Britain wants to close all of its coal-fired power plants by 2025 and lower their output from 2023, the government said on Wednesday, making it the first major economy to put a date on shutting down polluting coal plants to curb carbon emissions.

Amber Rudd, UK secretary of state for energy and climate change, was scheduled to set out further details in a speech later on Wednesday that will seek to encourage the building of new gas and nuclear power plants instead.

Coal-fired power plants provided around a third of Britain's electricity last year but many of the aging plants have been due to close over the next decade due to tightening European Union environmental standards.