Coal and oil

World Bank: No more Coal for Kosovo!

7th February

We have the chance to stop a major dirty power plant that will poison the air and accelerate climate change. 

Here's the situation: The World Bank and the US State Department wants to finance a massive new coal-fired power plant in Kosovo. But new studies show that Kosovo does not need a new coal plant -- they can achieve their energy and development aspirations through more cost-effective investments in energy efficiency, reductions in power losses, and renewable energy.

Right now we have a 1 week opening to try and dissuade the World Bank from going ahead with the proposed coal plant. An “expert panel” from the World Bank is deciding in the next week whether to move forward with the coal plant, and it’s essential they get the message that our movement is prepared to stand together with the community there in Kosovo fighting for alternatives to coal.

Find more details and the 350.org petition here.

Tar sands - urgent

Take Action: EU member states are voting on 2 December on whether to effectively block tar sands oil from EU transport fuel due to its extremely high greenhouse gas emissions. The UK Government is set on opposing the European Commission’s proposals for the Fuel Quality Directive and opening Europe's doors to tar sands.

A recent article in the Guardian, describing documents released after a Freedom of Information request, reveals the extent to which the government is prioritising the interests of BP, Shell and the Canadian government over the need to avoid catastrophic climate destabilisation. Full documents are available from the Greenpeace website.

• Email Transport Secretary, Norman Baker, and tell him to keep tar sands out of Europe.
• Tell Nick Clegg to get his priorities straight and stop the UK backing tar sands.

Victory !

The Keystone XL pipeline has been .....well, delayed at least. So the war is not over but in the circumstances a quite siggnificant  victory (that had seemed like a quite unlikely) has been won ! All power to the US activists (see below) who finally prevailed upon Obama to take this decision. Se more here.

Stop the Keystone XL pipeline

Solidarity action at the American Embassy in London on Sunday 6 November - details here.

Recently, activists from all over the US joined together in a mass act of civil disobedience in Washington DC, challenging President Obama to stand up to Big Oil and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would transport oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to American refineries at the Gulf of Mexico. Its construction would lead to around 1 billion tons CO2 emissions from tar sands extraction.

A total of 1,252 people were arrested during the two-week sit-in outside the White House. Show your support here: http://act.350.org/sign/tar-sands/ 

In Ottawa, over 100 people were arrested in a separate protest as around 200 crossed a 3ft fence marking a restricted police zone, stepping forwards in waves.

Read more about the pipeline and tar sands.

Resources:
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/stop-the-tar-sands/
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/
http://www.tarsands.co.uk/

Action update: Tar Sands in Madagascar
In June 2011, after concerted lobbying, French oil company Total has postponed plans to mine tar sands deposits in one of the poorest regions of Madagascar.

Shale Gas 

The new technique of "hydraulic fracturing" or "fracking" for gas trapped in shale rock is causing major pollution and attracting a storm of opposition in the USA. Now "fracking" is coming to the UK, with Cuadrilla Resources claiming to have discovered reserves of 5.6 trillion cubic metres of gas under the Lancashire coast. The Campaign against Climate Change is at the forefront of the fight to stop this extreme exploitation of fossil fuels.

Latest news on the Shale Gas campaign

Coal 

Action update: Huntingdon Lane 
In August 2011, protesters at the Defend Huntingdon Lane Camp in Telford were evicted after 18 months defying UK Coal. Planning permission for a massive opencast coal mine was given by central government in 2009. When finished 900,000 tons of coal will have been extracted from the mine which will result in more than 2,430,000 tonnes of CO2 being released.  

Action update: Measham opencast coal mine
Leicestershire County Council has given plannning permission for an opencast coal mine in Measham.

Past events

The Great Climate Swoop
17th-18th October 2009

 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 humungous 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. To remind Ed Miliband, then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, 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. 

The "Mili-band"
4 July 2009

More than a thousand people surrounded Kingsnorth power 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 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.

Full Solutions not Half Solutions 
30 April 2009 

This demonstration outside Downing Street featured 2 messages for the government - one on a green poster to congratulate them on banning new unabated coal-fired power stations, the other on a carbon-black one - to demand that they go the whole way and ban new coal without 100% carbon capture and storage.

March from Rochester to Kingsnorth  
3 August 2008

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 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.

Fossil Fools Day  
1 April 2008

On 'Fossil Fools Day', the Campaign against Climate Change joined People and Planet in exposing the foolery of building a new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth and reverting to dinosaur coal technology just when we urgently need to reduce emissions. The demonstration started in Parliament Square before moving on to the London offices of Argent Group PLC who are behind the UK's biggest opencast coal mine at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.