Category: Climate Chaos

Ditch Coal Speaking Tour. The realities of coal mining in Russia. 25th May to 10th June.

“Min­ing is going on a hun­dred meters away. When they start­ed blast­ing, all the dust was brought to our veg­etable gar­dens. Veg­eta­bles got cov­ered with the coal dust which is impos­si­ble to wash out. Now I don‘t want to harm myself by eat­ing any­thing from this gar­den,” a res­i­dent of Kazas, Siberia, Rus­sia, describes the impact of coal min­ing.

“Min­ing is going on a hun­dred meters away. When they start­ed blast­ing, all the dust was brought to our veg­etable gar­dens. Veg­eta­bles got cov­ered with the coal dust which is impos­si­ble to wash out. Now I don‘t want to harm myself by eat­ing any­thing from this gar­den,” a res­i­dent of Kazas, Siberia, Rus­sia, describes the impact of coal min­ing.

The Lon­don Min­ing Net­work and the Coal Action Net­work are head­ing off on tour with a Russ­ian envi­ron­men­tal activist who has wit­nessed first hand the impacts of the UK’s burn­ing of coal on indige­nous peo­ple.

“The con­se­quences of coal min­ing in Rus­sia are ter­ri­ble. There are envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic dis­as­ters hap­pen­ing in min­ing regions, espe­cial­ly in Kuzbass where the most of coal reserves locat­ed. Pub­lic health is get­ting worse and worse, indige­nous peo­ple being forced out of their land, air and water poi­soned.” Vladimir Slivyak, Ecode­fense.

The UK imports two thirds of the coal it burns in the remain­ing nine coal fired pow­er sta­tions. In 2015, 24% of our elec­tric­i­ty came from burn­ing coal. Just under a third of this coal comes from Rus­sia.

Vladimir, a Russ­ian anti-coal activist is vis­it­ing the UK for a speak­ing tour start­ing on the 25th May in Brighton before tour­ing around the UK and fin­ish­ing on the 10th June in Lon­don. Full details of the tour can be found www.coalaction.org.uk/tour. He will dis­cuss the prob­lems caused by min­ing for the UK’s pow­er sta­tions in his home coun­try, while the Coal Action Net­work dis­cuss how we can act to end the destruc­tion.

The tour is part of the launch of Ditch Coal, a new report from the Coal Action Net­work released ear­li­er this year. It tells the human and local­ized envi­ron­men­tal sto­ry of the coal burnt in UK pow­er sta­tions. The cli­mate change impacts of burn­ing coal are well doc­u­ment­ed, but some­how hard to relate to in a con­crete man­ner. By con­trast the sto­ries of those liv­ing in the shad­ows of the mines are some­how more tan­gi­ble, being direct human expe­ri­ences being felt already.

The tour will be joined by local com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign­ers fight­ing open­cast coal oper­a­tions in Sheffield, New­cas­tle and Edin­burgh. Speak­ers from Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign will join at Brighton, New­cas­tle, Cam­bridge and Lon­don.

The prob­lem in Rus­sia
The Siber­ian vil­lage of Kazas was sur­round­ed by open­cast coal mines and had a pop­u­la­tion of pre­dom­i­nant­ly indige­nous Shor peo­ple. Kazas was entire­ly destroyed in 2014 to make way for the expan­sion of the mines although the vil­lagers did not all con­sent to leave. The prob­lems of this vil­lage are not unique. For each tonne of coal pro­duced six hectares of land is dis­turbed, land which was home and habi­tat to both peo­ple and wildlife before the min­ing com­pa­nies’ encroach­ment.

Pri­or to the destruc­tion of Kazas, pres­sure was applied to get fam­i­lies to move. Infra­struc­ture was no longer main­tained – roads were not cleared of snow in win­ter and clean drink­ing water was no longer pro­vid­ed. With only 6% of water from the mines being treat­ed, filthy water killed the fish and the wildlife dis­persed, pre­vent­ing the tra­di­tion­al eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties of the Shor peo­ple — hunt­ing and fish­ing.

Com­mu­ni­ties in the coal min­ing regions strug­gle to have their objec­tions heard as the sys­tem is stacked against them. Deci­sions about min­ing appli­ca­tions are heard away from the ances­tral lands which are threat­ened so those affect­ed can­not attend hear­ings.
The wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tion for the res­i­dents meant that many agreed to leave. For those who did­n’t the out­come was more sin­is­ter, their homes were destroyed by arson.

The vil­lage of Kazas now only exists in the mem­o­ries of the peo­ple who lived there. “Chu­vash­ka is the Shors’ only vil­lage in this area. In the 1990s, about 16,000 Shors were liv­ing here. Today, there are just between 4,500 and 5,000 peo­ple here” said a Shor woman in Ecode­fense’s film Con­demned. Eight oth­er vil­lages in the area have been destroyed.

The min­ing exploits in the Kemero­vo region have left many of the indige­nous Shor home­less, or dis­placed to oth­er areas, which sev­ers their spir­i­tu­al, cul­tur­al, and prac­ti­cal attach­ments to the land. No ade­quate sub­sti­tute land, nor com­pen­sa­tion has been offered to them. The Kemero­vo Oblast, where most of the Shors and Teleut live, pro­duces 60% of Rus­si­a’s coal for export.

