China's stronger environmental policies and weaker economic growth are driving a global decline in coal-fired power projects, a new report found.

Since the start of this year, the world has seen a 14 percent drop in the total amount of coal-fired power capacity in early planning stages, from 1,090 gigawatts globally to 932 gigawatts in July, according to CoalSwarm, a group of climate activists and data experts that tracks almost every coal power project worldwide.

China accounted for nearly three-fourths of the canceled capacity, scrapping 114 gigawatts in pre-construction projects over the seven-month period, CoalSwarm reported on Sept. 7.

The trend, if continued long-term, would signal both important progress in the fight against climate change and a substantial obstacle to the fossil fuel industry.

A front-end loader drops coal near a coal mine at Datong, in China's northern Shanxi province, Nov. 20, 2015. Image: GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images

China is the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide and the world's largest user and producer of coal. Any step the nation takes to reduce its fossil fuel consumption would translate into significant cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions.

On the flip side, any sustained increase in Chinese coal demand would offer a lifeline to the world's struggling coal sector.

Coal companies are banking on rising energy demand across Asia to offset the declining appetite for coal in the United States and Europe — both of which are retiring coal-fired power plants faster than they are building new ones, according to CoalSwarm data.

In the U.S., coal-fired electricity accounted for just a third of total power generation in 2015, down from around 50 percent in 2007, U.S. energy data show.

Yet the prospects that Asia might rescue the coal industry are growing increasingly dim, energy experts said.

China is gradually shifting away from heavy manufacturing to a consumer-driven economy, meaning it will eventually have fewer factories with enormous energy demands. Citizens are increasingly clamoring for cleaner air in smog-choked cities.

And earlier this month, President Xi Jinping — along with U.S. President Barack Obama — formally joined the Paris climate change agreement, which aims to keep the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels by 2100.

Coal companies were "all expecting this big Asia boom, but the Asia boom didn't happen," Ted Nace, director of CoalSwarm, told Mashable.

"That's just a fantasy now."

China's canceled coal plans

China's 114 gigawatts of canceled, early-stage coal projects amounts to about 40 percent of America's total coal generating capacity of 276 gigawatts.

"That's a lot, but it's not entirely surprising," said Colleen Regan, head of North American power and environmental markets for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), who was not involved with the CoalSwarm research.

Chinese coal workers shovel black rocks in the snow, Jan. 22, 2016. Image: barcroft media via getty images

China's red-hot economic growth has begun to cool in recent years thanks to a slowdown in manufacturing activities and housing and infrastructure development.

Slower growth, in turn, has depressed electricity demand growth and created a glut of power plants.

China's overall electricity demand grew just 0.5 percent from 2014 to 2015 — its weakest annual demand growth since 1980, Regan said.

Last year, China's coal, gas and nuclear plants ran at just 49 percent of their full capacity on average, versus 61 percent in 2011, BNEF found. When a plant runs at just half the capacity, it's hard for plant operators to turn a profit.

On top of all of this, China is heavily investing in wind and solar power projects.

China invested more than $110 billion in clean energy last year, nearly twice as much as the United States, BNEF reported in January. In the first half of 2016 alone, China installed a hefty 22 gigawatts of solar power, according to China's National Energy Administration.

"They're adding more and more clean energy, at the same time that they already have a real slowdown in growth for power demand," Regan told Mashable.

In response to the power glut, the Chinese government in April halted plans for new coal-fired power plants in many parts of the country. Officials said construction of some approved plants would be postponed until at least 2018.

Regan said the chances that China might ramp up its coal investments when the economy picks up are slim, given the country's climate policies and renewable energy build-out.

"I don't foresee a scenario in which they [China] do a complete turnaround and start adding a lot more coal-fired power to their grid," she added.

Coal is still a climate threat

Despite the drop in China's coal plans, a substantial amount of coal-fired power capacity still remains in the pipeline.

Along with 932 gigawatts of pre-construction coal proposals — including announced, pre-permit and permitted projects — another 350 gigawatts are currently under construction, CoalSwarm found in its mid-2016 report.

A Chinese railway worker rides his motorcycle through coal piles. Image: Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images

If all of those projects are built and operated, global carbon emissions would likely rise high enough to keep the world from meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

Roughly 80 percent of current coal reserves must remain unused from 2010 to 2050 to keep global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius throughout the 21st century, according to a 2015 paper published in the journal Nature.

Thirty percent of known oil reserves and 50 percent of gas reserves would also have to stay in the ground.

Many new coal projects are planned in developing countries, including Indonesia and India. Yet wealthier nations such as South Korea and Japan are also providing technology and financing to build those projects.

All of this threatens to undermine countries' commitments to curb emissions through the Paris climate agreement, Han Chen, an international climate advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, told Mashable.

"This is not on the right track for decreasing emissions, and that's a huge challenge," she added.