On the eve of global climate summit COP27, twenty five national and local environmental organisations to urge the Levelling up Secretary Michael Gove to refuse the proposed deep coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria
The letter says that delaying the decision, for the third time this year, on whether to approve the first new deep coal mine in the UK for 30 years sends a deeply worrying signal.
“It is surely a missed opportunity for the Prime Minister not to have been able to announce in front of other world leaders, at COP27, that this country was ready to double down on its pledges in Glasgow to consign coal to history.”
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said it would now be made “on or before 8 December 2022”.
The proposed mine would remove coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea for the production of steel but it would not be used for power generation.
The letter adds that approving a new coal mine in West Cumbria in light of the government’s net zero commitments would be ‘absolutely indefensible’. The arguments for any carbon savings from the proposed Whitehaven coal mine have been thoroughly debunked;
“the truth is that it would simply add more emissions to a heating planet – more emissions than all of the currently open UK coal mines combined. This is on top of warnings from the International Energy Agency that in order to reach net zero by 2050, no new coal, oil and gas fields can be opened.”
