How to Exit Coal: 10 criteria for coal phase-out plans

The briefing argues that financial institutions must move beyond vague requests and implement strict, time-bound criteria to ensure coal companies genuinely phase out thermal coal. It establishes immediate thresholds for stopping financing to coal majors and outlines ten requirements for credible phase-out plans, including specific closure dates, prohibitions on selling plants or converting them to other fossil fuels, and the requirement for just transition plans.

• Financial institutions should immediately cease providing services to companies that develop new coal infrastructure, expand existing plant lifetimes, acquire new facilities, generate over 20% of revenues or electricity from coal, or possess more than 5 GW of coal-fired capacity or produce over 10 million tonnes of coal annually.
• For remaining coal companies, financial institutions should require the adoption of a credible phase-out plan by January 1, 2022, applied at the corporate group level including all subsidiaries and joint ventures. Failure to do so should lead to the suspension of new financial support, with a permanent cessation of all services if no plan is adopted by January 1, 2023.
• A credible coal phase-out plan must meet ten specific criteria: cancellation of all expansion plans; closure of all thermal coal facilities in the OECD, Eastern Europe, and Former Soviet Union, and 80% of the global fleet by 2030 (all by 2040); facility-by-facility closure dates; a ban on selling facilities to new owners; a ban on converting plants to fossil gas, biomass, or fossil-based hydrogen; a prohibition on using carbon capture and storage to delay closures; the implementation of funded just transition plans for workers and the environment; a pledge not to use investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms to challenge phase-outs; a cessation of lobbying against government climate action; and the recognition that net-zero commitments or Science-Based Targets are not substitutes for a phase-out plan.

APA

admin (2021). How to Exit Coal: 10 criteria for coal phase-out plans. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/12/07/how-to-exit-coal-10-criteria-for-coal-phase-out-plans/

Chicago

admin. How to Exit Coal: 10 criteria for coal phase-out plans. Reclaim Finance, 2021. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/12/07/how-to-exit-coal-10-criteria-for-coal-phase-out-plans/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=admin |title=How to Exit Coal: 10 criteria for coal phase-out plans |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=7 December 2021 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/12/07/how-to-exit-coal-10-criteria-for-coal-phase-out-plans/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{admin2021how, author = {admin}, title = {{How to Exit Coal: 10 criteria for coal phase-out plans}}, institution = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2021}, month = dec, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2021/12/07/how-to-exit-coal-10-criteria-for-coal-phase-out-plans/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }