No more dirty coal

A choir of Christian Aid campaigners delivered their coal message in song at a Coal Kills vigil outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change on 14 September – and earned an audience with Ed Miliband.

The climate change secretary came out to meet more than 100 campaigners who were there to say no to unabated coal-fired power stations.

Christian Aid's set list included reworkings of classics by the Beatles (Let Coal Be) and Pink Floyd ('All in all it's just more CO2 in the air'), as well as more traditional ditties such as The Coal Must Have A Cap On, and Ed's Got the Whole World in his Hands.

Video Visit YouTube to see more from our choir

Campaign victories

Christian Aid welcomed the UK government’s proposal to rule out new unabated coal-fired power stations, which Miliband says you helped earn.

And we were equally delighted when power giant and long-term campaign target E.ON announced it was shelving plans for a new coal-fuelled power station at Kingsnorth for at least three years.

Now we need to make sure the government truly ‘cleans up’ Britain's power supply.

On 23 April the government announced that all coal-fired power stations should use emissions-reducing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology by 2025.

It was also announced that all new coal-fired power stations have to capture around 20-25% of their carbon emissions from day one.

But the government’s plan is not currently backed up by a robust strategy. As we said in our joint letter published in the Guardian, 'a policy framework to deliver this outcome has not yet been announced.'

In addition, if new coal goes ahead only partially abated and without a safety net to ensure full abatement, it will still be impossible to reach our emissions targets by 2050.

That’s why Christian Aid is calling for an emissions performance standard (EPS), which would cap emissions, and drive forward the development of workable CCS.

Carbon capture and storage Find out more

Thanks for taking action

The shift in government policy on unabated coal is a great achievement - but we haven’t stopped there.

Christian Aid campaigners have been asking their MPs to support Charles Kennedy’s private members bill proposing an EPS. One hundred and eighty-nine MP’s responded, with over 30% doing so after they were contacted by Christian Aid supporters.

The bill, debated on 3 July, was not supported by the government as they felt it would prejudice their current consultation on coal, which is considering an EPS as one of a range of possible regulatory measures.

While this is disappointing in the short term, campaigners actions successfully raised the profile of an EPS with policy makers and across political parties, sending a strong message to government.

Thank you for supporting our campaign!

Carbon capture and storage?

Factory chimneys It’s where carbon emissions are stopped from entering the atmosphere, and are instead stored and buried deep underground.

In theory, CCS could be revolutionary. But while Christian Aid is excited about the possible impact of workable carbon capture, such technologies remain unproven.

The government says it is committed to testing CCS – although it doesn’t yet have a plan B in case it fails.

Furthermore, we are concerned that it plans to capture only 25% of emissions from four CCS demonstration plants – and pump the outstanding 75% into the air as normal.

And amid all the excitement about at CCS, we cannot neglect renewable energy and energy efficiency, both of which are long-term, sustainable ways of ensuring people have the energy they need.

An EPS would provide a guarantee that the carbon dioxide emitted through power generation would be capped at a certain level, and decrease over time so that by the 2020s, all emissions from coal would be captured and stored.