No New Coal

 The Great Climate Swoop, 17th-18th October

The climate swoop was a well-attended event, with approximately 1,000 people present on Saturday, many of which stayed the night in the woods.

Our bloc, called Footsteps to the Future was loud and lively (helped no end by the bike sound system) and we marched from East Midlands Parkway station to the gate of the station where we stayed for a bit, snacking and listening to speeches.

Then the march resumed, down the road (with the humongous coal pile on our left) onto the bridge where we could peacefully observe the fence which other blocs were trying desperately to pull down! There we stayed for a while, eating flapjacks, playing a giant version of paper-rock-scissors and dancing to the sound system (rather appreciated by a police officer who joined in from the pavement!) until it started getting dark and cold, at which point most people went back to the station to get transport home.

A camp complete with warming fire was set up in the woods nearby, where the majority of those that stayed slept for the night. Sunday was less eventful than Saturday, with a few people launching an unsuccessful attempt at getting a fence down before everyone got escorted back to the station where minibuses and trains took demonstrators back home.

We've uploaded some photos here.

Anti-Coal Vigil , 14 September 2009 

The public consultation on Kingsnorth closed on Wednesday the 9th of September. Ed Miliband will be making a final decision on the future of coal power in the UK.

To remind Ed how we all feel about unabated coal power we had an evening vigil outside Ed's Department of Energy and Climate Change.

At 4.30pm on Monday 14th September, we gathered outside the DECC building in London. The demonstration featured supporters from across the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, representing the wide range of public opposition to climate-wrecking dirty coal power.

You can also sign up for the Big IF anti-coal campaign with Greenpeace or WDM.

The "Mili-band"

Saturday 4th July 2009

More than a thousand people surrounded Kingsnorth pwer station in Kent - to demand "No New Coal".

And thats No New Coal unless it has 100% CCS from the start! CCS should not on any account be used as an excuse to build new coal-fired power stations untill it has been demonstrated as fully workable - thats able to remove 100% of CO2 pollution from the start! See below.

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband has invited people to mobilise to demand action on climate change so this is just what happened. On Saturday July 4, a thousand people came together to form the "the Mili-band" which was a human chain surrounding Kingsnorth power station in Kent., to renew our demand (see below) that no new new coal-fired power plant is built here unless it has CCS working at 100% (or very close) from the start.

The UK won't be able to show real leadership at Copenhagen in December if we are building new coal fired power stations at home.

FULL SOLUTIONS not HALF SOLUTIONS

NO NEW COAL without 100% CCS

Demonstration, 6.00pm Thursday 30th April, opposite Downing Street, Whitehall

Jean Lambert MEP (Green Party, London) addressed demonstrators (see photo left) as well as Joss Garman from Greenpeace.

The government's decision to ban new unabated coal-fired power stations represents a big move for the government in a green direction, and we congratulate them for that. But building new coal-fired power stations without 100% CCS (or close) is a recipe for disaster. Does anyone think the government will close down these new power plants if full scale CCS is found to be unworkable or hopelessly uneconomic?

And even in the arguably rosy case scenario - that the four power stations with 20-25% CCS are successfully upgraded to 100% after 15 years they will still emit up to 275 m tonnes of CO2 -around 50% of the UK's annual emissions. The latest science makes it clear that we cannot afford those kinds of levels of emissions if we are to have any half decent chance of preventing catastrophic climate change (see e.g. www.climatesafety.org). We cannot afford to get it just half right in the fight against climate change. The government must be told there should be no new coal-fired power stations unless they can be guaranteed to have 100% CCS from the start.

This is also about the kind of lead we're giving to other nations in the run-up to Copenhagen. We should be using CCS to reduce emissions from existing coal-fired power stations, not as an excuse to build more. This could just encourage a rash of new coal build around the world on the basis of some vague promise about CCS in the future.

The demonstration featured 2 messages for the government - one on a green poster to congratulate them on banning unabated coal, the other on a carbon-black one - to demand that they go the whole way and ban new coal without 100% CCS.

March from Rochester to Kingsnorth 
Sunday August 3rd 2008

Organised by Campaign aganst Climate Change and Kingsnorth Climate Action Medway (KCAM).

Hundreds gathered in Rochester for a rally in the high street followed by a 7 mile march to Kingsnorth power station, to demand NO NEW COAL - and no new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. This was a great showpiece event to help launch the Camp for Climate Action and generally emphasise the critical importance of the decision over Kingsnorth and the need to stop and reverse the expansion of coal-burning for power around the world. The march was joined by the Climate Camp "caravan" which had spent the previous week making its way from Heathrow, the site of last year's climate camp.

Speakers included Ashok Sinha, Executive Director of Stop Climate Chaos, Caroline Lucas MEP (Green Party principal speaker), Sean Furey, Deputy Director of the Kent Branch, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Benedict Southworth Executive Director of the World Development Movement, James Lloyd of People and Planet, Penny Eastwood from the Camp for Climate Action, Maureen Ruparel (Lib Dem Medway councillor), Steve Wilkins from Medway Trade Council, James Willis from Kingsnorth Climate Action Medway and Phil Thornhill from the Campaign against Climate Change.

The day began with a series of short but punchy speeches delivered from a soapbox, near the Blue Boar lane car park, on Rochester High Street. There was a great mix of 'national' and local speakers - making for a genuinely varied perspective on the issue. Then the cavalcade gathered to march down Rochester High street led by 2 "dinosaurs", the (7 foot cubed) globe-in-a-greenhouse, CCC banner, Caravan banner, Caravan polar bear, all manner of cycle-drawn paraphernalia and an endless parade of dinosaurs...(well, dinosaur posters..)... emphasising the theme that unabated coal-burning power stations should belong to prehistory !