The Russ­ian coal indus­try also has the most dan­ger­ous work­ing con­di­tions of any indus­try in terms of risk to life and wel­fare, with 40–50 fatal acci­dents each year, killing 180–280 peo­ple annu­al­ly, main­ly in the deep mines.

Why is the UK burn­ing Russ­ian coal?
In the year to August 2015, 31% of all ther­mal coal burnt in the UK came from Rus­sia. Since 2005, Rus­sia has sup­plied the UK with more coal than any oth­er coun­try — coal is cheap­er from Rus­sia than any­where else, which is why we burn so much of it. There is lit­tle trans­paren­cy in the coal sup­ply chain and large vol­umes.

Where else does coal come from?
32% of the coal used in the UK was extract­ed in Britain in the year to Sep­tem­ber 2015. Here open­cast min­ing oper­a­tions have con­tin­u­al­ly faced resis­tance from those liv­ing in the shad­ow of mines and pro­posed sites. At the end of March 2016 there were 21 open­cast mines work­ing, a num­ber which is decreas­ing. There are no longer any under­ground coal mines in this coun­try.

Colom­bia is known for its human rights abus­es, yet it sup­plies 23% of the coal import­ed to the UK. Over 90% of Colom­bian coal pro­duc­tion occurs in three large-scale open cast min­ing oper­a­tions in the north­ern depart­ments of La Gua­ji­ra and Cesar. Com­mu­ni­ties close to the mines suf­fer the same prob­lems in terms of forced relo­ca­tions as those neigh­bor­ing Russ­ian mines, addi­tion­al­ly there have been links made to assas­si­na­tion attempts on those who speak out against the mines, mass killings and vio­lence.

Most of the 14% of coal com­ing to the UK from the USA is from dam­ag­ing long­wall min­ing sys­tems — where the mate­r­i­al over the coal is inten­tion­al­ly col­lapsed as the mine pro­gress­es — or from open­cast or moun­tain­top removal mines. Both of these meth­ods destroy huge areas of land, dis­place peo­ple and dam­age the water table. Dur­ing moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing is destroy­ing entire moun­tain ranges in Appalachia.

The Coal Action Net­work is work­ing with grass roots groups on cam­paigns to close the UK’s remain­ing coal fired pow­er sta­tions. Come along to one of our tour dates to find out why we must close these pow­er sta­tions and to see how you can get involved.
Full tour details www.coalaction.org.uk/tour

Germany: Largest Lignite Mine in Europe Shut Down for 2 Days by Sabotage

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day Morn­ing April 25, in the dark of the night, pow­er cor­ri­dor with 10 pow­er mains sup­ply­ing cur­rent to the mas­sive dig­gers, con­vey­or belts and all oth­er facil­i­ties  of the Largest Lig­nite Open­cast Mine in Europe have been set ablaze result­ing in the whole mine being shut down for 2 days and con­tin­u­ing to oper­ate to this moment in lim­it­ed capac­i­ty.

Ger­many: Largest Lig­nite Mine in Europe Shut Down by Sab­o­tage for 2 days.

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day Morn­ing April 25, in the dark of the night, pow­er cor­ri­dor with 10 pow­er mains sup­ply­ing cur­rent to the mas­sive dig­gers, con­vey­or belts and all oth­er facil­i­ties  of the Largest Lig­nite Open­cast Mine in Europe have been set ablaze result­ing in the whole mine being shut down for 2 days and con­tin­u­ing to oper­ate to this moment in lim­it­ed capac­i­ty.  This act of eco­tage fol­lows by a week dam­ag­ing of a pow­er pylon to neigh­bour­ing Indi­en mine.  Both mines exploit lig­nite which with its high mois­ture and con­t­a­m­i­nant con­tent and low ener­gy coe­fi­cient is only used to sup­ply pow­er gen­er­at­ing plants, a series of which sur­rounds the mines with one pow­er plant exclu­sive­ly pow­er­ing the  the Ham­bach mine.
Hambacher Forst Anschlag 250416

This act of eco­tage and destruc­tion of equip­ment with­out the injury or loss of life has tak­en aim at the indus­try which accord­ing to still rather con­ser­v­a­tive 2015 study of World Health Organ­i­sa­tion on the Effects of Air­borne Fos­sil Fuel pol­lu­tants is respon­si­ble for sev­en mil­lion deaths around the world each year, mak­ing it the sin­gle great­est envi­ron­men­tal health risk, con­tribut­ing to one out of every eight glob­al deaths.  Even more dras­tic  and irre­versible effects on cli­mate change(not includ­ed in the above men­tioned study), to which coal is the lead­ing con­tribut­ing fac­tor, esti­mat­ed to reach a run-away effect at 2 degrees centi­grade glob­al change by IPCC com­mit­tee with a new con­sen­sus form­ing plac­ing that point at 1.5 degree annu­al tem­per­a­ture change on which brink we are present­ly.  Hav­ing already caused glob­al bleach­ing and die-off to the rain­forests of the oceans — the coral reefs,  the com­bined tem­per­a­ture change and the increased acid­i­ty from car­bon absorb­tion to worlds ocean is about to make this largest habi­tat on earth unliv­able to the next most sen­si­tive organ­isms: plank­ton.  Plank­ton which con­sti­tutes the very foun­da­tion of the whole ocean eco-sys­tem caus­ing in effect unprece­dent­ed glob­al die-off and dec­i­ma­tion of life, putting one of the largest human-caused plan­e­tary extinc­tions aready tak­ing place into high­er gear still.
As this March became the hottest month on record and as Green­land ice cov­er under­went unprece­dent­ed melt­ing a month ahead of its usu­al time, and as emp­ty non-bind­ing promis­es are made at more and more policed, mil­i­tarised world cli­mate sum­mits all of this as the world slides into the future of chaos and insta­bil­i­ty it is in this case at least that the future gen­er­a­tions will be able to know that not all stood silent and com­pla­cent when faced with a glob­al hege­mo­ny of extreme ener­gy extrac­tion and its not so silent part­ners of dis­in­for­ma­tion, apa­thy and repres­sion.  We are how­ev­er still at a very high risk of these same  future human descen­dants and ecosys­tems fac­ing a dire real­i­ty in which so lit­tle has been done.

That is why Ham­bach For­est Earth-First salutes those respon­si­ble for remind­ing all that it is not a crime to com­mit a less­er “crime” in order to pre­vent a much larg­er one of glob­al destruc­tion, death and eco­cide from tak­ing place as it has for so long in full impuni­ty and in broad day­light……

Ham­bach­er For­est Earth­First!

http://hambachforest.blogsport.de

 

[Ed: More info here & here]

RWE Stockholders Meeting in ESSEN Germany Disrupted

 RWE Ener­gy (Rheinisch-West­fälis­ches Elek­triz­itätswerk AG Rhine-West­falia) Stock­hold­ers meet­ings was met with out­side protest and con­stant inside dis­rup­tions by over 70 activists from groups rang­ing from Fos­sil Free and Green­peace to groups and projects engag­ing in anti­coal block­ades and direct actions such as Ham­bach­er For­est, Robin Wood and Indige­nous Groups from Siberia resist­ing the evic­tion of their vil­lages by coal min­ing projects linked to RWE.

RWE Ener­gy (Rheinisch-West­fälis­ches Elek­triz­itätswerk AG Rhine-West­falia) Stock­hold­ers meet­ings was met with out­side protest and con­stant inside dis­rup­tions by over 70 activists from groups rang­ing from Fos­sil Free and Green­peace to groups and projects engag­ing in anti­coal block­ades and direct actions such as Ham­bach­er For­est, Robin Wood and Indige­nous Groups from Siberia resist­ing the evic­tion of their vil­lages by coal min­ing projects linked to RWE.  The protests and actions start­ed a day before and dur­ing the night with sten­cils on the pave­ment and walls around the head­quar­ters of RWE and the con­ven­tion cen­ter.  Dur­ing the morn­ing tables, ban­ners and inflat­a­bles were set­t­up out­side of the entrance to the con­ven­tion hall that was being guard­ed by both local police on the out­side and pri­vate secu­ri­ty firms inside.  Approx­i­mate­ly 40 activists got inside as part of the Crit­i­cal Share­hold­ers action to be at first met with pat down and met­al detec­tor search­es fol­lowed by a large dose of green wash­ing dis­plays and pre­sen­ta­tions.  All the com­put­er sta­tions con­tain­ing RWE pro­pa­gan­da were prompt­ly changed to the home page of Ham­bach­er For­est occu­pa­tion http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/information-about-the-forest/ and remained show­ing an eco/defense response  to coal min­ing info atten­tive­ly read through­out the meet­ing by stock­hold­ers next to RWE employ­ees hap­pi­ly hand­ing out cor­po­rate schwag.  Before the actu­al meet­ing begun the set­ting was rather sur­re­al with activist con­nect­ing and tak­ing Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty tours of RWE coal Mines and its dig­gers as wait­ers served drinks to an old­er and more con­ser­v­a­tive demo­graph­ic all around.

From the very beg­ging of the meet­ing and com­mence­ment speech­es the dis­rup­tions begun with sev­er­al pro­test­ers jump­ing on the stage and unfold­ing ban­ners, fol­lowed by oth­ers unfold­ing larg­er ban­ners and chant­i­ng anti­Coal and Cli­mate Jus­tice and pro Ham­bach­er For­est Slo­gans.  One pro­test­ers lacked him­self with soft lock­ons to the rail­ing close to the podi­um and was slight­ly injured when the secu­ri­ty tried to force­ful­ly dis­lodge him, anoth­er pro­test­er was also injured by sus­tain­ing bruis­es on her leg.  Some of the stock­hold­ers also attempt­ed to assault the pro­test­ers by pulling their glass­es and cam­eras and yelling insults while oth­ers insist­ed that thez be alowed to protest.  With over 25 pro­test­ers being tak­en to a hold­ing room under the stage, the atmos­phere turned more fes­tive as con­fet­ti flew, and no one watched the offi­cial live­feed of the speech­es pro­vid­ed on a mon­i­tor show­ing close ups of the faces of the speak­ers only, yet still punc­tu­at­ed with many addi­tion­al paus­es full of con­ster­na­tion as oth­er protests and dis­rup­tions raged on and the ranks in the the hold­ing facil­i­ty con­tin­ued to swell.  All detained in the con­ven­tion cen­ter were even­tu­al­ly released.  Anoth­er group which suc­ceed­ed with a climb of, on this day heav­i­ly guard­ed, RWE Tow­er and a ban­ner drop was detained for sev­er­al hours and then also released.

