Home of cricket blockaded to halt coal conference

Climate change campaigners today attempted to shut down the home of cricket and halt the annual UK coal conference due to be attended by Gordon Brown's government.

Four out of the five entrances to Lord's cricket ground were completely blocked by two-metre high fencing erected by Greenpeace volunteers shortly after 8am this morning. The activists then chained themselves to the barricades to prevent the energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, and the other 200 attendees from entering. Police are currently in attendance at the fifth entrance.

Wicks, who also sits on the board of the UK coal forum, was due to deliver the opening speech to the Coal Conference 2008 at 9.30am this morning.

The UK coal forum - assembled by the government - exists to "bring forward ways of strengthening the industry, and working to ensure the UK has the right framework to secure the long term future of coal fired generation". (1)

Gordon Brown is set to give the green light to the UK's first coal power station in a generation in the coming weeks. The German company Eon wants to start building the plant this summer. It is due to be sited next to an existing coal power station at Kingsnorth, near Rochester in Kent.

If constructed, Kingsnorth 2 will pump out over eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year - the same as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined.

Last week the government's desire to backtrack on its climate change commitments and build coal power stations was highlighted when an email exchange between Eon and a Whitehall official became public.

An Eon email - written three weeks ago - demanded that the government radically alter the conditions attached to Kingsnorth 2. Originally the government had asked that the new plant be fitted with so-called ‘carbon capture and storage' technology. But Eon said that the technology might never work and demanded that the company be allowed to build a conventional coal power station without any conditions attached for tackling climate change. The government took just six minutes to submit to the power company.

Greenpeace campaigner Louise Molloy, speaking from Lord's, said: "Coal power stations are out-of-date climate wreckers. They should have no future. The last thing the government should be doing is working out ways to build new coal power stations like the one planned at Kingsnorth in Kent. And that's why we're trying to stop the energy minister delivering a speech and schmoozing with the coal industry at Lord's today.

"The government must turn their back on coal, and end this corrupt collusion with the coal industry. This is nothing more than an old boys' network trumpeting the use of old, dirty technology."

In October last year, Greenpeace campaigners shut down the existing coal power station at Kingsnorth. Six of the volunteers, who scaled the 200-metre high smokestack, are due in court this Friday for a committal hearing. They are charged with aggravated trespass and criminal damage.

Greenpeace press office: 020 7865 8255 or 07717 704577.

Notes:

(1) http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file39568.pdf (page 8).