Coal

A couple of days ago, I wrote that leading climate scientist and director of Nasa's Goddard Institute James Hansen was planning to write to Gordon Brown, urging him to stop the new coal rush in the UK.

Here's the full text of that letter. It's powerful stuff, and piles the pressure onto Gordon Brown ahead of next month's decision by Medway Council, on whether to allow the first new coal plant in 30 years to be built at Kingsnorth.

Nobel peace prize winner Al Gore would be proud. A few months ago, he said "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations." The people of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales have taken him at his word (albeit one step further back in the supply chain) to shut down work on Britain's biggest ever open-cast coal mine.

The results of the Australian federal election this weekend have stirred up waves of excitement not only in our antipodean offices but also around the world in anticipation that the country's government will finally, at long last, ratify the international Kyoto agreement on climate change.

According to Greenpeace Australia, it was an election in which climate change was one of the top issues (but don't just take their word for it, the BBC thought so too) and changes are already afoot. Out-going prime minister John Howard is replaced by Labor's Kevin Rudd who, as part of his manifesto, pledged to ratify Kyoto, an action that could have far-reaching consequences for global climate politics.

Along with the US, Australia is the only big polluting country involved in the Kyoto process not to have ratified. If Rudd honours his promise, it will leave George Bush without the support he received from Australia in his stick-in-the-mud attitude towards Kyoto, and make him even more isolated in the twilight months of his administration.

See all Kingsnorth updates.

Phew, what a couple of days - there are lots of exhausted (not to mention dust covered) faces in the office today.

On Monday morning, we took over Kingsnorth coal fired power plant to say no to a new coal rush in the UK, and yes to a sane, clean energy future. That evening, E.ON served an injunction and the people locked onto the conveyor belt were arrested and taken into custody. Meanwhile, the climbers on the chimney began painting a message to Gordon, going strong until the light failed them.