Twenty-first century, the century of coal? CO2 prices to curb coal demand

The paper investigates how a carbon price could halt the comeback of coal, which started in the early 2000s. Since the year 2000, coal has provided roughly 40 per cent of global primary energy growth. The success of coal in the primary energy mix is due to the fact that it is abundant, cheap, and most often a domestic resource. However, global coal reserves, if burnt, would surpass the remaining carbon budget for a 2°C target by a factor of two. The paper shows that a carbon price of 25–100 USD per tonne of CO2 would be needed to phase out coal in the power sector, depending on the technology and the world region, even when assuming significant technological progress.