There has been a growing sea-change concerning the threat of climate change as it has dawned on governments that the United States, under President Donald Trump, is no longer following a cabal of international elites to impose costly climate restrictions upon on the energy sector.
With America no longer playing the fool, governments are reducing their climate commitments and reembracing fossil fuels, specifically coal. Certainly, this would not happen if they really believed the hype that the world faces a pending climate catastrophe that can be stopped by eschewing fossil fuels. They are tacitly admitting Trump is right and climate change is a scam/hoax.
Examples of the rapid decline of the climate alarmism narrative are all around us. At an international meeting held in Columbia in April, 60 countries agreed on the need to phase out fossil fuels – sounds like a big move forward until one realizes that is less than a third of the countries (more than 200) that had previously agreed to timelines for emission reductions on the Paris climate agreement. And, importantly, none of the world’s top emitters signed on. China, the United States, India, Russia, and 140 other countries didn’t bother joining Columbia’s anti-fossil fuel crusade. That’s a step backwards not forwards as the media tried to portray it.
Also, with America leading the way, countries that had previously committed to rapidly phasing out coal use are now embracing coal to fuel electric power production.
At President Trump’s behest and with his administration’s blessing, Environment America has reported that as of March, 8.1 GW of coal capacity, consisting of 33 fossil fuel generating units across 15 power plants, which had been scheduled for closure by the end of 2025, have been kept online to maintain grid reliability and power AI expansion. Most recently, the two largest coal power plants in Pennsylvania agreed to stay in operation through 2032, four years beyond their planned retirement date, specifically to ensure grid stability in the face of growing AI data center demand. Even Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, approved of the plan to keep the plants open.
READ MORE: Cracks in the Climate Consensus: 46 IPCC Insiders Challenge CO2 Panic
Elsewhere, the 11 Asian nations that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an intergovernmental forum for cooperation and economic exchange, formed in 1967, representing nearly 650 million people, are reembracing coal with gusto.
Under pressure from Western trading partners and development funders, with promises of aid, ASEAN countries agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement.
As was detailed in a recent article, now those countries are quickly backtracking on those goals and expanding coal use. Indonesia’s government is expanding coal production and halted the early phase-out of coal plants. Vietnam’s coal use for electricity jumped 44 percent in March, accounting for 56 percent of the country’s total power output, the most in recent years. Meanwhile, utilities there negotiated extra coal imports to make up for the loss of expensive and scarce liquefied natural gas resulting from the war in Iran. Thailand restarted two decommissioned units at the Mae Moh coal-fired power plant, ordering existing coal stations to operate at maximum capacity. The result, Thailand added 600 megawatts of coal-fueled electricity to stabilize electricity costs and ensure grid reliability.
In the face of power emergencies, the Philippines and Myanmar also expanded their coal use by keeping coal plants, previously under death sentences, open.
Non-ASEAN Asian countries are also restarting coal plants and expanding coal use, according to Agence France-Presse. South Korea lifted its cap on power generated by coal, and Thailand is restarting operations at two coal power units it decommissioned in 2025. And, in India, already the second-largest coal-using country, coal is displacing gas for cooking.
Developing countries are not the only nations reembracing coal as a power source. Industrial Info reports Italy and Germany have both recently acted to keep coal facilities previously slated for closure operational and online. Germany delayed its planned end of coal use from 2030 to 2038. In Italy, a large coal facility that was supposed to have been decommissioned at the end of 2025 has had its government license to operate extended through 2038.
Climate change just isn’t the political or economic draw it once was. Fears of distant harms based on forecasts that have been recently acknowledged as false just can’t compete with the public’s concern about high energy prices and reliable power. In the end, to paraphrase Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) in the energy context, “the rumors of coal’s demise have been greatly exaggerated,” for which the public can be thankful.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., ([email protected]) is director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization based in Illinois.
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