Germany and Poland alone are jointly responsible for 51% of the EU’s installed coal capacity and 54% of emissions from coal. These are not evenly distributed across the individual member states and those most reliant on coal are Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Romania.
The EU has over 300 power plants (as of July 2016) with 738 separate generating units. Reducing coal usage will also provide significant benefits in terms of air quality, health and energy security. A significant portion of the EU’s emissions comes from coal, particularly coal-fired power plants, and phasing out coal in the electricity sector is one of the most cost-effective methods to achieve emissions reductions. By signing the Paris Agreement, the European Union has joined the international community in officially committing to the goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2☌ and to pursue efforts to limit temperature increases to 1.5☌ above pre-industrial levels.”įor the EU to achieve this goal, it will need to rapidly decarbonise its power sector.
