Hot on the heels of Friday's 'Great coal train action' which halted coal shipments to Drax power station for the best part of two days, comes news of more anti-coal activity. Early this morning climate campaigners from 'Leave it in the Ground' occupied UK Coal's Lodge House site in Derbyshire where a new open cast coal mine is planned, and the rural lanscape is about to be devastated by huge earth-movers.
Under cover of darkness the activists occupied a disused farm building and took to the trees around the site of the open cast mine. Inside the building people are locked on by their necks behind the doors preventing force being used to gain entry, and barricades have been set up on the access lane to the the farm to prevent the police bringing in specialist equipment to remove them. Enough food and supplies have been brought in to enable a long-term stay.
Speaking from the site activist Andy Green said "We are here because the single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal. Coal fired generation is historically responsible for most of the CO2 in the air today - about half of all carbon dioxide emissions globally . Coal from open cast mines is dirtier than that from deep mines, so it is even worse!"
Lodge house is owned by Britain's largest coal company, UK Coal. They plan to extract one million tonnes of coal from the 122 hector site, which will devastate the area. Local councils, residents and local environmental groups have all objected to the plans, but Environment Secretary Hilary Benn still gave it the green light in 2007 and work is set to commence imminently.
"We are taking action to prevent the coal industry bent on economic growth from destroying our future," said Julie Lee from Leave it in the Ground. "If Gordon Brown gives the go ahead to a new generation of coal fired power stations beginning with Kingsnorth in Kent, it will undermine - perhaps fatally - Britain's chances of meeting its climate change targets. If Britain is to cut its emissions by 80 percent by 2050, the eight planned new coal power-fired plants alone will wipe out half of our carbon budget."
Leave it in the Ground is part of the Network for Climate Action. In the past few months NCA and its allies have organised over dozen anti-coal actions around the UK. Their protests are focused on the companies responsible for runaway carbon dioxide emissions, as well as those promoting false solutions to climate change. We wish them all the luck in the world, and look forward many more successful actions until this misguided 'rush for new coal' is finally stopped in its tracks.