This year meet­ing had very lit­tle to cel­e­brate as RWE for the first time in over 60 years sus­pend­ed its div­i­dend pay­ments to ordi­nary share­hold­ers, announced its plan to cut 2,000 jobs over the next two years and pre­dict­ed that its rat­ing will be low­ered even fur­ther due to their nuclear waste stor­age remain­ing from shut down atom­ic pow­er plants.  NO div­i­dend this year will espe­cial­ly affect many cash-strapped local munic­i­pal­i­ties in north-west Ger­many with com­bined stake of around 24 per­cent in the RWE group which have remained immune to the mes­sage of the vibrant DeIn­vest move­ment and the glob­al irre­versible effects of the  coal min­ing indus­try on the cli­mate, and gen­er­al health and wel­be­ing of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion and the hor­ren­dous effects its hor­ren­dous effects on bio­di­ver­si­ty.

The sin­is­ter over­tone of the con­ven­tion were numer­ous state­ments by the mem­ber of the board that the tur­moil fac­ing con­ven­tion­al ener­gy com­pa­nies could have dev­as­tat­ing effects as it leaves to back up capac­i­ty to bal­ance rather “shal­low and unre­li­able” renew­able ener­gy.  Call­ing it a “hor­ror sce­nario”  a term rather descrip­tive of cli­mate change and chaos on the brink of which the world finds itself to to action of cli­mate crim­i­nals such as RWE, top­ic obvi­ous­ly miss­ing from the speech­es but not the protests,  this above men­tioned cor­po­rate ener­gy appa­ra­tus induced para­noia  and ver­bal gym­nas­tics could hint to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment financed bailout and even more inten­sive pro fos­sil fuel sub­si­dies.  It remains more impor­tant for the Cli­mate Jus­tice Strug­gle to keep up the pres­sure through diver­si­ty of tac­tics and protests such as this one.

Sys­tem Change Not Cli­mate Change!!!

Join Us At:

https://www.ende-gelaende.org/en/
http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/
http://lautonomia.blogsport.eu/

and at all oth­er local and region­al Cli­mate Jus­tice and Extreme Ener­gy Strug­gles.

–
The Ham­bach­er For­est a mil­lenar­i­an for­est on the age of the largest open cast lig­nite mine in Europe is being defend­ed with tree occu­pa­tions, bar­ri­cades tow­ers and tun­nels.  We call upon all of you to join us under a ban­ner of Eco-jus­tice and Bio­cen­trism.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,
 Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers

 

French climate resistance to #StopMCEDD deepwater oil conference

The Oil and Gas com­pa­nies are hold­ing a con­fer­ence on deep­wa­ter oil and gas and how to be more effi­cient to fur­ther exploit deep sea fos­sil fuels. About 500 cli­mate activists have block­ad­ed and dis­rupt­ed the first day of the con­fer­ence.

8th April 2016

The Oil and Gas com­pa­nies are hold­ing a con­fer­ence on deep­wa­ter oil and gas and how to be more effi­cient to fur­ther exploit deep sea fos­sil fuels.

About 500 cli­mate activists have block­ad­ed and dis­rupt­ed the first day of the con­fer­ence.

The largest oil and gas com­pa­nies around the world have decid­ed to meet in Pau from April 5 to 7, less than 4 months after the COP21. There goal is to increase the explo­ration and exploita­tion of hydro­car­bons in the sea. “For­ev­er fur­ther, ever deep­er and in con­di­tions more extreme is a crime against the Oceans”, denounced cli­mate pro­tec­tion orga­ni­za­tions. The coal­is­tion of com­mu­ni­ty, envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate organ­i­sa­tions announced they would block the hold­ing of this strate­gic sum­mit, using non-vio­lent actions and mobi­liza­tions. The protests were pre­ced­ed by a cli­mate action camp, Camp Siren.

Activists say that choos­ing the cli­mate is block­ing the exploita­tion of new hydro­car­bon deposits and pro­tect­ing the ocean. They ask that the French gov­ern­ment: sus­pend any type of financ­ing of the fos­sil fuel sec­tor — nei­ther grants nor invest­ment for coal, gas and oil; and to can­cel ongo­ing hydro­car­bon deposit bore­holes and can­cel all explo­ration and exploita­tion rights by fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies. The mon­ey divert­ed from fos­sil fuels must go to the tran­si­tion to fair and sus­tain­able soci­eties. It must also fund the con­ver­sion indus­tries and tran­si­tion of those present­ly work­ing in fos­sil fuels.

