SINGAPORE - The global coal industry may have to shed nearly 1 million jobs by 2050, even without any further pledges to phase out fossil fuels, with China and India facing the biggest losses, research showed on Tuesday.
Dorothy Mei, project manager for GEM's Global Coal Mine Tracker, said governments needed to make plans to ensure workers do not suffer from the energy transition. If plans were implemented to phase down coal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius , only 250,000 miners - less than 10% of the current workforce - would be required worldwide, GEM estimated.
"The coal industry, on the whole, has a notoriously bad reputation for its treatment of workers," said Ryan Driskell Tate, GEM's program director for coal.