This is a strange claim. During its peak years - in the mid 1990s - Moneypoint (the only coal plant in the country) provided 25% or more of the electricity mix while wind generation consisted of a few tiny pilot plants - contributing a miniscule.

In 2026, coal now provides 0% of the mix while wind provides 30% or more. Peat burning has also been fully phased out while oil (Tarbert) is in the process of being shut down while Moneypoint has been converted to oil but only participates in the capacity market - i.e. as an emergency/backup source - and so barely registers in the mix.

And even if coal was supplanted one-for-one with NG, it would still be a net win - by halving the CO2 intensity of generation as well as being far more flexible, scalable and much cheaper to deploy.

Being coal free is a good enough goal in itself, getting off fossil fuels completely in the short term was always a stupid, irrational and religious idea.

If the world transitioned everything currently on coal to Nat gas, along with population decline that's happening, it solves the worst effects of climate change for the rest our lives (Nat gas provides the same power as coal at half the emissions, so 2X less Co2 and 10X less on many air pollutants).

And in the next 100 years if we haven't made fossil fuels irrelevant with cheap modular fission OR made fusion viable OR made space solar viable, then something horrible has happened and Co2 emissions will be the least of our worries.