The march numbers held up well over the 7 mile route - we even gained a few as well as losing some. There was a quite surprising amount of sympathetic support from local people - though also we have to report some shouted abuse from the head-in-sand brigade whose courage seemed to be mainly of the dutch variety given that they seemed to be concentrated at certain drinking establishments. All the while the distant looming sillhouette of the power station grew closer untill we finally gathered together at one of its subsidiary gates - under the watchful eyes of a very considerable police presence. There were brief final speches and notices before we dispersed - many going 'en masse' with the 'caravan' to the Climate Camp - others being shuttled back to Rochester station. At this point the weather broke ..but reinforced our appreciation for the clement weather up till now...

The media coverage for the march was excellent - with some TV, lots of radio, before during & after the march, pictures in the Metro, Financial times, London Paper, lots of lcoal papers etc...etc...

During the following week the Climate Camp made a very great splash in the media, of course, very succesfully highlighting the issue - the insanity of building new coal-fired power stations in the midst of the climate crisis. The CCC had a stall in camp advertsing the December National climate March and Global Day of Action and many CCC members were involved with the camp. The situation with the police was especially fraught at this year's camp (cue endless stories, personal anecdotes....etc..) but a mixture of determination and restraint saw the camp through, sticking to its goal of highlighting the issue through Direct Action. Many of Sunday's marchers found themselves back at the gates of the power station just under a week later on the Saturday Climate Camp Day of Action.

Humorous Aside: Amongst the dangerous items seized by the police were 2 dinosaur costumes !!! (presumably under the little known ordinance of 1384, article 3 para 2 "wilfully causing alarm by impersonating a prehistoric animal etc.." or the Statute of Silly Costumes 1493, "conspiracy to masquerade as an evolutionary anachronism...etc etc..").

Kingsnorth and New Coal

See pics from April 1st demo here.

The new threat to the global climate coming from the UK.

There has been no new coal-fired power station in the UK for 30 years but now it looks like we are about to see the first of a whole new wave of coal-fired power stations, at Kingsnorth in Kent.

Coal produces more CO2 than oil or gas. Coal is much the biggest single fossil fuel source of greenhouse gases globally. It was only the "dash for gas" (away from coal) in the 90s which has allowed the UK to reach its 'Kyoto targets'. (In fact subsequent to the 'dash' and under the Labour government UK emissions of CO2 have actually risen.)

A justification used for new coal is that a new technology called CCS ("Carbon Capture and Storage") will allow us trap the carbon from burning coal before it can reach the atmosphere. This technology will be really great if anybody can make it work (safely) but so far unfortunately no-one has got anywhere near it (see here).

Building a whole new generation of coal-fired power stations represents a huge leap backwards - it will lock us into a massive increase in emissions for decades to come. This is just the kind of disastrous big investment decision that we really don't need if we want the UK to play any serious part in the global struggle to prevent the catastrophic destablisation of the world's climate. Its no use Brown giving us promises in the shape of the Climate Bill (see here) if he fails to adopt policies that give us any chance of reaching the emissions reductions targets, set by that Bill. It is currently coal, perhaps more than anything else that is wrecking the world's climate - in particular the huge expansion of coal-fired power stations in India and China. We are in no position to ask these countries to constrain their expansion into coal if we are doing it ourselves. This is a recipe for global catastrophe!

The new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth is planned by E-on, a giant German energy corporation. They have recently got planning permission from Medway Council and and now that application is sitting on Brown's desk awaiting approval. Greenpeace have uncovered correspondence between E-on and the government that suggests they are going to get it : see here.

To email John Hutton, the Business minister who is pressing for the new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth, and demand that there is a public enquiry before this is allowed to go ahead click here

For more info:

See what leading climate scientist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute James Hansen has to say about Kingsnorth and new coal here.

See what The World Developmemt Movement has to say about Kingsnorth here.

See what Christian Aid has to say about Kingsnorth here.

Not only is the government pushing plans to build a new wave of coal-fired power stations - it is also also pushing renewed efforts to get the stuff out of the ground - even at a heavy environmental and social cost.

The Uk's biggest opencast coal mine is now being dug at Ffos-y-fran, near Merthyr Tidfyl, just 36 metres away from nearby homes.... see more here.

Demonstration on "Fossil Fool's Day" Tuesday April 1st at 12 noon, Parliament Square.

Campaign against Climate Change joined 'People and Planet' (the student environmentalists' organisation) in exposing the foolery of building a new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnoth and reverting to dinosaur coal technology just when we urgently need to reduce emissions.

Brown and Hutton, fossil fools

Some familiar CCC faces (and a familiar CCC T-shirt) at the demo, with a message for the people across the road. (And those fossil fools again!)

Its them again with the the People and Planet 'No New Coal' "cooling towers" behind

People and Planet photo-op - with lots of Gordon Browns

Some more CCC folk.

That Carbon Dinosaur placard!

Flying the flag !

'No New Coal' - a message for Westminster.

On Friday 25th January CCC took part in a what may be the first shot in a long battle - a small demonstration outside E-on's London offices at 100 Pall Mall, near Trafalgar Square. This was organised by by LSE students, and also attended by WDM ("World Development Movement")