Opening a new coalmine when the world stands on the brink of climate catastrophe is “absolutely indefensible”, in the words of the UK government’s independent climate adviser, the chair of the Climate Change Committee and the former Conservative minister Lord Deben.
The £165m mine in Cumbria will produce coking coal for steelmaking, which the government has said will still be needed, even though steelmakers must move to low-carbon production in the next 13 years. Two of the UK’s existing steel companies have rejected the new coal, which means much of it will be exported to a world already awash with fossil fuels.
Ron Deelen, a former chief executive of British Steel, said: “This is a completely unnecessary step for the British steel industry, which is not waiting for more coal as there is enough on the free market available. The British steel industry needs green investment in electric arc furnaces and hydrogen to protect jobs and make the UK competitive.”
The decision, and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, have been roundly condemned around the world. At the UN Cop27 climate summit last month, one of the key flashpoints was the charge of hypocrisy levelled by the developing world against rich countries that have preached lower emissions to the poor while pursuing fossil fuels themselves. The rift threatens to reverse the progress made at the UK-hosted Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year, where the UK succeeded in committing all countries to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
“As a historical emitter responsible for the current state of the climate crisis, the UK cannot expand or invest in any new fossil fuel projects,” said Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network International. “No coal, no gas, no oil. They need to start demonstrating their commitment to 1.5C through actions and not just words.”
Pressing ahead with the Cumbrian mine shows that Sunak has little interest in whether his government is seen as green or not. This week, he made a U-turn on onshore wind, with the first moves to partially relax the ban on onshore turbines in England announced just ahead of the coalmine. He may also relent further on solar farms, as the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, hinted on Tuesday they could be built on mid-grade agricultural land pending a review set for the middle of next year. Soon after taking office in October, Sunak also restored the moratorium on fracking.
But these apparently positive moves should be seen as short-term tactical decisions, taken in light of parliamentary manoeuvrings, public pressure and the urgent need to expand the UK’s energy supplies in the wake of the Ukraine war. They do not denote a coherent green vision.
Green Tories hark back fondly to Boris Johnson, whose green record in government may have been patchy but whose soaring rhetoric at least was reliably eco-friendly. Sunak has no such pretensions – he publicly dithered over whether to attend Cop27, souring relations with the developing world and disappointing allies such as the US and the EU. When he finally changed his mind and attended, he still forbade the king to go, a kick to the many Commonwealth countries in which King Charles is head of state and a cold shoulder to the Egyptian hosts (who retaliated by inviting Johnson).
The Cumbrian decision has been taken while the fate of the planet is being decided by world governments once again at the Cop15 summit on biodiversity in Montreal this week. Under Johnson, the UK championed the idea of conserving 30% of the planet for nature by 2030, the centrepiece pledge of Cop15. Under Sunak, who is not going to Canada, the UK is not on track to reach its own nature protection targets.
By nearly every green measure, the UK is failing. A scathing report by Deben’s Climate Change Committee this summer showed “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery” on everything from public transport and food consumption to farming and tree-planting. Sunak’s policies since then have done little to remedy the situation.
While people on low incomes are being forced to choose between eating and heating, at least a quarter of heating energy is wasted in leaks from the draughtiest housing stock in western Europe. An announced boost to insulation will result in about 70,000 more homes being insulated over three years but that falls well short of the nationwide programme of retrofit for 14m homes that experts and the building industry have called for.
The switch from gas to heat pumps is moving at glacial speed, muddied by claims that hydrogen could be used instead in boilers despite expert advice that this is technically impossible. Even with the deadline on sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, greenhouse gas emissions from transport remain stubbornly high, fuelled by rising numbers of SUVs, the chaos in our rail networks and an absence of buses for most of the country outside London.
There are green voices within Sunak’s cabinet. Michael Gove, a self-identified “shy green Tory”, was acclaimed as one of the UK’s best environment secretaries, who brought forward a 25-year environmental plan and started three key pieces of legislation – the Environment Act, Agriculture Act and Fisheries Act – during his two-year tenure from 2017 to 2019. The business secretary, Grant Shapps, was an enthusiastic attender at Cop27, telling an aide beforehand “I really believe this stuff”.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, joined the Conservative Environment Network early this year while on the backbenches, proclaiming: “Now. more than ever, in light of the global gas crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s vital we decarbonise the UK’s economy by 2050. We must develop more homegrown clean energy, including renewables and new nuclear. This will lower people’s bills, strengthen our energy security and avoid the worst consequences of climate change.”
Yet Gove has been made the frontman for the Cumbrian mine decision, and Hunt and Shapps have been given minimal cash for green policy. Sunak demoted Alok Sharma who, after the success of Cop26, was probably the UK’s most recognisable and lauded green champion internationally, after the king and Sir David Attenborough. The climate minister, Graham Stuart, was stripped of the right to attend cabinet.
Scientists have made it clear this year, in the “bleakest warning yet” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that this decade is crucial if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, a target now looking increasingly difficult but no less vital. Worldwide, emissions must be cut by half in the 2020s, compared with 2010 levels. That will require concerted global action, particularly from the world’s biggest economies, which are responsible for by far the biggest share of cumulative emissions.
In the remaining two years before a general election, there is much that this government could do – insulating houses, improving public transport, expanding clean energy. All of these, though requiring public investment, would quickly help to put cash back into people’s pockets, generate new jobs and alleviate the cost of living crisis. Failure to take these measures now will mean more costly action is needed in the future, when it may be too late. Two years is a big chunk of a crucial decade.
