Take action on Kingsnorth

Christian Aid is calling on the government to hold a public inquiry into the building of Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent.

Help us get an inquiry, email business secretary John Hutton now!

Why are we concerned?

As currently proposed, Kingsnorth would be built without technology to capture and safely store the 7 million or more tonnes of carbon it will emit each year. This is more than ten times the carbon emissions the whole of Rwanda produces every year.

Such huge emissions from a single new power plant in an industrialised country and self-proclaimed leader internationally on climate change is not acceptable.

We are also concerned that if Kingsnorth goes ahead, it will seriously undermine the Climate Change Bill currently going through Parliament.

Christian Aid and its campaigners have worked hard to support the bill and to argue that it should impose targets of at least 80% and not the currently proposed 60% reductions by 2050.

But neither of these targets will be met if the government sleepwalks into allowing new coal-fired power stations.

Britain was a powerful voice urging significant cuts in carbon emissions in industrialised countries at the UN climate change conference in Bali last December.

Going ahead with Kingsnorth would undercut the UK's credibility on climate change and encourage other industrialised countries to follow us in approving their own new coal-fired power stations.

Savings on emissions will be harder in other areas, such as liquid fuel for transport, so Britain should view the retirement of a series of old coal power plants as an opportunity to shift towards renewable sources of power for electricity generation.

What's happening now?

Kent's Medway Council agreed in January that John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, should have the final say on Kingsnorth, even though they received more than 9,000 objections from the public.

The council said that while it did not have grounds to oppose the new coal-fired plant, a public inquiry should nevertheless be called.

What do we want?

We want John Hutton to call a public inquiry on Kingsnorth so that the national and global impact of new coal-fired power stations can be fully investigated.

We also want him to focus more on renewable energy alternatives to coal-fired, which will help the UK meet its targets on the use of renewable energy.