UK branded a 'climate criminal' in global coal plant protest

Muriel Kane Published: Sunday February 22, 2009
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Environmental activists from 27 groups representing more than 40 developing nations have launched a global protest against British plans to build new coal plants. The groups are concerned that global warming will disproportionately impact developing nations with "increased floods, droughts, sea-levels and disease" affecting "hundreds of millions of people."

In an open letter to the UK's energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, the activists warn, "Coal power is the most climate-polluting way to generate electricity. New coal power stations in the UK will exacerbate the impacts of climate change on impoverished communities in the south[ern hemisphere] ... A decision to support new coal power stations will confirm the UK as a climate criminal in the international climate-change negotiations."

The World Development Movement, which is coordinating the campaign, is particularly concerned about the possibility that a new coal-fired power plant may be built at Kingsnorth in Kent without any attempt to mitigate its impact through carbon capture.

There have been repeated protests at Kingsnorth. Last October, protesters attempted to storm the site but were held at bay by guards and served with an injunction forcing them to leave.

At that time, the British cabinet was split over whether to approve the Kingsnorth plant even without obtaining a guarantee that it would be used to test the possibility of "capturing" carbon emissions and storing them under the sea.

Business secretary John Hutton was known to favor the plant under any circumstances and had warned that not building new coal-fired power plants "would make no difference to the UK’s total carbon emissions but it would, I believe, damage our energy security." However, environmental secretary Hilary Benn and foreign secretary David Miliband opposed the plant unless it was constructed as part of a carbon capture experiment.

When it was announced in October that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had created a new department of energy and climate change to be headed by Ed Milibrand -- who is David Milibrand's younger brother -- environmentalists were cautiously optimistic.

Greenpeace UK provided its members with a sample letter to send to Miliband, saying, "I would like to see you champion efforts to boost renewable energy and energy efficiency, as part of a plan to create the green collar jobs that Britain has so far lost to our European neighbours. As a first step, please put a stop to the UK’s first new coal fired power station in over 30 years at Kingsnorth in Kent."

In response, Milibrand began promising in his email auto-replies, ""We will do all we can to... put Britain at the forefront of creating green jobs and play our part in ensuring every country meets the climate change challenge."

Now, however, fears are growing that plans to build new coal-fired plants may be advanced even without the carbon capture technology -- whose effectiveness is in question in any case.