The Rainbow Warrior on route to Kingsnorth coal fired power station in Kent. © Kristian Buus / Greenpeace.
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It’s quite a sight: under a wintry sun, a flotilla of Greenpeace boats is heading down the Medway, straight towards Kingsnorth power station. The Rainbow Warrior is leading the peaceful armada and, from up here on the bridge, I can see our rigid inflatable boats abreast of us and streaming out behind in a V formation.
A couple of minutes ago, John, our executive director, phoned E.on and told them that our peaceful flotilla will be arriving at midday. Here's the mp3 or click to play:
Our amphibious incursion has a serious and peaceful purpose. The boats are carrying dozens of campaigners who plan to board Kingsnorth’s 700-metre coal jetty and then walk through the existing coal plant site to the site where E.on wants to build the UK’s first new coal plant in 30 years.
"The single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal. Coal-fired generation is historically responsible for most of the CO2 in the air today - responsible for about half of all carbon dioxide emissions globally"
Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, letter to Gordon Brown, 2007
There, they’ll plant the flags of 30 nations, bearing witness to the environmental and social destruction E.on’s proposed new plant would wreak. Coal is the biggest threat to our climate - and, as such, to the existence of the planet’s inhabitants.
The new plant would emit as much CO2 as the world’s 30 least polluting countries combined (hence the flags), dashing our chances of beating climate change and spelling disaster for millions of families around the world. Those in developing countries will bear the brunt of our energy companies’ penchant for burning coal because it makes them more profits, instead of using the clean and renewable energy sources that are ready to go.
Every week, more and more people are standing together and saying no to new coal in the UK: development groups, faith groups, environment groups, unions, politicians of all shades, scientists and, of course, thousands of UK citizens.
Now, Ed Miliband’s new department has a real opportunity to do the right thing and invest in clean, renewable energy sources, creating a million new green collar jobs, ensuring that the lights don’t go out, and cutting carbon emissions.
Their decision on Kingsnorth must be - for the sake of jobs here in the UK, for the sake of lives and livelihoods around the world, and for the sake of the millions of species at risk of extinction from climate change - to give coal the boot, by introducing a greenhouse gas standard for every new power plant that is built in the UK and by creating a coherent renewables strategy.
The atmosphere on board is quietly tense; we’ll be reaching Kingsnorth in a couple of hours and we're not sure what reaction to expect. I’ll be updating the blog, Twitter and Moblog as things unfold. Stay tuned.
