The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has called on governments to introduce legislation that puts a stop to the construction of new coal plants, stating that coal consumption needed to be phased out completely by 2050, or earlier.

The international nongovernmental organisation pointed out at the South African International Renewable Energy Conference (Sairec), in Cape Town, on Tuesday, that coal consumption would have to drop substantially to be in line with the International Energy Agency’s 450 Scenario. The scenario set out an energy pathway with the goal of limiting the global increase in temperature to 2 °C.

As such, global coal consumption needed to peak before 2020 and be almost 35% below 2011 levels by 2035, while emissions from coal were required to be slashed by more than 40% compared with today.

“The threat of long-term carbon ‘lock-in’ is very real,” suggested a WWF policy briefing paper, stating that 1 199 new coal-fired power plants, with an estimated installed capacity of more than 1 400 GW – equal to 80% of the present coal power capacity – were either under construction or planned globally.

The WWF, which had, along with Greenpeace, set a target for the use of 100% renewable electricity by 2050, added that governments should also not allow coal mining to take place while renewable energy needed to be fast-tracked.

“There is no doubt, the train for renewables is on the move and accelerating, while the cost of buying a ticket is continuously being reduced,” said the WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative’s director of global energy policy, Stephan Singer.

However, despite the rise of renewable energy, coal consumption was still high. Since 2003, coal consumption had grown globally by about 45%, much more than oil (10%) or gas (29%), stated the report, quoting the BP Statistical Review of World Energy for 2014.

The WWF policy briefing paper had outlined the threat of coal to the global climate system, saying it should be replaced by a rapid move to a 100% renewable-energy supply, supported by massive investments in energy efficiency. This was expected to help mitigate dangerous climate change and air pollution.

“Coal has the highest carbon intensity of any fossil fuel when combusted and is, arguably, the single-biggest threat to the global climate system,” said the policy paper, adding that the resulting air pollution caused by combusting coal contributed significantly to four-million premature deaths a year, mostly in the developing world.

“Coal is a dirty fuel of the past,” contended the WWF.

Singer emphasised that coal was no longer economically viable. “Investor confidence in coal is shrinking. Coal isn’t credible anymore and renewables also create three to four more jobs a [kilowatt] than coal,” he told Engineering News Online on the sidelines of Sairec.

Coal was also extremely costly to society, added Singer.

The United Nations Environmental Programme recently estimated that outdoor air pollution, mainly from the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, cost China about $1.4-trillion and India $0.5-trilllion in 2010.

China, along with Russia, was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide.