Rising consumption in China, India and the United States could bring coal-fired power plants to a new all-time high this year, undermining efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday, Reuters reports.

According to the agency, global coal-fired electricity production is expected to reach 10,350 Therawatt-hours in 2021, up 9% from 2020, driven by a rapid economic recovery that “has led to faster growth in electricity demand than low carbon suppliers can cope with.”

Overall, total coal demand, for both electricity and cement and steel production, is set to increase by 6% this year, according to the IEA. Even if the record consumption in 2013 and 2014 is not exceeded, next year a new historical maximum could be reached, depending on the economic growth and the meteorological evolutions, adds IEA, according to Agerpres.

“Coal is the largest global source of carbon emissions and this year’s record high in coal-fired electricity production is a worrying sign of how far the world is, in its efforts to put emissions on a downward path to zero,” said IEA executive director, Fatih Birol.

United States and the European Union had the largest increases in the use of coal for electricity production, of 20% each, followed by India, with 12% and China, the world’s largest consumer of coal, with 9%.

Increasing the use of coal for electricity production in 2021 is a 180-degree reversal after the declines of the previous two years and jeopardizes the world’s trajectory to zero emissions by 2050.