Total’s exec­u­tive Arnaud Breuil­lac artic­u­lat­ed that due to the fall in oil prices since 2014 oil com­pa­ny prof­its have suf­fered and forc­ing com­pa­nies to cut costs and find sav­ings, but that oil and gas was still need­ed despite the growth in renew­ables.

“To ensure the right lev­el of prof­itabil­i­ty, oil com­pa­nies and ser­vices com­pa­nies must work togeth­er to find inno­v­a­tive ways to bring cost down,” Breuil­lac told oth­er oil indus­try exec­u­tives and experts accord­ing to Reuters at the con­fer­ence.
“We need to increase our col­lab­o­ra­tion, to find bet­ter ways to share risks and to col­lec­tive­ly find a new bal­ance,” Breuil­lac said. They are hop­ing to man­age and ride the down­turn, even though the cli­mate imper­a­tive is that oil and gas devel­op­ment needs to stop.

On the first day pro­test­ers suc­cess­ful­ly dis­rupt­ed and block­ad­ed the con­fer­ence venue, both from the inside and out­side. Jour­nal­ist Patrick Piro has put togeth­er this stori­fy.

Back­ground stori­fy.
Multi­na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­nies are organ­is­ing to drill ever fur­ther, ever deep­er into the abyss of the ocean. A sum­mit is planned for the French city of Pau on 5–7 April 2016, organ­ised by the French oil multi­na­tion­al Total, less than 4 months after the Paris cli­mate talks and Paris Agree­ment.

After 9 hours peo­ple are still blockad­ing the entrance to the Palais Beau­mont where the con­fer­ence is being held. Pau is the head­quar­ters of Total’s research and devel­op­ment divi­sion.

Yes, tear­gas was used indis­crim­i­nate­ly against non-vio­lent pro­test­ers.

Two activists infil­trat­ed the con­fer­ence and locked them­selves to ple­nary chairs, before being cut free and excort­ed out by a large num­ber of riot police.

On Day 2 there were cli­mate emer­gency dis­tur­bances at the hotels of del­e­gates. In the morn­ing oil exec­u­tives they dis­cov­ered that activists had locked on to the hotel gates pre­vent­ing them from leav­ing until the gen­darmes had detached the activists.

In the late after­noon about 600 peo­ple formed a human chain around Palais Bea­mont, with music and street the­atre. This was fol­lowed by a con­cert in Beau­mont Park with light pro­jec­tions on the con­fer­ence venue.
Mean­while at Camp Sirene cli­mate activists dis­cuss strat­e­gy and pre­pare for the day to block­ade Palais Bea­month where the MCE Deep­wa­ter con­fer­ence is being held.
Cli­mate activists lock on to Hotel gates, pre­vent­ing police and oil exec­u­tives leav­ing for the MCE Deep­wa­ter con­fer­ence in Pau…

Police had to dis­man­tle the grill with the activists locked on..

…and at last the oil exec­u­tive del­e­gates can get out of their hotel. Patrick Piro writes that it is a Pro­vi­sion­al end of the dis­tur­bances. Over night there were 3 noisy inter­ven­tions in the hotels of the del­e­gates.
Wak­ing up the con­fer­ence atten­dees in the Hotel Navarre. It is a cli­mate emer­gency after all.…2 groups of @AnvCop21 activists entered in the Beau­mont hotel at 2 and 4 o’clock to wake up #STOPMCEDD del­e­gates. Anne Sophie Tru­jil­lo put it nice­ly: #STOPMCEDD is “I will go after your dreams” or I’m your night­mare.
Mean­while activists lock on round del­e­gate vehi­cles lie in the road, storm the venue site to block­ade entrances includ­ing lock­ing-down the car park, and hand­cuff them­selves to del­e­gates’ bags!

“Four months after the COP21, an inter­na­tion­al sum­mit, named MCE Deep­wa­ter Devel­op­ment (MCEDD) will meet at Pau of 5 to 7 April multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies and off­shore oper­a­tors to “suc­ceed a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in costs to the indus­try oper­at­ing in deep sea to remain competitive.“France Nature Envi­ron­n­ment is strong­ly opposed to the hold­ing of the sum­mit of the ener­gies of pol­lut­ing and destruc­tive past that does not also pay their “true price” and denounces the indus­tri­al provo­ca­tion months after the Paris agree­ment on cli­mate.”

“We welcome the closure of three UK coal power stations”

Three coal pow­er sta­tions are to close by the end of the month. A move wel­comed by cam­paign­ers fight­ing open­cast coal mines in the UK and against cli­mate change.

ferrybridge

Three coal pow­er sta­tions are to close by the end of the month. A move wel­comed by cam­paign­ers fight­ing open­cast coal mines in the UK and against cli­mate change.

