5 years ago, the New South Wales treasury released an intergenerational report that projected the demand for coal would increase at about 1.6% a year pretty much forever. This year, the Treasury’s intergenerational report is completely different.

In a technical paper prepared for this year’s report, the NSW treasury says “global demand for coal is expected to weaken considerably. Declining global demand for coal will reduce New South Wales’ economic growth over the projection period and will have impacts both on employment and the fiscal outlook.”

“This does not necessarily mean that no coal will be used in the future — new coal generators continue to be built and net zero policies allow for offsets. Nonetheless, future coal production is now expected to be considerably weaker than was forecast for the 2016 intergenerational report”, the NSW treasury says.

How much of a decrease are we talking about here? The new report posits a number of different scenarios, the worst one projecting that coal volumes will fall to zero by 2042. Even under the middle scenario, coal volumes will fall to less than half current volumes by the mid 2046. Jobs in coal production will fall from 22,000 today […]