coal

The Rainbow Warrior's protest at the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant in the Philippines has ended on a high note. Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri sent a message of support to the crew saying, "I will file a resolution in the Senate seeking a halt in the construction of new coal fired power plants in the country."

The action ended on the eve of the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting in Japan, where the richest industrialised countries in the world gathered at the weekend to discuss solutions to climate change. Ending the use of coal needs to top the agenda.

More information on our international site »

The crew of the Rainbow Warrior kicked off a month long "Quit coal" tour around south-east Asia today when they blocked a coal shipment at the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant in Quezon province, south-west of Manila.

Silly question I know. A coal plant is a coal plant is a coal plant - still the dirtiest form of power generation known to us, no matter which way you look at it. But now that more and more people are uneasily waking up to the fact that the government are about to sanction a new generation of the things, suddenly we're knee-deep in spin about how environmentally friendly they could become. How surprising.

First there's been a great slew of CCS 'clean coal' stories. Carbon capture and storage may be theoretically feasible but it's expensive (up to twice the cost of unabated coal), technically complicated (involving deep cooling the CO2 into liquid form and creating a network to pump it out back under the North Sea where our oil and gas reserves originally resided) and commercially untried (so far no one is keen to pay for it themselves).

Welcome to our very first Greenpeace podcast! It's going to be a fortnightly affair, so make sure you subscribe.

In this episode, we head down to Aldermaston's nuclear weapons factory on the 50th anniversary of the first legendary march - and meet a few of the folks who were there the first time around. Greenpeace's James Turner joins hundreds of flash mobbers at Heathrow's Terminal 5 on its opening day to find out why so many people are saying "enough's enough" when it comes to airport expansion. And climate change writer and campaigner Mark Lynas tells Joss Garman what he thinks of new runways, new coal, new mayors and the need for mass action. The podcast is presented by our very own James Turner.

Download the podcast

You can also listen to it right now - just click the play button below.

Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes | Google Reader | My Yahoo!

You can also subscribe by email to receive an alert when a new episode is published.

Want to find out more about the issues in this podcast?

Aldermaston, 50 years on »
Terminal 5 flash mob »
The new coal rush »
Mark Lynas »
Stop Heathrow expansion »
Say no to new coal »
Take action for peace with CND »

Greetings from the black hole: protesters at Ffos-y-Fran open cast pit in South Wales

Climate change campaigners marked the third annual "Fossil Fool's Day" on Tuesday with a series of protests around the world highlighting the need for us all to reduce the amount of carbon we burn. Here in the UK the focus was very much on coal, and sending a message to ministers that if new coal plants like Kingsnorth are built, they'll ruin any realistic chance that we have of meeting our commitments to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and represent a devastating failure of the government's resolve to tackle climate change. Key events included:

• the shutting down one of Europe's largest open cast coal mines at Ffos-y-Fran in South Wales;
• Earth First! activists blockading the UK's largest gas Terminal at Bacton in Norfolk;
• People and Planet building a 12ft high model of a coal-fired power station in Parliament Square;

Roll up, roll up! The climate circus is in town. Confronted with melting ice caps, unprecedented species extinction, droughts and extreme weather, climate change threatens our very survival. The fools at the head of the fossil fuel empire continue to plunder the earth, with the governments as willing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape climate change with techno-fixes, market mechanisms and offset schemes - all technocratic acrobatics that distract us from the truth: the only real solution to climate change is to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Actions will be happening all over the world. Here in the UK there'll be a protest against new coal-fired power stations. From 8am London World Development Movement groups are co-ordinating a protest outside the Department for Enterprise Business and Regulatory Reform (or Dberr) to laugh at the minister for business, John Hutton. Hutton is currently set to make a right fool of the government's climate policy if he signs off on EON's new Kingsnorth power station.

Business secretary John Hutton's plans to see a new coal-fired power station under construction this summer suffered a significant setback after E.ON, the company behind the proposed plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, asked him to delay the decision on whether the plant should be built.

Until now Hutton's Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Dberr) and E.ON had both been pushing for a decision to be made by 'end May 2008 at latest'. According to documents obtained by Greenpeace under the FoI Act, E.ON's plans were so advanced that contractors had already been secured to commence building work 'from summer 2008 on current tenders'.

Energy minister John Hutton has been caught trying to sabotage the EU renewable energy targets again. A minister from Hutton's department has been working in Brussels to try and redefine what constitutes 'renewable energy.' After last year's fiasco when Hutton’s department were seen trying to wreck EU renewable targets altogether, now the business minister Lady Vadera has been filmed trying to water them down at an EU energy council meeting.

This week the Rainbow Warrior marked the start of a six week 'Target Climate Change' tour of New Zealand with an action against the Hellenic Sea, a 60,000 tonne bulk carrier owned by coal exporter Solid Energy. While it trades on NZ's clean green credentials the government is making millions of dollars from Solid Energy peddling coal on the world market - quite literally stoking the fires of climate change.

Read more »