Email Print

Coal: going, going, gone?

saynotodirtycoal1.jpg

It's been a long, difficult and wild ride at times, but an end to climate damaging carbon emissions from new coal power stations could be in sight at last. Finally, some politicians seem to have recognised that we can't cut our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 AND keep pumping the stuff out of our power plants - hooray!

Last December the government announced a new energy bill that explicitly recognises this reality. So far so good - but (as you'll be shocked to discover) there's a problem. As yet the bill has no teeth - whilst it says that new power stations must be able to capture some of their emissions from the get go, it contains no guarantee that by 2025 all carbon emissions from coal must be captured, and that's the bit that really counts.

Read more »
Tags:
Email Print

Video: saying NO to dirty coal

Since the Big If pledge launched in March, when Age of Stupid actor Pete Postletwaite promised the UK Energy and Climate Change minister Ed Miliband that he would return his OBE if the government gave the go-ahead for a new coal power station Kingsnorth, thousands of people have joined him in making pledges of their own.

Greenpeace UK has been a core member of the Big If coalition from the start, together with a wide range of other organisations including the RSPB, World Development Movement, Oxfam and the Women's Institute. Because if Kingsnorth and the other 10 plants planned to follow it get built, then we'll have next to no chance of meeting our CO2 reduction targets and reining in runaway climate change.

Read more »
Tags:
Email Print

Say NO to dirty coal - join the Big If

Email Print

Video: Mili-band at Kingsnorth power station

Tags:
Email Print

This kind of thing should be (Mili)band

miliband 4
They came, they stood, they formed a giant human chain around Kingsnorth. The Miliband was formed with bodies and yellow sashes, and made up of over a thousand people! Read more »
Tags:
Email Print

The Mili-band Live!

Today we're down at Kingsnorth for the Mili-band - building a human chain around Kingsnorth to say no to dirty coal. Read more »

Tags:
Email Print

Practical dreamers of the world unite

Next contestant please. In contemplating what informs my role as a political advisor in the policy and solutions unit at Greenpeace I got to thinking about a new grandmother and a newborn baby (no hankies or violins required, honest).

My dear Ma, just turned 71 and as Irish as Mrs Doyle from Father Ted, but without the personality disorder and compulsive tea habit, was never one for political protest, but she certainly had her political alignments sorted. A Daily Express reader for years, sucking up the rhetoric long and hard, she more recently jumped ship to the Daily Mail (think of it as opting for a slightly more formal jackboot).

So no wishy-washy liberal she. But more recently she has shifted out of her voting comfort zone, driven by new priorities. She even voted for Ken Livingstone in the last London Mayoral elections. Admittedly this was partly a 'stop Boris' vote rather than a ringing endorsement of Red Ken, but a key motivation for her was a desire to see Ken’s progressive agenda on climate change carried through.

Read more »
Tags: