The European Union’s emissions trading system effectively forces power companies to pay for some of coal’s excessive emissions. But even in the United States, where no such penalty exists, generating electricity from wind turbines, which draw on local resources, may be cheaper than importing coal in some places.

In many parts of the world, coal-fired plants and mines rely on government assistance for some of their profits, if not their survival. In the United States, the coal industry benefits from federal tax breaks and gets indirect support through the availability of tax-exempt bonds, loan guarantees and lien accommodations to support investment in coal plants. The European Union’s goal is not to completely eliminate coal but to replace it, where it is not economical, with cleaner forms of power. But ending coal subsidies is not easy.

In Europe, Germany and Spain objected vigorously to the proposed Dec. 31 deadline, arguing that the recession made revoking subsidies this year impractical. Coal accounts for 30 percent of electricity production and 17 percent of energy consumption in the European Union.

In fact, Europe passed the first law phasing out operating subsidies to the coal industry in 2002 — and the deadline had been moved back repeatedly. Some countries, like France and Italy, have ended subsidies. Some subsidies, like those intended to retrain former miners or to clean up mining sites, were not prohibited.

Bowing to pressure, the exasperated ministers of the European Union said in July that they would grant a very limited extension of certain subsidies until 2014, but with a host of new stipulations. For example, subsidies can now be awarded “only in the context of a closure plan” that fully shuts the plants by January 2014, and they have to be reduced 33 percent every 15 months. And money cannot be used to obtain access to new coal reserves. The proposal will be voted on this year.