To kickstart the new year, Slovakia and Austria have bid farewell to coal power. Slovakia has expedited its coal exit from 2030 to 2024, while rumours of a return to coal in Austria have failed to materialise, with record additions of solar and wind power easing out coal and helping to ensure security of supply.
The collective commitment announced yesterday by Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Switzerland to decarbonise their electricity systems by 2035 marks a momentous stride.
Despite EU negotiators pushing for a decarbonised global power system in the 2030s at the climate negotiations currently taking place at COP28 in Dubai, Italy, Hungary and North Macedonia have postponed their coal phase-out commitments by several years.
Today, 10 members including the United States, Czech Republic, Kosovo, Cyprus, Norway and Dominican Republic have joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), underscoring that even the most coal-heavy countries worldwide are looking to a future beyond fossil fuels.
On the eve of the Rugby World Cup final in Paris, the tournament’s biggest sponsor, Société Générale, is under scrutiny for its long-time support of Energetický a průmyslový holding (EPH).
Warsaw's Administrative Court has suspended proceedings on Turów coal mine's sham environmental impact assessment (EIA) that its owner PGE requires for its licence renewal. The verdict leaves local communities, already battered by water shortages, subsidence and dust, to stare down the barrel of a further twenty years of mining, while they await the claimants’ appeal.
As devastating wildfires continue to ravage Europe as a consequence of the climate emergency, German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling operational wind turbines near its sprawling Garzweiler open pit coal mine in North Rhine Westphalia with the intention of excavating a further 15 to 20 million tonnes of coal.
Spain is hastening towards a coal-free power sector, with the government accepting energy company Endesa’s request to close its 1,468 MW As Pontes coal plant by August 2024. It will be replaced by a portfolio of renewable energy projects across Galicia, including 1 GW of wind power capacity, which the company says will directly create 1,300 jobs in the region.
Over half of European small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) think their country’s dependency on fossil fuels is behind business-threatening energy bills, and want investments in renewable energy programmes to help them generate their own power, according to new polling published today by Beyond Fossil Fuels.