Troy Stangarone

Last month, Britain closed its last coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar. As the nation that built the world's first coal power plant in 1882, Britain's decision to phase out coal brings a degree of symmetry to the world's efforts to transition to cleaner fuels. It also makes Britain a test case for countries like Korea on how to transition from coal to cleaner fuels and eventually to carbon neutrality.

Britain's shift from coal power generation has been relatively swift. In 2012, coal accounted for 39 percent of Britain's power generation. In just eight years, it had fallen to 2 percent of Britain's overall power mix. Eliminating the final 2 percent took time, but Britain was able to eliminate the use of coal in power generation in 12 years.

As a result, it has reduced emissions faster than any other Group of Seven country. Since 2012, it has cut CO2 emissions by 35 percent based on emissions data from Our World in Data. Additionally, according to data from the British government, emissions declined by 50 percent between 1990 and 2022. To put this decline in context, Carbon Brief estimates that Britain's emissions last year were their lowest since 1879.

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