A dramatic stand-off at Kingsnorth power station in Kent has ended after four Greenpeace campaigners, who boarded a coal freighter bound for the power station last night, came down from the foremast after being served with an injunction.

Greenpeace volunteers intercepted the freighter using rigid inflatable speedboats just after midnight this morning. As the ship sped towards Kingsnorth the campaigners attached climbing ladders to the vessel and scaled the 15 metre hull.

Sarah Shoraka, speaking just before leaving the freighter, said: "We climbed onto this ship, and stayed onboard throughout the night and all day, because coal is the most climate-damaging fuel known to man. If we keep burning coal, we can't beat climate change.

"But Ed Miliband's new policies would still allow Eon to build the dirtiest new power station in Britain for thirty years."

Land next to the existing plant at Kingsnorth has been earmarked for the construction of the first new coal-fired power station in Britain for 30 years. The highly controversial plans have sparked a series of protests, but this is the first time a coal shipment to the site has been blocked and boarded. The Government claims a new Kingsnorth plant will be cleaner, but in reality under the new policy, announced in April, it would still pump three-quarters of its emissions into the atmosphere for years to come - six million tonnes of CO2 every year.

The Greenpeace members who were on board the ship say by stopping the coal cargo being burned they were protecting people and property around the world from the devastating effects of climate change.

UK decisions on coal have an international impact. This year's international meetings on climate change, designed to prepare the groundwork for the summit in Copenhagen this December, have been uniformly unproductive, and the success of the Copenhagen talks is now highly uncertain. Brown will need to do everything in his power to give the UK and EU negotiating positions political and scientific credibility, both with his policies and his presence, if there is to be a chance of a meaningful agreement.

The G8 meeting in Italy on the July 8^th provides a key opportunity to go into Copenhagen with some progress having been made. Greenpeace urges the Prime Minister to seize this opportunity to show some leadership and rescue his legacy.

12.30am - A dramatic stand-off is unfolding at Kingsnorth power station in Kent where climate change campaigners have boarded a moving bulk freighter carrying coal to Britain's most controversial power plant. Three women are swimming in the river Medway in front of the massive freighter and are stopping it loading while climbers are hanging off the side of the ship. Dozens of police officers and a helicopter are on the scene.

Greenpeace volunteers intercepted the freighter using rigid inflatable speedboats just after midnight this morning. As the ship sped towards Kingsnorth the campaigners attached climbing ladders to the vessel and scaled the 15 metre hull. Three teams comprising nine people succeeded in boarding the ship. They have scaled the huge E.ON-branded funnel and the towering foremast, and are demanding that the cargo turns back. The protesters have enough food and water to stay for several days.

A local mother and Greenpeace member is swimming in the Medway in front of the Kingsnorth jetty, attempting to prevent the ship from docking and unloading. Mother of three Emma Gibson - from the nearby town of Whitstable - is with two other women in the water. Before setting out on her swim she said:

"We're going to swim right in front of the approaching ship and try to stop this massive coal shipment reaching Kingsnorth power station, because coal is the most climate-wrecking fuel there is. Every tonne of carbon counts, and E.ON's ship is delivering enough coal to pump tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. There's no way we can stop climate change if power companies are allowed to keep on burning so much coal. I'm terrified by the scale of the problem my children will have to deal with. We have to give the next generation a chance of beating global warming, and that's why I'm putting my body in the way of that ship."

Land next to the existing plant at Kingsnorth has been earmarked for the construction of the first new coal-fired power station in Britain for 30 years. The highly controversial plans have sparked a series of protests, but this is the first time a coal shipment to the site has been blocked and boarded. The government claims a new Kingsnorth plant will be cleaner, but in reality under the new policy, announced in April, it would still pump three-quarters of its emissions into the atmosphere for years to come - six million tonnes of CO2 every year.

Sarah Shoraka, a Greenpeace volunteer who is hanging off the foremast of the freighter, said:

"Scientists are telling us we can't beat climate change if we keep burning coal, and yet Ed Miliband's new policies would still allow E.ON to build the dirtiest new power station in Britain for thirty years. The experts say we have the technologies we need to slash emissions and power Britain with renewable energy and more efficient use of cleaner fuels, it just needs the politicians to give them the green light. New coal plants that emit huge amounts of carbon can never be the answer."

