The 300-350 Show: The tide turns against coal in the UK & US

First Broadcast: 24 July 2008

Featuring:

Dr Keith Allott (WWF-UK)
Mike Ewall (Energy Justice Network, US)

Despite James Hansen's personal plea to Prime Minister Gordon Brown last December to take a leadership role in initiating a global moratorium against unabated coal, the UK government's Department for Business currently looks likely to grant permission to a new series of coal-fired power stations that are "Carbon Capture Ready". What does this mean and is it good enough? We speak to Dr Keith Allott, Head of WWF-UK's Climate Change Campaign who commissioned a report recently exploring these questions.

A request for an interview with the Department of Business is met with a written statement only

Read it here

DBERR_Response.pdf 24.31 kB

which explains that the UK is relying on the highly problematic and inadequate EU Emissions Trading Scheme to solve the problem.

Meanwhile in the US, the tide is turning against coal at the grassroots, state and federal levels - 59 applications for coal-fired power plants were cancelled, abandoned or put on hold and there is a Bill going through Congress to put a moratorium on new unabated coal developments. We speak to Mike Ewall of the Energy Justice Network who has played a key role in supporting and connecting up the grassroots campaigners who have been doggedly winning on a case by case basis.

We close the programme with a taster from a landmark speech made by Al Gore last week, where he suggests the US should respond to climate change with the due urgency that the science now implies. He lays down a "Moon landing" style challenge for the US to power itself by renewable energy within just ten years.

Stop Climate Chaos coalition letter to the PM

www.stopclimatechaos.org

WWF-UK's "Evading Capture" report

http://www.wwf.org.uk/news/n_0000005101.asp

US moving towards ban on new coal-fired power plants

www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update70.htm