Gordon Brown today faces his biggest test since pledging to put Britain at the forefront of efforts to combat climate change, after a proposal to build the UK's first coal fired power station in over thirty years landed on his desk.
E.ON's application to build the station at Kingsnorth was given the go-ahead by Medway council last night. The Tory controlled authority has raised no objection to a plant that would emit over eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. Now the final decision on a UK coal resurgence will be made by Brown.
Greenpeace is warning that if the PM gives the green light to a new coal-fired station at Kingsnorth in Kent it would lock Britain into huge carbon emissions for decades and signal Brown's surrender on the UK's long term climate change targets.
Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said: "Gordon Brown recently promised this country he would lead the fight against climate change. Well very soon we'll know if he meant it. The proposal for a new coal-fired power station that has now landed on his desk represents what could be the defining climate change decision of his premiership."
He added:
"The Government must not be taken in by the myth of clean coal technology. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet, and even the Chancellor admits that so called carbon capture technology may never work. With a decade left before our emissions must peak we just can't take that kind of gamble with the planet, and we certainly can't tell the Chinese and Indians not to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations if we do the same here."
Greenpeace has calculated that a new generation of coal-fired power stations will account for half of Britain's permissible carbon emissions in 2050 if Brown goes for a new 80% reduction target, as expected. Claims that the Kingsnorth plant will be "ready" to adopt Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology in the future are undermined by the evidence. A UN report into its viability predicted it won't be able to play any significant role for decades and earlier this year the UK Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted that the system was "in the foothills" and "may never work".
He continued:
"The technologies exist to generate huge amounts of energy without accelerating climate change. Just weeks ago the government said Britain will generate 33 gigawatts of electricity from offshore wind. If ministers really mean it then there's no need to build new coal-fired power stations. With energy efficiency, renewable energy and decentralised energy we can fight climate change and keep the lights on."
Waiting behind Kingsnorth are proposals for at least seven other new coal stations. New coal would fly in the face of advice from the UN's top climate scientists, who warn that global emissions must peak and then fall dramatically within the next 100 months to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change. In December Secretary of State John Hutton announced plans to generate 33Gw of electricity from offshore wind. Meanwhile Brown re-committed Britain to generating 20% of its total energy from renewables by 2020 - that would mean 40% of electricity from clean sources. If the government is serious about these promises there will be no need for coal or nuclear power.
Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore said in January: "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations." Last month Dr James Hansen, the world's most eminent climate scientist, wrote a remarkable letter to Gordon Brown telling the Prime Minister his energy policy could be a "tipping point for the world." Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology and his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. In the letter he sent to Brown, he writes: "Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today's children, and especially the world's poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate."
His letter to Number 10 - copied in to the Queen - also says: "You have the potential to influence the future of the planet. Prime Minister Brown, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points." (Full letter)
For more information contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.
NOTES:
E.ON estimates that the new plant at Kingsnorth will emit 8.4 million tonnes of Co2 per year
Alistair Darling comments at the launch of the Energy White Paper, 23rd May 2007
If we have an 80% CO2 reduction target that will mean a 2050 emissions quota of 117.8mt/CO2 per yr. The new generation of coal-fired stations would emit 56.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year, representing 48% of the new 2050 target.
