World Burned More Coal Than Ever in 2025, Even as Coal Power Generation Fell

The numbers don't lie: coal hit a record last year

Global coal consumption climbed to 166.0 exajoules in 2025, a 0.7% increase over 2024, according to the Statistical Review of World Energy. That's an all-time high in absolute terms.

At the same time, coal-fired electricity generation actually fell 0.3% to 10,511 terawatt-hours worldwide, according to the same review. Two numbers moving in opposite directions, and both true.

This isn't a contradiction. Coal isn't just burned for electricity. It's used to make steel, cement, and other industrial goods. So even as power plants burn a little less coal, factories and steel mills are burning more.

Coal is losing market share while gaining in volume

Total global energy supply grew from 592.2 exajoules in 2024 to 600.3 exajoules in 2025, a 1.4% jump, per the Statistical Review. Coal's growth of 0.7% didn't keep pace, so coal's share of the global energy mix actually slipped, from 27.9% down to 27.7%.

Meanwhile renewable energy supply grew almost 10% in the same period, according to the review. So renewables are growing faster than coal, but overall global energy demand is rising fast enough that there's room for both a coal record and a renewables boom at the same time. Growing renewables doesn't automatically mean shrinking fossil fuels when the overall energy pie keeps getting bigger.

It's really a China and India story, not a global one

Asia Pacific consumed 138.1 exajoules of coal in 2025, which is 83.2% of the entire world's coal use, according to the Statistical Review.

China alone burned 92.2 exajoules, more than half the world's coal at 55.6%. India added another 23.1 exajoules, or 13.9% of the global total. China and India together account for nearly 70% of all coal burned on Earth. Throw in Indonesia and you're at almost 73%.

Meanwhile Europe used just 4.4% of global coal in 2025, and the European Union's share was a mere 2.8%, down another 3.2% from the prior year, per the review. Non-OECD countries, mostly developing Asia, accounted for 85.2% of global coal consumption, and their coal use has grown at an average 1.9% a year for the past decade. OECD nations, the wealthy West, have cut coal use at 4.8% a year over the same period.

What this means for the "global phaseout" talking point

Western politicians and activists love to talk about ending coal worldwide. The data shows that's not what's happening. What's happening is a wealth transfer of dirty industry. Rich countries shut down their coal plants and pat themselves on the back, while China and India keep building steel mills and power plants because they're still industrializing and their populations want reliable electricity and economic growth.

That's a legitimate critique from the developing world's perspective too. Leaders in India and China have long argued it's unfair for countries that industrialized on cheap coal for 150 years to now demand poorer nations skip that step entirely. Whether you buy that argument or not, it explains why coal isn't going anywhere globally anytime soon.

On the other side, climate scientists and clean-energy advocates have a fair point too. Renewables grew nearly 10% in a single year, which is a real trend, and if that growth rate holds for another decade it could genuinely start displacing coal even in Asia. The Statistical Review numbers don't settle that debate. They just show where things stood in 2025.

The unresolved question

The real test isn't this year's numbers. It's whether China's coal consumption, at 92.2 exajoules and over half the global total, actually peaks in the next few years as Beijing has periodically signaled, or whether industrial and power demand keeps pushing it higher. Nothing in this data answers that. Until China's curve bends down, arguments about a global coal phaseout are describing Europe and North America, not the planet.