Boris heads for a climate clash over plans for new coal mine

BORIS Johnson is set to clash with his climate change advisers over plans to sink Britain’s first new coal mine in 30 years.

Lord Deben, chairman of the climate change committee, said yesterday that excavating for coal off the coast of Cumbria was ‘indefensible’.

This flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s recent statement that he wants to supply the steel industry with UK coal.

Last year’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow, hosted by the UK, resulted in a global pact to ‘phase down’ coal use worldwide and the Government aims to stop using it in power stations by 2024.

But following Russia’s Ukraine invasion, Mr Johnson is keen to make the UK less reliant on fuel imports. Around 40 per cent of our coking coal is from Russia.

Lord Deben, who as John Gummer was environment secretary from 1993 to 1997, said digging the new mine would undermine plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and set a bad example to other countries reluctant to stop using coal. The issue is being

‘Digging this is indefensible’

considered by the Levelling Up Secretary, Michael Gove, who says he will make a decision before July 7.

Last week the Prime Minister made clear he is in favour of the mine by saying it ‘makes no sense’ to import coal for steel when the UK has its own.

But green campaigners say demand for coking coal to make steel has hugely declined in recent years.

Launching a 600-page report yesterday, Lord Deben said: ‘As far as the coal mine goes, it is absolutely indefensible. First of all 80 per cent of the coal it produces will be exported. It is not going to contribute anything to our domestic needs. We do not need this coal mine.’

He also criticised the Department for Transport for not advising business people to take fewer international flights and use video conferencing instead.

And climate change committee chief executive Chris Stark said the Government’s programme to insulate UK homes ‘fell off a cliff’ a decade ago.

THE available options for providing Britain’s steel industry with the coking coal it needs are all fraught with difficulty.

Last year, nearly 40 per cent of it came from Russia – an avenue now being closed by sanctions. The rest was imported from Australia and North America, generating a horrendous carbon footprint on its journey.

So what could be more sensible than opening a coking coal mine in the UK to help fulfil our domestic needs?

Whitehaven colliery in Cumbria would create some 500 jobs in an area needing an economic boost. It is also under the Irish Sea, minimising nuisance and environmental damage.

Yet when Mr Johnson suggests the goahead should be given, the green lobby flies into a rage. Lord Deben, chairman of the Climate Change Committee, which advises government on emissions targets, described the mine as ‘absolutely indefensible’.

Friends of the Earth also weighed in, with their lawyer saying: ‘Every lump of coal that is burnt contributes directly to climate change.’ That may be true, but if we are to go on making buildings, cars, machinery and much else, we need steel. And for that we need coal.

Other technologies are developing but won’t replace coal for many years. So giving this mine the green light must be the right and logical decision.

It’s surely better than shipping coal halfway across the world in gas-guzzling freighters – or indeed, buying it from Putin.