In case you missed it, on Saturday we heard some big news. In a surprising move in the run up to the general election, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband launched a joint pact stating that the UK will aim to the first major economy to end unabated coal burning.
This is an unprecedented announcement. And if other countries follow this example, it could make an incredible difference to capping planet-warming CO2.
Emissions from coal-fired power stations increased by 19% between 2010-13, with UK coal plants emitting more annual CO2 than the entire economies of Norway and Sweden combined. In the first three quarters of last year coal power stations accounted for up to 37% of UK electricity generation.
But the government's climate change advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, have said that in order to meet legally binding climate change commitments "there can be no role for conventional coal generation in the UK beyond the early 2020s."
Similarly, a recent high-profile report by the Global Commission on the Economy and the Climate, which was jointly commissioned by the UK government argued that “high-income countries should commit now to end the building of new unabated coal-fired power generation and accelerate early retirement of existing unabated capacity”
But research by Imperial College London has shown that a huge amount of unabated coal power, up to 9GW, could still be on the system in 2030. This would wreck the UK’s chances of removing climate-wrecking carbon from its electricity system by 2030 – as recommended by the government’s climate change advisors.
This threat led Greenpeace to launch a campaign calling on political parties to commit to an end to dirty coal. We stopped a train carrying coal to EDF-owned Cottam power station last year, unloading its dirty cargo. And we have worked with our friends in the Climate Coalition to secure this unprecedented commitment.
The next step is to make sure political leaders commit to a date by which they will phase out dirty coal. Greenpeace is calling for a phase out of coal by the early 2020s, in line with advice from the Committee on Climate Change. Join us in calling on David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband to make this happen.
