> renewables have always been just a few years away from being cheaper than coal
Because coal costs money wind farms are cheaper to operate than a coal plant and have been for many years. So then the question becomes is it cheap enough to offset the cost of building and installing the turbines? And in many places the answer to that has been "Yes" too for some time now.
Energy producers in the sector can profitably build and run an onshore wind farm in the UK on the expectation of being paid about £50 per MWh which is a pretty typical market price. If it gets much cheaper it starts to compete with the open market price for coal ignoring the price of a power plant to burn it, and staff to run the plant.
Natural gas is more competitive, because that's more efficient (more electricity for the same price of fuel), but it also doesn't cause air pollution deaths (it just drives climate change because it's shoving CO2 into the air) unlike coal which causes huge amounts of death and disease.
Also: I've seen several reactions in this thread that express doubt that it can possibly be this bad, surely if burning coal emitted poisonous fumes that kill people we'd have noticed. But We did that's why that coal power plant has big chimneys, when people first built large coal powered machines they discovered the fumes are incredibly toxic and began choking people and so they... built taller chimneys to send the problem further away. But the problem wasn't gone, it was just dispersed. 5000 people get lung problems in the surrounding counties instead of five people choking to death in front of your eyes.