About 1 million coal industry workers are at risk of losing their jobs.

Hundreds of labor-intensive coal mines are expected to close in the coming decades as they reach the end of their lifespan and countries replace coal with cleaner, low-carbon energy sources.

However, most coal mines that are likely to close “have no plans to continue operating or plans to transition to a post-coal economy.”

Dorothy Mei, director of GEM’s Global Coal Mine Tracker, said governments needed to plan to ensure workers were not affected by the energy transition. She said coal mine closures were inevitable, but the economic and social impacts of workers could not be ignored.

GEM looked at 4,300 ongoing and proposed coal mine projects around the world, which employ nearly 2.7 million people. GEM found that more than 400,000 workers are currently employed in mines that will cease operations by 2035.

GEM estimates that if plans are implemented to phase out coal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), only 250,000 miners, less than 10% of the current workforce, would be needed worldwide.

GEM estimates that China’s coal industry, the world’s largest, currently employs more than 1.5 million people. Of the 1 million jobs lost globally by 2050, more than 240,000 will be in Shanxi province alone.

China's coal industry has undergone several waves of restructuring in recent decades, with many mining regions in the north and northeast struggling to find alternative sources of growth and employment following the closure of coal mines.

The coal industry as a whole needs to proactively plan so that affected coal workers and communities do not suffer long-term consequences, said Ryan Driskell Tate, GEM's coal program director.