Coal was on the way out. That’s how it looked last year, anyway, when the International Energy Agency forecast that global demand for the dirtiest fossil fuel had plateaued and was poised to start declining . But this year hasn’t gone as expected. The agency recently projected that coal consumption will climb to a record high of 8.94 billion metric tons in 2026. Headlines have declared that coal is “back in fashion ” and making a “ comeback .”

So what changed? Blame it on the war in Iran, which choked off a chunk of the world’s oil and gas supply in the Strait of Hormuz and thrust the world into an energy crisis. Many countries turned to coal as a replacement. “The main thing is that coal is going up because gas is going down,” said Daan Walter, who leads strategy research on the future of energy for the think tank Ember.

As for the idea that there’s a revival of coal, energy experts aren’t convinced.…