Boom and Bust Coal is an annual survey of the global coal fleet by Global Energy Monitor and partners. The report analyzes key trends in coal power capacity and tracks various stages of capacity development including planned retirements. This provides key insights into the status of the global phaseout of coal power and evaluates progress towards the world’s climate targets and commitments. The data come from GEM’s Global Coal Plant Tracker, an online database updated biannually that identifies and maps every known coal-fired generating unit and every new unit proposed since January 1, 2010 (30 MW and larger).
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In 2025, the world built more coal and used it less. New coal power capacity additions increased by 3.5% to reach one of the highest levels on record, even as coal-fired electricity generation declined by 0.6%. This gap was particularly pronounced in China and India, where wind and solar met most or all new demand, driving down coal generation even as coal plant commissioning reached decade highs.
Coal capacity is increasingly maintained not as a primary source of generation but as a form of system insurance. The U.S. stood out as the only major economy in 2025 to increase coal generation, and the total number of countries pursuing new coal development is shrinking. The central challenge heading into 2026 is not the availability of alternatives to coal, but the persistence of policy frameworks that continue to treat coal as necessary even as power systems move increasingly beyond it.
Explore key insights from Boom and Bust Coal 2026:
What sets the current period apart from previous dips in coal generation is the scale of wind and solar additions, which are increasingly meeting new demand and displacing coal. While coal generation may fluctuate in the near term — including potential increases driven by higher gas prices — the underlying dynamic has shifted as clean energy becomes more competitive and widely deployed. This raises the prospect of a more sustained decoupling between coal capacity growth and generation, particularly if clean energy deployment continues at current rates.
In the near term, however, gas price shocks can cause temporary reversals. In the first month of the U.S.-Israeli War with Iran, surging gas prices pushed international benchmark coal prices up nearly 20%. The countries most exposed are gas-dependent economies with little to no domestic coal production, coal fleets running below full capacity, and insufficient clean energy deployment to shield from fossil market fluctuations. For these same countries, however, repeated exposure to fossil fuel price volatility is as likely to accelerate the shift toward clean energy as it is to delay it.
China drives global commissioning to near-record levels
Global coal plant commissioning in 2025 was heavily concentrated in China, where new coal capacity additions reached a decade high of 78.1 GW. India also saw a rebound in coal commissioning compared to recent years with 10 GW added, although additions remained below mid-2010s levels. Globally, capacity added in 2025 totaled 97.4 GW, the second-highest on record behind only 2015 (107.3 GW).
Outside of China and India, coal plant commissioning remained comparatively low at 9.2 GW. Indonesia alone accounted for over 40% of the total, bringing online 4 GW of new coal capacity, followed by Bangladesh (1.3 GW) and South Korea (1.1 GW), with the latter commissioning its last planned coal plant ahead of its 2025 commitment to phase out coal power. South Africa completed the final 0.8 GW unit of the Kusile power station — more than a decade after its originally planned 2011 start date — leaving the country with no remaining coal power capacity under construction.
Retirement delays extend coal lifetimes
While China dominated new coal plant additions in 2025, net coal power capacity outside of China increased by 5 GW, the largest amount since 2017. This growth was driven by a rebound in commissioning in India and, more importantly, by a slowdown in coal plant retirements across much of the rest of the world.
Coal development accelerates and concentrates
Coal power development intensified in 2025, but it also narrowed geographically. New proposals and construction activity were once again dominated by China — and to a lesser extent India — helping to drive a 12% expansion in coal power under development globally, from 633 GW in 2024 to 710 GW in 2025. Meanwhile, coal development outside of these two countries remained flat and limited to a shrinking number of countries.
Coal power development is not only becoming more concentrated, but is also increasingly shallow. For most countries that remain in the global coal pipeline, pre-construction development activity is limited to just one or two proposed projects. Outside of China and India, only five countries are proposing more than ten new coal plants, with coal development beyond these two countries now consisting largely of isolated or residual projects rather than sustained investment pipelines.
Together, these trends point to a coal sector increasingly sustained by policy decisions in a shrinking number of countries rather than broad-based power demand. Coal development in 2025 became more concentrated by country, more uneven within countries, and increasingly disconnected from generation needs.
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In addition to Global Energy Monitor, the report’s co-authors are Africa Just Transition Network (AJTN), ARAYARA International Institute,Bangladesh Working Group on Ecology and Development (BWGED), CEE Bankwatch Network, Beyond Fossil Fuels, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Chile Sustentable, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network (CLEAN), Dhoritri Rokhhay Amra (DHORA), E3G, The Institute of Lawyers for the Protection of the Environment (INSAPROMA), Kiko Network, POLEN Transiciones Justas, Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development (PRIED), Razom We Stand, Reclaim Finance, Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), Trend Asia, and Waterkeepers Bangladesh (WKB).
Global Energy Monitor's data serve as a vital international reference point used by organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Energy Agency, and the United Nations, as well as global media outlets.
