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Development campaigners welcome the Climate Camp’s stand against Kingsnorth
3 March 2008
In response to the news that the climate change group, the Camp for Climate Action, has chosen to target Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent this summer, Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement, said:
“We welcome the Climate Camp decision to go to Kingsnorth. It will shine a spotlight on the proposed new power station, and the collusion between the government and E.ON around it [2]. By taking a stand against the new power station they are standing up for UK public concern and for poor people across the developing world who are being hit first and worst by climate change. The government must consider the strength of public feeling, not just EON’s desire to make profit, and the only way to do that is to hold a public inquiry. To ignore it would be a huge political mistake.
“A new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth will produce the same amount of climate-wrecking gas as Ghana does each year. It will undermine our ability to meet emissions reductions targets in the climate change bill and kill any chance we have of stopping catastrophic climate change. This will mean millions of unnecessary deaths in the developing world.”
Notes for the editor
- The decision on whether to hold a public inquiry or to approve the new coal-fired power station is to be taken by John Hutton MP, the minister for business, in the next few weeks.
- Greenpeace have revealed that the government and E.ON have been in collusion both on the issue of carbon capture technology and in trying to ‘neutralise’ MP opposition to the project.
- Plans to build new coal-fired power stations have had many vocal critics, including:
- James Hansen, from NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, who said on Radio Four’s Today programme recently that “Kingsnorth is a terrible idea. One power plant with a lifetime of several decades will destroy the efforts of millions of citizens to reduce their emissions." -
- Prince Charles said: “Can we, hand on heart, say that we are really doing enough to improve energy efficiency? Can we possibly allow 20 years of business as usual before coal power generation becomes clean? Are we truly investing enough in renewable energy technologies?"
- The World Development Movement is co-ordinating a campaign to stop a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. See www.stopkingsnorth.org for more information.
For more information and quotes contact: Leila Deen on 0207 820 4900 or 07886 31319
Kate Blagojevic
Press officer, World Development Movement
0207 820 4900/4913, 07711 875 345, Email:
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