No, it's not all that matters to everyone that can't afford to pay these skyrocketing prices because there's no way to keep up with demand other than reverting to coal. The OP is about social unrest and burning coal now not long-term trends. There is no long term if everything collapses before that. Germany is already burning more coal right now because alternatives cannot in fact keep up. Your head seems stuck in the US, apparently ignorant of news from Europe (take a look at electricity prices here and what's coming online.) There's literally not enough physical natural gas, and we'll outbid everyone else into starvation for what there is and fill the gaps with coal. Green cannot compete in this environment, even where it's most heavily invested in. No way does it have a chance elsewhere.
Unless there's some significant strategic coal reserves that I'm unaware of, you'll be dealing with the issue that a lot of the coal extraction infrastructure has been decommissioned over the past decades due to market implosion. There's a lot more to extract and coal from a mine than putting a pick in the wall.
> and we'll outbid everyone else into starvation for what there is... Green cannot compete in this environment, even where it's most heavily invested in.
If you're saying that developed countries will outbid developing ones for natural gas, that seems to indicate that green technologies are no longer merely an investment decision for developing nations... They're the only option that protects their survival. If you're facing a market where you'll be consistently outbid, what choice do you have but to exit that market?
An option for what is the question. To keep these people in power long enough for their patrons to rearrange their bets and suck out a bit more on the way out? Sure. To hold over until something else can come online? I don't know.
Poland has huge infrastructure for coal extraction though by the way. Germany itself has only been down since 2018. Then there's players like Greece (75% o their demand is satisfied by their own coal) who can be trivially outbid. There was Ukraine too, but, you know...
> Macro trends are what matter.
No, it's not all that matters to everyone that can't afford to pay these skyrocketing prices because there's no way to keep up with demand other than reverting to coal. The OP is about social unrest and burning coal now not long-term trends. There is no long term if everything collapses before that. Germany is already burning more coal right now because alternatives cannot in fact keep up. Your head seems stuck in the US, apparently ignorant of news from Europe (take a look at electricity prices here and what's coming online.) There's literally not enough physical natural gas, and we'll outbid everyone else into starvation for what there is and fill the gaps with coal. Green cannot compete in this environment, even where it's most heavily invested in. No way does it have a chance elsewhere.