Climate Change, coal, and Government and Business Intervention

There is a growing body of opinion that coal is the major villain in climate change. In six months world leaders are due to seal a global climate change agreement in Paris, which some countries say should include a deadline for phasing out the use of fossil fuels. As the FT reported, German chancellor Angela Merkel said recently the global economy should be decarbonised this century and she is expected to urge other wealthy countries to support such a measure at the next meeting of the G7 group of leading economies in June. But ahead of that meeting, a growing number of government and business bodies are exerting market pressure on coal producers and users, which is likely to stimulate market forces into moving out of coal.