London — Growth in global coal demand will slow over the next five years due to lower consumption in China and the US and as renewable energy sources gain ground, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Monday. The IEA said last year that the world’s top coal consumer, China, could be facing peak coal demand for the first time due to measures to cap coal use to tackle air pollution and curb excess supply. "In China, coal demand is in structural and slow decline driven by a new economic growth model and diversification of coal," the Paris-based IEA said in its medium-term coal market report. Although China’s consumption is likely to have peaked, the country will still be the largest coal user over the next five years. Its coal demand should decrease slightly to 2.816-billion tonnes of coal equivalent by 2021, compared with 2.896-billion tonnes of coal equivalent in 2014. Globally, the IEA expects coal demand to total 5.636-billion tonnes by 2021, compared with 5.400-billion ton...
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