Global Coal Use Hit A Record In 2025, Even As Coal Power Declined

Global coal consumption reached another record in 2025, seemingly contradicting years of discussion about phasing out the world’s most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. But the headline number does not tell the whole story. The latest Statistical Review of World Energy shows that global coal consumption rose to 166.0 exajoules last year. That represented an increase of 0.7% from 2024. At the same time, global electricity generation from coal declined. Coal-fired power production fell 0.3% to 10,511 terawatt-hours. Those two trends are not mutually exclusive. Coal is used not only to generate electricity, but also in steelmaking, cement production, and other industrial…