Phasing out Coal

Europe has a coal problem. Even as clean energy sources grow, many countries are still reliant on generating power from coal. It has huge impacts – on climate change and on health.

Our research shows that in 2017, coal produced 15% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions and 38% of the EU ETS CO₂ emissions. In 2015, the latest year for which health figures are available, coal was responsible for at least 19,500 premature deaths across Europe.

Sandbag specialises in analysing these impacts and advocating for the phase-out of coal in Europe by 2030.

Our research shows:

• Phasing out coal is the simplest and quickest way to achieve substantial reductions in CO₂ emissions;
• Renewables growth is uneven across Europe and will need to accelerate to replace coal.
• Coal power plants are still receiving generous subsidies – in the form of capacity payments, biomass co-firing revenues and generous ancillary and balancing revenues. Investment should be used to modernise the electricity system rather than keep coal on life-support

Sandbag works closely with the Europe Beyond Coal team. In 2017, we helped develop an authoritative up-to-date open-source database of all Europe’s coal power plants, a video showing how air pollution from coal travels throughout Europe and developed a data visualisation map of Europe’s coal plants.

Sandbag, working with partner organisations across Europe, produces landmark analysis to change the conversation on coal in Europe: