The government will pay up to 14 billion euros ($15.61 billion) in financial aid to the affected states of Brandenburg, North-Rhine Westphalia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt until 2038, the spokesman said. Berlin would take further measures worth up to 26 billion euros to help brown coal regions until 2038 at the latest.

The German government plans to compensate utility RWE (RWEG.DE) with around 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion) for costs related to the country’s planned coal exit, two government sources said on Thursday.

"A host of policies and technologies will be needed across every sector to keep climate targets within reach, and further technology innovation will be essential to aid the pursuit of a 1.5 degrees [Celsius global temperature] stabilization," Birol said in Abu Dhabi.

Based on current policies, India’s energy demand could double by 2040, with electricity demand potentially tripling as a result of increased appliance ownership and cooling needs.

Electricity generation from coal will rise only marginally over that period, at less than 1% per year – and its share will decline from 38% in 2018 to 35% in 2024. This means coal remains by far the single largest source of power supply worldwide.

“South Africa is a major producer of coal,” Mantashe added. “Entire towns and settlements exist around coal mining areas, and as such, our focus must be on how to mitigate the impact of coal sector downscaling.”

South Korea will shut up to 15 coal-fired power plants for a period of three months starting December to curb air pollution, which impacted imports in November.

In November, China imported 20.78 million mt of coal, up 8.5% year on year, the GAC data showed.

The market capitalization of five of the top 10 U.S. coal companies was sliced by more than half from early January to mid-November 2019.

The relaxing of curbs on coal power, combined with shrinking investment in solar and wind energy, have caused further alarm over carbon dioxide emissions in China.