She continued:

"A sensible energy policy would focus on getting rid of the appalling waste in our system so that we can power Britain more effectively using less fuel, while harnessing the huge potential of clean energy projects like the London Array offshore wind farm. We can do this, but first we'll need Ed Miliband to set tough new CO2 pollution limits for all new power stations, in line with what the science demands. As it is, the government's half measures would still allow E.ON to build a new plant at Kingsnorth which would emit six million tonnes of CO2 a year. That one power station would have double the annual emissions of Nepal with its 30 million people."

The Greenpeace members on board the ship say by stopping the coal cargo being burned they are protecting people and property around the world from the devastating effects of climate change.

UK decisions on coal have an international impact. This year's international meetings on climate change, designed to prepare the groundwork for the summit in Copenhagen this December, have been uniformly unproductive, and the success of the Copenhagen talks is now highly uncertain. Brown will need to do everything in his power to give the UK and EU negotiating positions political and scientific credibility, both with his policies and his presence, if there is to be a chance of a meaningful agreement.

The G8 meeting in Italy on the July 8th provides a key opportunity to go into Copenhagen with some progress having been made. Greenpeace urges the prime minister to seize this opportunity to show some leadership and rescue his legacy.

ENDS

Greenpeace press office - 07932 842266 or 07801 212967 or 0207 865 8255

Video and stills available

To arrange a live video broadcast interview - using Skype - with people occupying the foremast, call press office.

Notes:

* Government projections for climate impacts in the UK were released last week, showing the enormous threat posed by continued high emissions. Kent is due to undergo some of the most extreme changes, with projections for South Eastern England's temperatures in 2050 ranging from a 1.3 to a 3.3 degree increase. Much of the Kent coast is vulnerable to increased flooding, including the Hoo peninsula where Kingsnorth power station stands. 

* The single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal. Coal-fired generation is historically responsible for most of the fossil-fuel CO2 in the air today, about half of all fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions globally.¹

* 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.²

* As we close old coal-fired and nuclear power stations in the next decade we will lose capacity currently providing around a quarter of our electricity output. But Gordon Brown committed to European legal targets which require us to generate up to 40% of our electricity from renewables alone by 2020, and the UK also has fairly ambitious energy efficiency targets.³ According to Europe's leading independent energy experts, Poyry, if the UK was to hit these existing renewables and efficiency targets, there will be no ‘energy gap.' In other words, we can keep the lights on and cut emissions, and in the long run bring down fuel bills too - all without any new coal-fired plants.⁴

* The world's pre-eminent climate scientist, Professor James Hansen, who is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is so concerned about plans for new coal plants in Britain that he has campaigned to stop Kingsnorth. He argued that with the Kingsnorth decision Ministers have the potential to influence "the future of the planet."⁵

* The government's own climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, advised the Prime Minister in December 2008 that no coal station - old or new - should be allowed to operate without fully functioning CCS by the early 2020s.

* Emissions Performance Standards for all new power stations introduced immediately that rule our unabated coal plants, with a tapered standard for 2020 that would apply equally to old plant, would provide a cast iron guarantee that high emissions would be illegal. Only a measure such as this avoids the risk of high-carbon lock in and ensures that only low-carbon power is generated.

¹ Dr. James E. Hansen, open letter to Gordon Brown, December 2007 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/letter-to-the-prime-minister-20071219

² IPCC Working Group III Fourth Assessment Report chapter 4 table 4.9

Supercritical coal plants emit 710gCO₂/Kwh compared to 404gCO₂/Kwh for CCGT (gas), for example.

³ The UK efficiency target is to achieve an 18% reduction in end-use energy demand against current rates of increase.

⁴ http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto073120082322523374&page=2

⁵ Dr. James E. Hansen, open letter to Gordon Brown, December 2007 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/letter-to-the-prime-minister-20071219

Commenting on the launch today of a new government consultation on the future of coal in Britain, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:

"The fact that there is even a consultation on coal is welcome, given that this time last year policy was being decided by myopic ministers in thrall to regressive civil servants, but Ed Miliband needs to go further. His proposed policy leaves us with the threat of a massive new coal plant at Kingsnorth that would only capture and bury a quarter of its emissions and pump out six million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, making it the dirtiest new power station built in Britain for decades."

He continued:

"Britain could and should be a global leader on climate change and Ed Miliband has the power to make that happen, but first he has to rule out emissions from new coal-fired power stations, like Kingsnorth, and set a deadline for closing the existing coal plants like Drax."

He added:

"If Ed Miliband rules out emissions from new coal plants he'll be able to go to the vital Copenhagen climate conference with the credibility to demand a strong global deal to succeed Kyoto."