Lon­gan­net is Scot­land’s last coal fired pow­er sta­tion. This pow­er sta­tion has been respon­si­ble for one fifth of all of Scotland’s cli­mate change emis­sions. [1] Coal burnt in Lon­gan­net has been import­ed from Colom­bia, Rus­sia and the USA, as well as being sup­plied by open­cast coal mines in Scot­land. [2] As a result of Lon­gan­net’s clo­sure Har­g­reaves, the main coal min­ing com­pa­ny in Scot­land, has announced it will close all but one of its Scot­tish mines. [3] This move has been wel­comed by local cam­paign­ers, the Scot­tish Open­cast Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance, who are now fight­ing for a full restora­tion of the sites aban­doned by pre­vi­ous mine oper­a­tors and a ban on open­cast min­ing. [4]

SSE stat­ed that Fer­ry­bridge pow­er sta­tion was fore­cast to lose £100m over the next 5 years, and that the polit­i­cal con­sen­sus is that coal has a lim­it­ed role in the future, mean­ing that keep­ing the sta­tion open is not sus­tain­able. [5] SSE are also to close all but one unit at their oth­er coal pow­er sta­tion Fid­dler’s Fer­ry this year. Fer­ry­bridge is in West York­shire.

Egg­bor­ough has failed in its attempts to gain sup­port from gov­ern­ment to con­vert the pow­er sta­tion from coal to bio­mass and will now close. [6] Its clo­sure is wel­comed by cam­paign­ers work­ing to end our addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. Egg­bor­ough is in North York­shire.

Activist who have fought against the open­cast mines which have sup­plied these pow­er sta­tions cel­e­brate their clo­sure.

All, but one, of the UK coal pow­er sta­tions need to upgrade their air qual­i­ty con­trols in order to reach new Euro­pean Union air pol­lu­tion stan­dards. [7] The remain­ing 7 pow­er sta­tions need to eval­u­ate whether it is more eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable to upgrade or to close. The Coal Action Net­work is push­ing for the lat­er. This sum­mer Ruge­ley pow­er sta­tion will also close. [8]

Anne Har­ris from the Coal Action Net­work says, ‘We are pleased that this week the UK is mov­ing away from unsus­tain­able coal in shut­ting three of its 11 coal pow­er sta­tions. This will reduce the exten­sive dam­age caused to the com­mu­ni­ties in the UK, Rus­sia, Colom­bia and the USA where the coal is mined to pro­vide our elec­tric­i­ty. Clos­ing these coal pow­er sta­tions means that we will reduce our con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing.”

She adds, “Although we are sor­ry that this means job loss­es for peo­ple work­ing at these sites we feel that in bal­ance this is the best out­come, giv­en that peo­ple are being poi­soned and their liveli­hoods attacked to pro­vide the coal to these pow­er sta­tions. Now the Gov­ern­ment needs to act to ensure a prompt clo­sure of all coal fired pow­er sta­tions and an end to the mis­ery of open­cast coal min­ing.”

Notes to edi­tor

Con­tact Anne Har­ris for fur­ther infor­ma­tion

info@coalaction.org.uk

www.coalaction.org.uk

The Coal Action Net­work works with the com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing new open­cast coal mines, stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with peo­ple liv­ing in the shad­ows of the mines which sup­ply the UK world­wide, and is fight­ing to close the remain­ing UK coal pow­er sta­tions. At present there are five appli­ca­tions to open­cast mine coal in the UK and 13 sites which have plan­ning per­mis­sion but have not start­ed min­ing. In Decem­ber there were 25 oper­at­ing open­cast coal mines.

[1] Car­rell, S. (23/03/16) Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion to shut next year

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/23/longannet-power-station-to-shut-next-year viewed 24/03/16

[2] Coal Action Net­work (Jan­u­ary 2016) Ditch Coal www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal p81-82 viewed 24/03/16

[3] BBC news (16/02/16) Har­g­reaves to halt out­put at most Scot­tish open­cast mines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-35587858 viewed 24/03/16

[4] Scot­tish Open­cast com­mu­ni­ties alliance, Demand an end to new open­cast coal mines now!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/503/081/878/demand-an-end-to-new-opencast-coal-mines-now/#sign viewed 24/03/16

Har­g­reaves bought the most prof­itable coal min­ing sites in Scot­land from Scot­tish Coal when it liq­ui­dat­ed in 2013. Scot­tish Coal had been the tar­get of a long run­ning cam­paign against open­cast coal mines by the protest group Coal Action Scot­land.

[5] SSE (20/05/15) SSE Announces Clo­sure of Fer­ry­bridge Pow­er Sta­tion

http://sse.com/newsandviews/allarticles/2015/05/sse-announces-closure-of-ferrybridge-power-station/ viewed 30/09/15

[6] Egg­bor­ough Pow­er Ltd (02/09/15) Com­pa­ny Announce­ment http://www.eggboroughpower.co.uk/About-Us/Our- Values-%281%29.aspx viewed 30/09/15 Egg­bor­ough may come back online if there is a short­age in the Nation­al Grid dur­ing the win­ter of 2016/2017 under the Gov­ern­men­t’s Sup­ple­men­tal Bal­anc­ing Reserve.

