Barack Obama tried to fundamentally transform the country.
He thought he built a legacy to last.
And Barack Obama was fuming after this curveball turned his legacy to rubble.
Obama promised to destroy coal and kept his word
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them, because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted," Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board in January 2008.¹
"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," he added.²
The future president laid out his vision to destroy an industry that powered American prosperity for generations.
Then he spent eight years making good on it.
Obama unleashed the Environmental Protection Agency on coal country like a weapon of mass destruction.
Between 2008 and 2012 alone, 50,000 coal mining jobs vanished.³
By the time Obama left office, 83,000 coal jobs had been eliminated and 400 mines shuttered.⁴
Major coal companies filed for bankruptcy one after another — Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal, Patriot Coal, Walter Energy, James River Coal — wiping out billions in shareholder value and thousands more jobs.⁵
West Virginia communities saw unemployment rates hit double digits as the lifeblood drained from coal towns.⁶
Obama's crown jewel was the Clean Power Plan announced in 2015.
He called it "the single most important step that America has ever made in the fight against global climate change."⁷
The regulation would have forced states to reduce carbon emissions by 32% by shutting down coal-fired power plants.⁸
Obama thought he'd won.
He believed the world would follow America's lead in destroying coal.
He was dead wrong.
The world just rejected Obama's climate crusade
The International Energy Agency dropped a bombshell report this month that obliterated everything Obama tried to accomplish.
Global coal demand reached 8.85 billion tons in 2025 — an all-time record high.⁹
That's not a typo.
After decades of climate alarmists declaring coal dead, after Obama spent eight years trying to bankrupt the industry, after billions spent on wind and solar subsidies, the world is burning more coal than ever before in human history.
Coal demand grew 0.5% in 2025, marking the third consecutive year the IEA predicted coal would peak — and the third straight year they were wrong.¹⁰
China alone consumes 40% more coal than the rest of the world combined.¹¹
While Obama lectured Americans about sacrifice and bankrupted coal communities, China built more coal-fired capacity than the United States constructed in its entire history.
India's coal consumption surged to record levels as well, jumping 5.5% in 2024 as the country's booming economy demanded reliable electricity.¹²
Southeast Asia kept expanding coal use for power generation and industrial production.
Even in the United States — ground zero for Obama's war on coal — consumption rebounded 10% in the first half of 2025.¹³
Higher natural gas prices combined with Trump's policy support kept plants running that Obama wanted shuttered.
Goldman Sachs analysts now expect only 40 gigawatts of U.S. coal capacity to retire through 2030, down from their previous forecast of 66 gigawatts.¹⁴
The reason? Utilities need reliable baseload power as electricity demand surges from AI data centers and manufacturing expansion.
Coal plants Obama tried to destroy are now essential because wind and solar can't provide the reliability modern industry requires.
Trump vindicated while Obama's legacy burns
President Trump understood what Obama never could — affordable, reliable energy powers prosperity.
In April 2025, Trump signed executive orders declaring coal essential to America's economic and national security.¹⁵
He opened massive tracts of federal land to coal mining that Obama locked away and designated coal as a "mineral" under federal law, giving it the same protections as critical minerals needed for national defense.
He directed every federal agency to rescind policies transitioning away from coal production.
"Coal is abundant and cost effective, and can be used in any weather condition," Trump's executive order stated. "Our Nation's beautiful clean coal resources will be critical to meeting the rise in electricity demand due to the resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of artificial intelligence data processing centers."¹⁶
The contrast couldn't be starker.
Obama spent eight years trying to force an energy transition that economics and physics make impossible.
He bankrupted American coal companies, destroyed 83,000 jobs, and devastated communities across Appalachia.
And for what?
Global coal demand is at an all-time high.
China built coal plants while Obama shut down American ones.
The IEA now forecasts coal demand will stay near record levels through 2030, declining only 3% from 2025 — still higher than any year before 2023.¹⁷
Obama's Clean Power Plan never even took effect.
The Supreme Court stayed it in 2016, and Trump repealed it during his first term.¹⁸
But the damage to coal country was already done.
Now Trump has revived the industry Obama tried to kill, and the world has delivered its verdict on Obama's climate legacy by burning coal at record levels.
The coal miners Obama promised to bankrupt are back to work under Trump.
The communities Obama destroyed are rebuilding.
And Obama can fume all he wants from his oceanfront mansion in Martha's Vineyard — the same oceanfront property he bought after spending years warning about rising sea levels from climate change.
Turns out Obama never believed his own climate hysteria.
He just wanted to bankrupt coal miners while he got rich.
The world saw through it and rejected his crusade entirely.
¹ Barack Obama, Interview with San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board, January 2008.
² Ibid.
³ Wall Street Journal, "Coal Job Losses 2008-2012," 2012.
⁴ Count on Coal, "Obama Kept His Promise, 83,000 Coal Jobs Lost And 400 Mines Shuttered," September 2016.
⁵ Bloomberg, "One Obama Campaign Promise That Came to Pass: Coal Bankruptcies," January 15, 2016.
⁶ Charleston Gazette-Mail, "West Virginia Coal Unemployment," 2015.
⁷ Barack Obama, "President Obama's Plan to Fight Climate Change," The White House Archives, August 3, 2015.
⁸ Environmental Protection Agency, "Fact Sheet: Overview of the Clean Power Plan," EPA.gov, August 3, 2015.
⁹ International Energy Agency, "Executive Summary – Coal 2025," IEA.org, December 2025.
¹⁰ Javier Blas, "Global coal demand rose to an all-time high in 2025," Bloomberg via X, December 2025.
¹¹ International Energy Agency, "Coal – Global Energy Review 2025," IEA.org, 2025.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ International Energy Agency, "Overview – Coal Mid-Year Update 2025," IEA.org, 2025.
¹⁴ Carly Davenport, Goldman Sachs Research Note, "US and ERCOT Power Supply/Demand Models," December 2025.
¹⁵ Donald J. Trump, "Reinvigorating America's Beautiful Clean Coal Industry," The White House, April 16, 2025.
¹⁶ Ibid.
¹⁷ International Energy Agency, "Demand – Coal 2025," IEA.org, December 2025.
¹⁸ National Public Radio, "Trump Climate Rule Undercuts Obama Policy, Aims To Help Coal Plants," NPR.org, June 19, 2019.
