Coalmine plans in Cumbria and a false dilemma
Gaby Hinsliff’s piece (Plans for a Cumbrian coalmine illustrate the Tory dilemma: green policies or jobs?, 4 February), propagates an illusion advanced principally by vested fossil fuel interests: that we have to choose between green policies or jobs. In reality, no such dilemma exists.
The International Energy Agency and Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise have published reports which conclude that renewable energy infrastructure projects deliver far more jobs than economic stimulus for business as usual.
Nowhere is the false dichotomy of “prosperity versus the environment” more evident than in Cumbria, where so many families are the victims of devastating flooding, attributable to the fossil fuel induced climate crisis, leading to the collapse in the value of their homes. Precarious jobs in industries which increase the vulnerability of people in the region have nothing to do with levelling up.
Finally, the article implies that a carbon tax would hurt those on low wages. Under Prof James Hansen’s proposal for a “fee and dividend” approach to taxation, the opposite would be true. Since the wealthy consume more carbon, they pay more carbon tax, while low consumers earn the dividend and end up better off. Tim Crosland Director,Plan B
• In 2019, the UK imported 2.177m tons of coking coal, predominantly from the US and Russia. It is used in steelmaking, and, to a lesser extent, in concrete manufacture and heating. In addition to burning the stuff, there must be a big carbon load in transporting such a huge weight. The proposed mine in Cumbria is purely to produce coking coal, and transport distances are relatively short.
There are alternatives for heating, and we should anyway be using far less concrete. Blast furnaces for recycled steel can be electric and the reducing properties of coke in steelmaking can be completely replaced by hydrogen. There should be a commitment to using hydrogen only for steel production by 2030 and linking the licence for coke extraction in Cumbria to this target. This hydrogen requirement would drive UK investment in technologies for alternative fuel production, storage and distribution.
It is surely better to plan across the board for a sustainable future than take a narrow view about a single aspect of the problem. John Dark Hexham,
Northumberland