ENDS

Greenpeace press office - 0207 864 8255

Notes:

On Thursday 23rd April Ed Miliband told Parliament "the era of new unabated coal is over." Given that E.ON still planned to pour the concrete for a completely unabated station at Kingsnorth last summer, this was a significant U-turn in government policy.

However, whilst it marks a break from all of the previous Energy Secretaries who consistently failed to lay down the gauntlet to the utilities over their climate change emissions, even Miliband's own officials admitted on the day that large parts of his policy remain "unclear."

This is an understatement. It is not clear how Britain could hit its legally binding carbon budget for a 34% reduction in CO2 by 2020 were new coal stations to go ahead under the current proposals. Furthermore, huge questions remain about what the new coal policy will look like, and with significant loopholes presenting a real threat.

As things stand, the controversial new plant at Kingsnorth in Kent will only capture and bury a quarter of its massive emissions under Miliband's policy. It will still pump 6 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year - on it's own causing double
the total annual CO2 emissions of the country of Nepal with its population of 30 million people.

The world's pre-eminent climate scientist, Professor James Hansen, who is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is so concerned about plans for new coal plants in Britain that he has campaigned to stop Kingsnorth. He argued that with the Kingsnorth decision Ministers have the potential to influence "the future of the planet" (1).

He has called coal stations "death factories" (2) and said, "The only practical way to prevent CO2 levels from going far into the dangerous range, with disastrous effects for humanity and other inhabitants of the planet, is to phase out use of coal except at power plants where the CO2 is captured and sequestered" (3).

Equally, Sir Martin Rees, President of the prestigious Royal Society, wrote to the Energy Minister saying, "I (therefore) suggest that the government only gives consent to any new coal- fired power station, such as Kingsnorth, on condition that the operating permits are withdrawn if the plant fails to capture 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. This would send a clear policy signal to industry of the need to develop and deploy CCS as quickly as possible" (4).

Sir David King - the government's former chief scientist - said, "There's little doubt that if we burn all of the coal that sits below the earth's surface, we can return the planet to the condition it was in 50 million years ago when the Antarctic was a tropical forest and much of the rest of the planet would be pretty difficult for human beings to live on...We've got to see that coal is not a useful resource to burn unless we can recapture the carbon that is produced by burning it."

He added of CCS, "This is still unproven technology and I think until it's proven, it's dangerous to assume that we can continue to use coal" (5).

Lord Stern of Brentford, the world's foremost climate change economist and author of the ground breaking Stern Review, in interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, supported the view that coal stations like the one proposed for Kingsnorth should not be approved without CCS (6).

The single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal. Coal-fired generation is historically responsible for most of the fossil-fuel CO2 in the air today, about half of all fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions globally (7).

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 (8).

As we close old coal-fired and nuclear power stations in the next decade we will lose capacity currently providing around a quarter of our electricity output. But Gordon Brown committed to legally binding European targets which require us to generate up to 40% of our electricity from renewables by 2020. The UK also has fairly ambitious energy efficiency targets that would if implemented reduce energy demand (9).

According to Europe's leading independent energy experts, Pöyry, if the UK was to hit these existing renewables and efficiency targets in 2020, there would be no need for additional new conventional power stations in that time. They could close the ‘energy gap' with clean renewable energy, while also creating jobs, boosting the economy and reducing gas use. In other words, we can keep the lights on, cut emissions, and in the long run bring down fuel bills too - all without any new coal-fired plants (10).

¹ Dr. James E. Hansen, open letter to Gordon Brown, December 2007 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/letter-to-the-prime-minister-20071219

² http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/james-hansen-power-plants-coal

³ Dr. Jim Hansen, Testimony to the State of Iowa, 2007 http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/IowaCoal_071105.pdf

⁴ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/03/fossilfuels.energy

⁵ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/01/eapower101.xml

⁶ BBC Radio 4, Today programme, 6th October 2008

⁷ Dr. James E. Hansen, open letter to Gordon Brown, December 2007 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/letter-to-the-prime-minister-20071219

⁸ IPCC Working Group III Fourth Assessment Report chapter 4 table 4.9

Supercritical coal plants emit 710gCO₂/Kwh compared to 404gCO₂/Kwh for CCGT (gas), for example.

⁹ The UK efficiency target is to achieve an 18% reduction in end-use energy demand against current rates of increase.

¹⁰ http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto073120082322523374&page=2