Support for coal is compromising UK climate leadership, says US group
August 22nd 2008

The British government's pursuit of a new generation of coal power is undermining its leadership position on climate change, according to a group of US scientists and environmentalists.

The leaders of three influential US groups are said to have written to foreign secretary, David Miliband, warning that the UK's proposals for eight new coal plants threaten the chance of the US joining a post-Kyoto international agreement in 2009, reveals The Guardian.

With Carbon Capture not yet a reality, plans for the new coal plants have come under serious criticism in the UK, with the establishment of a permanent Climate Camp at Kingsnorth being just one manifestation of this.

Coal supporters argue that the severity of the energy gap we face means we will have to rely on coal at some point so: It is better to use local coal than importing it half way around the world."Jon Lloyd, Chief Executive, UK Coal speaking at The Energy Institute's summer conference.

Lloyd also predicted Carbon Capture could be up and running by 2014.

However the letter from the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council argues Britain must take account of its particularly vulnerable position because of its: "historic commitment to leads on global warming in Europe and around the world."

The letter 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."

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