Responding to this afternoon's Commons vote, in which the Goverment voted against a cross-party amendement to the Energy Bill that would have put limits on coal burning in the UK, Greenpeace Policy Director Doug Parr said:
"The Government has today extended the lifespan of the country's dirtiest power stations. By voting through a loophole in the Energy Bill allowing unabated coal burning in the UK for an extra decade, it has damaged efforts to cut pollution, jeopardised investment in lower carbon energy and ignored the 1,600 premature deaths brought about each year from coal burning. (1)
"Phasing out coal is the most cost effective way to meet our carbon reduction goals, but the Government has chosen not to take this route. For the Tories this was perhaps predictable, but in the case of the Lib Dems, they have voted against their own party's amendment (2) and overseen a resurgence of the dirtiest fuel there is in the UK. How they are going to explain that to their shrinking voter pool is anyone’s guess."
ENDS.
(1) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/02/coal-kills-1600-vote-tighter-controls
(2) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/04/house-lords-coal-power-stations