Yorkshire Against New Coal
Today, Scottish and Southern Energy have again reconfirmed that they are considering building a new coal power station at Ferrybridge.
Scientists are saying we have only a few years left to curb emissions, if we are to avoid pushing the temperature above 2o and facing catastrophic climate change.
When the Industrial Revolution started some 200 years ago, it wasn’t known that the impacts of burning coal would have disastrous consequences for the planet’s climate system. The same cannot be said today. We know all too well that we are facing climate catastrophe if we continue to emit CO2 into the atmosphere. Scottish and Southern Energy web site says that their core business is to “provide the energy people need in a reliable and sustainable way”. Burning coal does not meet either of these two objectives.
Scientific opinion confirms that we have little time to avoid reaching a climate tipping point. Einstein once said that the definition of madness was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Burning coal whilst attempting to address climate change must surely constitute Einstein’s definition of madness. It is now recognised that to address climate change, we must address emissions from the burning of coal.
If Scottish and Southern Energy are to be regarded as a responsible energy provider they must not build any new coal power stations; the company owns and operates half of the county’s renewable energy generation capacity, giving them the expertise to pave the way to a decarbonised economy.
We have asked Lord Kelvin, Chairman of Scottish and Southern Energy to abandon a new coal power station at Ferrybridge and and instead pursue an aggressive pathway of developing clean renewable energy technology.
Building new coal power stations that will wreck our children’s future is not acceptable.