New coal mine shows climate hypocrisy, not leadership

Commenting on Communities Secretary Michael Gove’s decision to greenlight the first UK’s new deep coal mine in decades, Greenpeace UK Policy Director Doug Parr said:

“Only a month ago, Rishi Sunak was claiming he wanted to make the UK a ‘clean energy superpower’. Now, he has approved the first new coal mine in over thirty years. The UK government risks becoming a superpower in climate hypocrisy rather than climate leadership. How can we possibly expect other countries to rein in fossil fuel extraction when we’re building new coal mines here?

“Worse still, this mine will do absolutely nothing for the UK’s energy security since the coal it contains can only be used for steelmaking, not generating power, and more than 80% of it is earmarked for sale in Europe anyway. There’s a technological revolution building in steel-making, but this approach could make the UK a backwater in the 21st-century clean tech race.

“The timing of this announcement isn’t exactly subtle. Ministers are only fooling themselves if they think lifting some of the restrictions on onshore wind in England will somehow make up for the go-ahead for this coal mine. Everyone else can see that both moving away from coal and unleashing onshore wind are long overdue moves, and there’s just no excuse for more dithering.”