Eco-activists have staged a "No New Coal" rally and march to mark the start of a week-long protest against plans to build Britain's first new coal-fired plant for 30 years.
Demonstrators converged in Rochester, Kent, amid a heavy police presence, including mounted police officers from the City of London and a police helicopter.
Around 200 protesters listened to speeches on the dangers of climate change before embarking on a seven-mile march to Kingsnorth to signal the first official day of Camp for Climate Action.
Campaigners waved banners and placards bearing the slogans "Coal is not the answer", "No new coal - stop Kingsnorth" and "No new carbon dinosaurs" as they made their way to the power station.
Caroline Lucas, Green Party MEP and principal speaker at the rally, received loud cheers as she addressed the crowd using a pedal-powered microphone and amplifier.
She said: "We have just 100 months in which to effect a massive transition away from a fossil fuel economy. The government's addiction to fossil fuels is not only destroying the environment, but also people's lives now.
"The plans to build new coal-fired power stations starting here in Kingsnorth are nothing less than crimes against humanity. We pledge to take every action necessary both within the law, and if necessary outside the law, to prevent climate chaos.
"This demonstration is a wake up call because this government is sleep-walking into catastrophe."
Kingsnorth, if built, Lucas said, would be the first new coal-fired power station for three decades, pumping out up to eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the 24 lowest emitting countries in the world.
She added: "If the government goes ahead, it will be giving a green light to the rest of the world to say that coal is OK. If that is the case we really are staring climate chaos in the face. To go ahead with the new coal-fired power station would be a massive step in the wrong direction."
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Hi, Yes Simon Harrison makes a very pragmatic point that new coal fired plants will be better than old plants which would likely be ran beyond their original design lifetimes. Presumably incurring emissions penalties at the same time. From the point of view of an environmentalist however new coal seems an obvious step in the wrong direction. It is a commitment to consuming a large quantity of fossil fuels and carbon emissions for the next 25 years. As a centralized plant on a single site it is bound to come in for criticism. It's 1.6 GW of capacity being comparable in size to the entire wind capacity in the UK (2.5GW BWEA) . If the UK misses its renewable energy generation targets for the year 2015 then the money may arguably have been spent in the wrong sector.
Mr Ian Moore, SUTTON COLDFIELD
26 Aug 2008
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Comment by the Chairman of the IET's Energy Sector Panel, Simon Harrison "Clearly coal fired power plant without carbon capture is not ideal from an emissions perspective. However we do not have the luxury of chioice if we wish to have secure electricity supplies over the next decade or so. We cannot build enough renewables or any nuclear fast enough, and only building gas fired plant will leave us too vulnerable to price increases and supply limitations. At the moment carbon capture technology is not mature enough to insist on. The most likely alternative to not building new coal is that means will be found to keep much more polluting old coal stations running instead. Hence the right decision is to allow some new coal build with provision for future carbon capture when the technology matures." Dr Simon Harrison CEng FIET Chair IET Energy Sector Panel See the Panel's web page for more IET policy statements: http://www.theiet.org/publicaffairs/panels/energy/index.cfm
Helen Farr,
05 Aug 2008
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