South America’s complete halt of new coal projects marks a global turning point in the clean energy era
South America just achieved a remarkable energy milestone, quietly setting a global benchmark: for the first time in history, the entire continent now has zero new coal-fired power plants planned. To grasp how remarkable this is, we need only glance back a decade. When the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, South America had eighteen coal-fired plants on the drawing board, reflecting global uncertainty about the role coal would play in powering emerging economies. Today, that uncertainty has vanished. Coal, once perceived as a staple of industrialization and economic stability, has essentially vanished from the continent’s energy future.
Historically, coal played a modest but still significant role in South America’s power mix. The continent’s grid has traditionally been powered predominantly by hydropower and natural gas, with coal concentrated in a handful of countries — most notably Chile, Colombia, and Brazil. Chile, in particular, relied heavily on coal for decades, with coal-fired generation peaking at over 40% of its electricity mix in 2016. Meanwhile, Colombia’s relationship with coal is deeply intertwined with its economy; though it remains one of the world’s largest coal exporters…