UK risks climate leadership over dirty coal, say US groups

The British government risks scuppering a global deal to cut emissions if it presses ahead with a new generation of dirty coal power, says a powerful coalition of US scientists and environmentalists
Juliette Jowit
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 22 2008 14:20 BST

US scientists say Britain's new generation of coal-fired power stations would undermine climate change efforts.
The British government will lose its leadership position on climate change and risk scuppering a global deal to cut emissions if it presses ahead with a new generation of dirty coal power, say leading US scientists and environmental leaders.
The heads of three influential groups, representing more than 2 million members, have written to the foreign secretary, David Miliband, warning that the UK proposals for up to eight new coal plants threatens the chance of the US joining a post-Kyoto international agreement to be agreed in 2009.
It is the first public sign of growing international anger over the plans and will add to pressure on Miliband and the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, to oppose the government's new coal policy in cabinet. Most immediate is the decision on whether to approve the first major planning application for a new coal plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, the site of this month's Climate Camp protest.
In the UK, there has already been heavy criticism of the plans to build new coal plants, without technology to capture and bury the large volumes of carbon dioxide emitted. Lord Smith, the new head of the government's Environment Agency, recently added forcefully to condemnations by the Environmental Audit Committee, the Royal Society, City investment groups, the government's environmental advisor Jonathon Porritt, former chief scientist Professor Sir David King, and the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank.
The letter, now revealed to the Guardian, is signed by the heads of the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It argues Britain is in a particularly important position because of "your government's historic commitment to lead on global warming in Europe and around the world."
It adds: "As proposed, these conventional coal plants lack any limits on their emissions of carbon dioxide and would drastically increase the UK's carbon dioxide emissions and make achievement of your stated pollution reduction goals extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Building new conventional plants and setting the UK up to fail and lose its leadership mantle will make our work in the US all the more difficult."
Tim Jones, climate policy officer for the World Development Movement anti-poverty campaign group, said the concern was shared across the developing world, especially where emerging environment campaigns are arguing for much poorer nations to cut emissions, and rich countries like the UK are being blamed for changes such as typhoons, drought and rising sea levels.
"They can adapt to one to two degrees of warming, but if it's more than that they can't adapt; they are just filled with despair," said Jones.
British officials and ministers are understood to have already been challenged over plans for unabated coal power by other governments.
The US intervention - signed by Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director, Kevin Knobloch, the UCS president, and Frances G Beinecke, the NRDC director – follows an unprecedented campaign against new coal power in the US which has led to 66 of a proposed 150 new plants being abandoned or rejected by politicians and the courts, and most of the remainder locked in legal battles.
But although the two main candidates for the US presidential election in November, John McCain and Barack Obama, have both declared their support for international emissions cuts, campaigners warn that any deal would also have to be approved by Congress, which would need to know there was public support for such a move, particularly during a recession.
'If the UK takes a firm stand and rejects conventional coal it will send a strong, clear message to our new President and a new Congress, as well as to other countries considering new coal plants,' the letter adds.
Replying for the British government, the energy minister at DBERR, Malcolm Wicks, said "as a 'live' planning case I cannot comment on the merits or otherwise…or on the timing of any decision".
In a Guardian interview earlier this month, Wicks widened the government's argument in favour of coal, saying that new power stations were not just essential for energy security but also to allow the development of carbon capture and storage technology. Without that technology, "all is lost on global warming", he said, because of China's reliance on the fuel. "The idea that if we showed some kind of lead and we in Britain say no to coal and China will say 'OK we will follow' is just daft," he said. Green campaigners reject the idea that CCS cannot be developed without new, unabated power stations.
A recent report by the IPPR said the European Union's goal of reducing emissions from the power sector and heavy industry through its emissions trading scheme would collapse if the go-ahead were given to seven new coal plants in the UK and up to 75 across Europe.