came to an end in December 2025.
The gain in NEV share in 2026 has come amid a slowdown across the wider domestic passenger-car market, which has hit sales of combustion-engine vehicles particularly hard.
This September, passenger-car retail sales across all categories declined, with overall sales volumes falling 28% year-on-year.
The contraction was led by combustion-engine vehicles, which saw sales fall 43% year-on-year in September and 31% in 2026 to date.
However, sales of PHEVs also fell by 36% year-on-year in September and by 26% in 2026 to date. By comparison, BEVs performed better, although sales still declined 8.5% from a year earlier in September and 4% in 2026 to date.
As a result, NEV sales overall fell by 17% in September and 13% in 2026 to date.
While the market changes in 2026 to date were particularly dramatic, they reflect a broad continuation of trends seen over the past decade.
Indeed, sales of combustion-engine cars in China peaked in 2017 and they have been declining ever since, shown in the figure below.
Impact of Hormuz
Part of the reason for the advance of NEVs in 2026, said Chinese technology news outlet OFweek, was petrol cars “giving up market share” as they were outperformed by electric alternatives.
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the CPCA, cited higher petrol prices as an explanation for September’s weak combustion-car sales, in comments to financial news outlet National Business Daily.
Imports of oil into China in January-September have fallen 15% compared to 2025, equivalent to 470m barrels, as ongoing conflict tightened supply and drove up prices.
China’s passenger-car NEV fleet has displaced 143m barrels of oil so far during the strait of Hormuz crisis, Euan Graham, senior energy analyst at thinktank Ember, tells Carbon Brief.
EVs “accounted for 12% of the decrease in China’s oil use post-Hormuz”, according to an estimate provided to thinktank the Brookings Institute by an unnamed analyst.
Erica Downs, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, tells Carbon Brief that the strait of Hormuz crisis and higher oil prices are “reinforcing China’s electrification of road transport”.
She says the “world’s largest oil supply disruption” vindicates China’s early bet on EVs, which was partly driven by concerns about oil-supply security.
NEV demand down
Nevertheless, NEV sales have fallen year-on-year, albeit at a slower rate than overall car sales. The growth in NEV market share has also been decelerating.
Zhang Yichao, a partner at consulting firm AlixPartners, tells Carbon Brief that NEVs benefit from government trade-in policies and a “strong pipeline” of new models, particularly those involving innovation.
He says these factors help explain why NEVs sales have fallen at a slower rate to their combustion-car counterparts.
Cui told the state-run China National Radio that the fall for NEVs and for cars overall in September 2026, is also due to a high baseline of sales from the same month in 2025, as well as changes to trade-in policies and disruptions from the holiday period.
Other factors, says consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, are the weakened demand due to “demand pull-forward” in 2025 caused by the end of subsidies, as well as “tighter financing conditions”.
Zhang tells Carbon Brief he does not “see much more room ahead” for further growth in NEVs’ market share.
He adds that, in his view, their share in China is unlikely to exceed 80%, as some premium-market segments and specific use cases will continue to require combustion-engine vehicles.
Exports surge
Meanwhile, while domestic NEV retail sales fell 17% in September 2026, exports more than doubled, increasing 164% year-on-year, according to the CPCA.
This extends the decline in domestic sales and very strong growth in exports seen across 2026 to date, as shown in the figure below.