Coal May Pass Oil As World's No. 1 Energy Source By 2017, Study Says

Together, China and India will account for more than 90 percent of the rise in demand for coal over the next five years, according to the IEA.

The agency predicts that coal's growth trend will hold everywhere in the world except the United States, where it says the wide availability of cheap natural gas brought a decline in coal demand

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By 2017, the IEA also expects India to surpass the U.S. as the world's second-largest coal consumer. With that in mind, van der Hoeven says, electricity prices around the world "will depend increasingly on Chinese and Indian policy and investment decisions."

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van der Hoeven said natural gas remains the largest immediate threat to coal, which she called "the 21st century's dirty engine of growth."

Saying that "neither climate policy nor a macroeconomic slowdown stops the relentless increase of coal," van der Hoeven added, "but cheap natural gas can."

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