coal

Clean coal technology like this is at work right now in a coal-fired power station near you

Energy companies putting in bids to run new coal-fired power stations have been quick to seize upon carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the ideal solution to their biggest problem - explaining why they're so keen to return to using the dirtiest fossil-fuel possible at a time when we need to cut CO2 emissions dramatically to reign-in climate change.

The noble art of Google bombing - of making a website rise up the search results by encouraging other websites to link to them in a particular way - is being harnessed by blogs campaigning against new coal-fired power stations, especially Kingsnorth. The idea is to make the No New Coal website appear at the top of the list anytime a search is done for 'Eon' (which is, of course, the company so intent on building a plant at Kingsnorth).

Anyone with a website, blog or profile on the likes of MySpace or Facebook can help out, so if you'd like to help here are the full instructions I purloined from Climate Change Action:

Lord Turner's Committee on Climate Change, which reported to the government on Monday, has gone a long way towards ruling out new coal plants like Kingsnorth from playing a role in any future UK energy mix.

Two climbers plan their ascent © Greenpeace/Rose

As the climate negotiations rumble on at Poznan in Poland, down the road at the coal power plant a group of Greenpeace climbers have scaled 150 metres up the chimney stack to hang 'Quit coal' banners, while another group has blocked the main entrance gate.

One of the climbers is Will, one of the Kingsnorth Six who were recently acquitted on charges arising from a similar action at (where else?) Kingsnorth power station in Kent - in fact, Will is providing the photos from the top of the chimney.

EU leaders - 20 years of broken promises...

On 11 December at Poznan in Poland, our governments will decide Europe's response to climate change for the next 12 years. Unless they agree to at least 30 per cent cuts in European greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, we'll have no chance of keeping global warming below 2°C and avoiding climate catastrophe.

So far there is still an utter lack of any kind of visionary leadership in these talks. There are still governments that repeatedly fail to grasp the urgency of the crisis. That's why we need to make ourselves heard, because the impacts of climate change are racing ahead of the scientific projections.

If we're to avert catastrophic climate change the world must quit coal. But the industry and the powerful forces which rely on it won't go down without a fight. Yesterday, in Warsaw, Greenpeace provided them with two reminders of why we all need to quit coal.

Peaceful protesters from the our Climate Rescue Station were attacked by mine workers today as they entered the vast Jóźwin IIB open pit mine near Konin in Poland. As they prepared to paint a huge "Stop" sign next to a giant excavator, the activists were assaulted and prevented from carrying out their peaceful protest. A journalist accompanying them was also beaten.

Two Greenpeace ships - one of them the Rainbow Warrior - have been impounded and their captains and 90 others arrested after three days of nonviolent direct actions in the Netherlands.

Some of the 100 volunteers occupying the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam.

I'll start at the beginning. On Friday evening, nearly 100 Greenpeace volunteers pitched tents next to the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam (one of eight E.on plans to build in Europe), to bear witness to the unfolding climate disaster.

At first light on Saturday, they moved onto the site and occupied it, stopping construction for 10 hours before all being arrested.