LET'S CALL THE COAL THING OFF.

It seems Wall Street is realizing that investing in coal-fired power plants is a bad long-term strategy, and that a cap on carbon emissions is inevitable. Three of the biggest investment banks -- Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley -- announced this week that they're creating new environmental standards that will make it more difficult for companies to secure investments for new coal-fired power plants. The standards will require utility companies seeking funds to build new plants to demonstrate that the plants will be economically viable under carbon constraints, and mandates that new plants take actions to be more energy-efficient, incorporate renewable energy sources, or put in place carbon capture and storage technology. The fact that major financial institutions are realizing that coal is becoming an expensive, dirty habit is very good news in the battle against climate change.

This comes at the heels of last week's announcement from the Department of Energy's announcement that they're pulling funding for FutureGen, the project that was supposed to develop the country's first "clean coal" power plant (and, it should be noted, was pretty much the sum total of Bush's misguided "plans" for addressing global warming). After the costs of the program shot up to $1.8 billion, the Energy Department decided the project was too expensive. Enviro groups have been arguing for some time, that clean coal is both too expensive and not a practical long-term solution to emissions concerns -- not to mention all the known environmental and health concerns related to mining coal.

Could these recent moves signal the beginning of the end for coal? Here's hoping.

--Kate Sheppard