[7] The Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive requires indus­tri­al plants, includ­ing the UK’s exist­ing coal pow­er sta­tions, to reduce emis­sions of sul­phur diox­ide (SO2), nitro­gen oxides (NOx) and

par­tic­u­late emis­sions which cause air pol­lu­tion. Pow­er sta­tions can either: com­ply with the direc­tive; not com­ply with the stan­dards (known as Lim­it­ed Life Degra­da­tion) and close with­in 17,500 oper­at­ing hours after 1st Jan­u­ary 2016, and no lat­er than 31st Decem­ber 2023; or par­tic­i­pate in the Tran­si­tion­al Nation­al Plan. [Coal Action Net­work (Jan­u­ary 2016) Ditch Coal www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal p83 viewed 24/03/16]

[8] Davies, R (08/02/16) Gov­ern­ment denies black­out risk as Ruge­ley coal plant unveils clo­sure plan http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/08/government-denies-blackout-risk-engie-rugeley-coal-power-station-shuts viewed 24/03/16

Attacking UK’s coal transport system — Severing the lines that feed the machine

Sev­er­ing the lines that feed the machine is not impos­si­ble. When peo­ple take up civ­il upris­ing in the UK, if peo­ple are able to shove their oblig­a­tions to one side to open up an avenue, they main­ly have the abil­i­ty and pos­si­bil­i­ty to be able to grasp their will for some­thing new.

Sev­er­ing the lines that feed the machine is not impos­si­ble. When peo­ple take up civ­il upris­ing in the UK, if peo­ple are able to shove their oblig­a­tions to one side to open up an avenue, they main­ly have the abil­i­ty and pos­si­bil­i­ty to be able to grasp their will for some­thing new. The war is not over when those moments stop, it sparks up in lit­tle rap­tures here and there, show­ing that we are not crushed, things can be brought to a grind­ing halt again, even for a split sec­ond.

It just takes a few bright spir­its and we see it clear, when the smug con­fi­dence of author­i­ties is knocked, a few pins get hit out and things can be seen in a dif­fer­ent light. Out of synch and off bal­ance, every­thing no longer appears struc­tural­ly sound, life feels more up for grabs.

The new hori­zon peaked through our cloudy day, Sun­day 6th March, and we hope this uncom­pli­cat­ed act of sab­o­tage we have under­tak­en expos­es the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of their com­plex matrix.

We took a risk assess­ment and as night just start­ed to close in we entered the 1st rail­way tun­nel, we cut both lines with a portable disc cut­ter, we did­n’t imag­ine de-rail­ing a loco­mo­tive but wreck­ing dis­rup­tion and eco­nom­ic dam­age (time is mon­ey). We entered a 2nd and did a fur­ther two cuts, mark­ing them all with pink paint, and leav­ing a ban­ner as a warn­ing.

The line in ques­tion runs through the Avon Gorge from Roy­al Port­bury Dock over from Avon­mouth, it’s freight only (no pas­sen­gers), 70% of the UK’s import­ed coal for pow­er gen­er­a­tion comes through these docks. This line is a bot­tle-neck to the coun­try’s dis­per­sal. Most of it from USA where they blow apart moun­tains to get it out and Rus­sia from the Shor and Teleut ances­tral lands laid waste in Siberia, also places like Indone­sia which dri­ve back the forests for sprawl­ing mines and plan­ta­tions. That’s to keep fac­to­ries run­ning and city lights on, when we’ve got a feel­ing for escap­ing the work pris­ons and regain­ing the stars. Oth­er loads car­ried on the line include con­struc­tion aggre­gate and new built vehi­cles on their way to the show room. More high-speed train­lines are com­ing to the UK, more roads, more ancient wood­land and wildlife wiped out in the fren­zy of progress.

After see­ing the firey activ­i­ties against the coal flow in the Ham­bach for­est of Ger­many since New Years — don’t give up the fight!, or the cut­ting of the coal belt in Scot­land some years back by per­sons unknown when the bat­tles against coal min­ing raged, we realise we’re not orig­i­nal. It’s not even the first time for eco-sab­o­tage ambush­es on that line from Port­bury or the trou­ble­some car­go, over the years. We see attacks fol­low­ing attacks on train­lines in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, it’s with­in reach to hin­der the cir­cuits pow­er­ing the giant, we just have to har­ness our courage, keep an eye peeled for soft spots, maybe start­ing small but always dream­ing big. Right now we’re read­ing about eco­nom­ic dam­age this month from train­line sabo­teurs in the north of Spain, we affirm our sol­i­dar­i­ty and respect too for the anar­chists there with show­case court cas­es or police atten­tion oth­er­wise, we laugh to hear about the row­dy spir­its that keep up when repressed for the fight to reject domin­ion. Maybe the sparks kicked up in the train tun­nels even reflect­ed over the Alps and beyond to light the sky for those in dark cells for try­ing to stop high-speed cap­i­tal­ism and also its nano-world tech­nolo­gies.

Join­ing our strength with the near and dis­tant tribes, refusal and attack! Block the flows, up the fight­ers!

Toward a life that’s wild and free from coal, quar­ries, cars or cops. Avon Gorge sab­o­tage group “Sand In The Gears”, sign­ing out.….

Mass action camp: End Coal Now — April/May 2016

As part of the Groundswell year of action and inter­na­tion­al mobil­i­sa­tions tak­ing on the fos­sil fuel indus­try, this May, we’re going to shut down the UK’s largest open­cast coal mine – Ffos-y-fran in Wales.

