The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s publication on Monday of its Clean Power Plan for cutting carbon emissions from the U.S. electricity sector is further evidence that we may have reached peak coal.

New data, from an unnamed research group, shows that so far this year Chinese imports of coal have collapsed, down over 40% year to date with imports for the full year likely to be circa 140Mt compared to a 193Mt high in 2013.

The five largest consumers of coal worldwide in 2014 according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy were China (50.6%), US (11.7%), India (9.3%), EU (7%) and Japan (3.3%). Of them the US, Europe and Japan saw drops in coal consumption last year with Chinese growth flat.

Chinese GDP grew by 7.4% in 2014, with electricity growth at 3.8%, while coal demand remained flat. One of the reasons for this is to move to renewables. Last year the Chinese added some 30 GW of wind and solar and 20GW of hydro capacity and this year they are likely to add as much of as 40GW of wind and solar. And going forward that is only going to accelerate which means there will be less need for coal. Why is China doing this? Because China has huge air and water quality problems as well as growing concerns about climate change. And this move away from coal may happen faster than many of us think.

Coal is under attack in the US and Europe. In the US, the EPA has suffered a legal setback in its new Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS), but submits detailed plans for carbon emission limits from fossil fuel fired power plants on Monday. The most likely result will be the mothballing of coal plants. This is what we already seeing in Europe thanks to the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) which is causing GWs of coal power plant Kompania Weglowa closures across the continent.

Only India with a 11.1% increase in coal consumption saw growth.

So among the top 5, it seems clear that Japan, Europe and the US have already seen peak coal demand and it could be argued that Chinese demand is close to peaking too.

The result? Over the last four years coal prices have collapsed by over 50% from $120/t to below $60 today. This has happened on the back of significant increases in coal production particularly from Indonesia, Australia and Russia as well as falling demand from major markets such as the US and China, all of which have led to global surpluses. To make matters worse there is hardly a major coal using country which does not see the burning of coal as a problem.

To add to these miseries the cost of capital for those wanting to build new coal mines is likely to go up because of the growing “regulatory and price risk” around coal usage. Add to that the fact that many major global investors including Europe’s biggest, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund (Norges), are now deciding to divest from coal.

The impact can be seen in the US where many of the major coal producers are in financial difficulties. Last month we saw Walter Energy, an Alabama coal miner, file for bankruptcy. And Alpha Natural Resources, a leading producer of metallurgical coal, was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

But this is not the end of coal. Coal still produces 40% of global power production and to replace that with other sources will take time; as will creating new jobs for the displaced workers; and there will be huge resistance from the incumbents and unions as we are seeing in Germany and Poland. But while it may not be the end of coal it does certainly seem to be the beginning of the end!