Advertisement
Javier Blas, energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg, posted the following chart on X (Twitter) showing how the International Energy Agency (IEA) has consistently underestimated global coal demand, which is running around 1 billion tonnes higher (~9%) than the agency had expected only five years ago:
“The forecasting error equals to the anual demand of the EU, Japan and the US — combined”, Blas noted.
The 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy, considered the gold standard for tracking what powers the world, was released in July and revealed that global coal consumption hit a record high after growing by 0.7% in 2025.
Advertisement
The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
Advertisement