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Hi there,
We are at a cross-roads in the battle to tackle catastrophic climate change. We know that to succeed we must generate far more our energy from clean sources and shut down our old, dirty power plants - yet the government seems unable to make the break from fossil-fuel power generation.
In around a month's time Secretary of State for Business John Hutton will decide whether to permit construction to start at Kingsnorth in Kent, on the first of a new generation of coal-fired power stations. If it gets the go-ahead - and all the indications are that it will, then any realistic chance we have of reducing our CO2 emissions by a meaningful amount will fly right out of the window.
Just in case you need a reminder about why this is such bad news -
coal-fired power generation is the most environmentally damaging means of generating electricity yet devised. In fact, in carbon terms, coal is the dirtiest fuel known to man.
How concerned should we be? Well, the world's most respected climate scientist, Jim Hansen, is so worried about plans for new coal plants in Britain that he recently took the unprecedented step of writing to the Prime Minister to remind him that "the single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal." and that Brown
held "the future of the world in his hands."
The government has been holding out the hope that ' carbon capture and storage' (CCS) technology will be available to extract the CO2 from the power generation process before it is released into the atmosphere. But the trouble with CCS is that no-one knows when - if ever - it will be commercially available. Definitely not before Kingsnorth comes on stream in 2012, and almost certainly not in the following ten years when the rest of the proposed new coal plants enter service.
Kingsnorth will not be a CCS plant for at least a decade - if at all. And in the meantime it will release more CO2 into the atmosphere than the thirty least polluting countries combined and would set a dangerous precedent. So this proposal has to be stopped in its tracks - it really is just that simple. Support is already mobilising across all parties among those who recognise the seriousness of the situation. You can help by keeping up the pressure on John Hutton - please take a few minutes to write to him and urge him to reconsider approving Kingsnorth and all the other new coal plants currently in the pipeline.
Thanks as ever for your support,
Joss Cope
22 February 2008
PS Writing a personal letter laying out your objections to new coal in your own words is much more powerful than signing a petition and could make all the difference. Asking your MP to personally lobby John Hutton would have even more impact.
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