The government was today criticised by environmentalists over its latest plans for more coal power stations.

Last night, the Government announced the publication of a consultation on carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Robin Oakley, the head of Greenpeace's climate and energy campaign, said:

"Coal burning is the single greatest threat to our climate, and this announcement does nothing to change that. It's nothing more than a smokescreen.

"This short-sighted push to approve a new fleet of coal plants is totally at odds with the encouraging renewable energy package released last week, and it exposes the incoherence of the Government's approach to energy policy.

"If the Government was serious about tackling climate change caused by coal, it should set tough limits on emissions from power stations similar to those already in place in California and supported by both the Tories and the Lib Dems."

Greenpeace press office: 020 7865 8255

A call by David Cameron's favourite think tank for a radical new approach to UK energy policy was today echoed by the UK's biggest green groups. Policy Exchange is calling for the kind of greenhouse gas efficiency standard that is applied to cars to now be applied to power stations. The call comes on the same day that Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth and the RSPB released a joint recommendation for the introduction of a tough new performance standard of 350g of CO2 per kilowatt hour for power plants.

If adopted, the standard would make it very difficult for a government to allow the building of a series of new coal-fired power stations, which are backed by Labour.

The debate around new coal is at a key juncture as John Hutton considers proposals from German energy giant E.ON to build the first new unabated coal-fired power station in Britain for three decades at Kingsnorth in Kent. A standard like the one proposed today would deter decisions that ‘lock in' high carbon projects like new coal plants such as Kingsnorth, which if approved could pollute at high levels for up to fifty years, and undermine Britain's international credibility on climate change.

Robin Oakley, head of the climate campaign for Greenpeace UK, said: "John Hutton could send a signal that the UK is committed to tackling climate change by adopting this idea of a greenhouse gas standard that rules out the most climate wrecking power plants. Standards like this already exist in California ensuring that coal plants like Kingsnorth cannot be built. This standard would focus investment on implementing the real solutions to climate change and energy security - energy efficiency and renewable energy. Britain should follow California's lead."

He added: "A consensus is emerging that the emissions trading scheme alone will not bring about the transition to a low-carbon energy system that is needed. Additional measures like setting a greenhouse gas standard should help put Britain on the right path."

Keith Allott, Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK said: "Carbon capture and storage might well have some role in meeting deep emission reduction targets. But building new coal stations now without even the flimsiest of guarantees that full-scale CCS would ever be fitted is a reckless gamble that neither the climate nor the taxpayer can afford. An emissions performance standard would head off this risk, reinforce the EU emissions trading scheme and help put the UK on the path to a truly sustainable energy system."

Ruth Davis, Head of the climate campaign for the RSPB, said: "Dangerous climate change spells disaster for the world's ecosystems and the millions of people who depend upon them. To play out part in tackling the problem will require a revolution in our energy system. Setting a greenhouse gas standard that rules out the dirtiest forms of power generation is the first step towards that revolution -and an essential one if the UK wishes to safeguard its wildlife, and build a strong, green economy for the future."

Robin Webster, head of the climate campaign for FoE, said: "It's vital that the industrialised world takes the lead in making radical cuts in climate changing emissions. Now is the time to make it happen - through energy efficiency, greener transport and a massive expansion of renewable power. Building coal plants without a greenhouse gas standard would lock us into our addiction to fossil fuels and the environmental devastation it would cause."

ENDS

Greenpeace press office - 07801 212967

Hutton's department reverses climate and energy policy in six minutes and four words

A pillar of the government's climate and energy policy collapsed in the face of a single email from German utility giant E.ON, according to Whitehall documents obtained by Greenpeace.

The email – written two weeks ago - demanded that the Department for Business radically alter the conditions attached to building the UK's first new coal-fired power station in 30 years. Originally the government had asked that the new plant – proposed for Kingsnorth in Kent – be fitted with so-called 'carbon capture and storage' technology. But when E.ON wrote to the officials admitting the technology will not work and demanding the company be allowed to build a conventional high-emission coal-fired power station instead, it took the government just six minutes to reply agreeing to the request.

As a result the government's climate and energy policy – based on a faith in the potential of carbon capture technology to deliver 'clean coal' – has been exposed as hollow, with huge implications for the UK's carbon emissions targets.

In the E.ON email, sent at 8.16am on January 16th, the company says CCS technology at Kingsnorth 'obviously... has no current reference for viability at any scale.' Astonishingly, the email then goes on to insist that cabinet minister John Hutton has 'no right' to withhold approval for a conventional, highly polluting plant and that 'we [E.ON] want to build from summer 2008.'

Six minutes after the E.ON email was sent, the Department for Business replies: 'Thanks. I won’t include [the previous conditions].'

If the plant is built this summer it will emit 8 million tonnes of Co2 every year – the same as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined.

Reacting to the revelations in the emails, released under the Freedom of Information Act, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:

"Now we know who writes policy in the Department for Business. These Whitehall documents reveal a pillar of the government's climate and energy strategy evaporating in six minutes under the pressure of a single email from a German coal company. We now face the prospect of Britain building conventional coal-fired power stations without even the pretence that carbon capture technology can play a role in the short term. The implications for our emissions targets are enormous."

Both E.ON executives and government ministers have claimed that burning coal – the dirtiest of all fossil fuels – is compatible with fighting climate change. On January 3rd E.ON chief executive Paul Golby told the Today Programme that he intended Kingsnorth to be the UK's first clean carbon demonstration plant, with carbon captured from it and stored in depleted oil fields under the North Sea. Golby and others in both industry and government use terms like 'clean coal' and 'green coal' as justification for a new generation of power stations. Now the Whitehall email exchange shows how the company and the government are concerned only with pressing ahead with a conventional, polluting plant as soon as possible.

On January 23rd the government accepted a European target to generate 20% of Britain's total energy use from renewables by 2020. Gordon Brown has accepted that the target translates to 30-40% of our electricity from renewables within 12 years.

Sauven continued:

"A week after this email was written ministers were telling the public we'd be generating between 30 and 40% of our electricity from renewables by 2020. We now stand at an energy crossroads. What will it be, a renewables revolution or a renaissance for the single most climate wrecking form of energy generation in use anywhere in the world?"

In an indication of the extent to which the government is minded to approve a conventional coal plant at Kingsnorth, civil servants have already drawn up a 13 page list of highly detailed conditions for new build which doesn't even mention climate change but does discuss protection for the area's water voles and great crested newts.

For more contact Greenpeace on 0207 865 8255 / 07801 212967


Notes to editors

Download the FOI documents:

Document 1
Document 2
Document 3
Document 4
Document 5

Kingsnorth power station is just the first in a series of coal fired plants in the pipeline. The following sites are all being proposed by various power companies – none would use CCS technology at the outset:

Hatfield, Kingsnorth ,Tilbury, Blyth, Ferrybridge, Fiddler’s Ferry, Longannet, Cockenzie, and High Marnham.