As part of the Groundswell year of action and international mobilisations taking on the fossil fuel industry, this May, we’re going to shut down the UK’s largest opencast coal mine – Ffos-y-fran in Wales. It’s up to us to keep it in the ground – sign up to join us and get updates on plans.

What’s the Plan?

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with local resis­tance groups, we’ll set up camp near Ffos-y-fran and the site of the pro­posed new mine. We’ll build a camp and use this as a base to host a pro­gramme of work­shops and train­ings, and to build the kind of com­mu­ni­ty we want to see – just, demo­c­ra­t­ic and sus­tain­able. We will also be tak­ing mass action to shut down Ffos-y-fran. The camp will take place over the May bank hol­i­day week­end, from Sat­ur­day 30th April to Wednes­day 4th May and will come just before the Welsh Assem­bly elec­tions on May 5th. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of the camp is com­ing soon. Sign up to the mail­ing list for updates.

Why?

For near­ly a decade, the 11-mil­lion-tonne Ffos-y-fran mine has scarred the land­scape and the com­mu­ni­ty in South Wales. Now the cor­po­ra­tion respon­si­ble for Ffos-y-fran – Miller Argent – wants to crush local democ­ra­cy and resis­tance, and dig anoth­er vast coal mine just next door at Nant Llesg. Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel and we can­not tran­si­tion to a just, demo­c­ra­t­ic and clean ener­gy sys­tem while we con­tin­ue to dig it up and burn it. We want to build on the strong tra­di­tion of mass action Cli­mate Camps in the UK, and the suc­cess of the Reclaim the Pow­er camps over the last few years. We have also been inspired by Ende Gelände and oth­er inter­na­tion­al coal resis­tance move­ments. Last year, the Welsh Assem­bly vot­ed for a mora­to­ri­um on open­cast coal min­ing, but the Gov­ern­ment have ignored them. Let’s make leav­ing fos­sil fuels in the ground a defin­ing polit­i­cal issue in Wales and the UK.

Groundswell year of action for climate justice

 Gov­ern­ments have failed to deliv­er what is need­ed.

Gov­ern­ments have failed to deliv­er what is need­ed. Let’s show them what cli­mate jus­tice action real­ly looks like. Groundswell is a call to esca­late cli­mate jus­tice actions in the wake of the Paris cli­mate talks. From fos­sil fuel to bor­der con­trols, the arms indus­try to finan­cial mar­kets. It will link up groups tak­ing action, and cre­ate new avenues for peo­ple to engage in civ­il dis­obe­di­ence.

We want to do more for cli­mate jus­tice in one year than our gov­ern­ments have done in the last twen­ty-one.

It’s going to take a lot of us work­ing togeth­er, but it’s going to be great. If this sounds good to you, get involved…

More info on train­ing, sup­port and more

The reality of the UK’s coal industry exposed

Map

A new report from the Coal Action Net­work expos­es the untold human and envi­ron­men­tal sto­ries of the coal sup­ply chain. Ditch Coal calls on the gov­ern­ment to phase out coal faster than its sug­gest­ed end of 2025. The extreme sit­u­a­tions sur­round­ing mines in Rus­sia, Colom­bia, the USA and the UK which sup­ply the UK’s pow­er sta­tions show that coal ener­gy is an extreme ener­gy. 24% of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed in 2015 came from coal.

Grass roots group the Coal Action Net­work has worked with com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­men­tal activists from the four major coun­tries sup­ply­ing the UK’s coal. The report details the ignored social jus­tice issues caused by our addic­tion to coal.

Mining Impacts Abroad

Rus­sia sup­plies 42% of the coal import­ed to the UK. In Rus­si­a’s main coal pro­duc­ing region, the Kuzbass area of Siberia, min­ing is dev­as­tat­ing indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and their cul­tures. Shor and Teleut peo­ples are being forced off their ances­tral lands, break­ing the con­nec­tion with their spir­i­tu­al homes, their cul­ture is being attacked and their lan­guage is fad­ing from use.

Com­pa­nies export­ing coal from Colom­bia have been impli­cat­ed in financ­ing para­mil­i­tary mass mur­ders, exe­cu­tions, and dis­ap­pear­ances. Whole vil­lages have been forcibly evict­ed to make way for mines, with insuf­fi­cient relo­ca­tion plans. Colom­bia pro­duces a third of the coal import­ed here.

In the USA, where 19% of the coal import­ed to the UK is from, extreme­ly destruc­tive min­ing oper­a­tions are destroy­ing huge swathes of land and ecosys­tems, and poi­son­ing local peo­ple. Moun­tain­top removal and dam­ag­ing deep min­ing process­es are used by com­pa­nies export­ing coal to the UK.

Although the UK gov­ern­ment has announced an inten­tion to phase out coal by 2025 Coal Action Net­work do not see this as some­thing to cel­e­brate. This time-frame and the phase out­’s many caveats show that the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to pri­ori­tise our high elec­tric­i­ty demands over oth­ers basic rights such as the safe­ty of ones home, the abil­i­ty to grow food, rights to health, free­doms of reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Mining in the UK

Since the gov­ern­men­t’s coal phase out announce­ment Durham based min­ing com­pa­ny Har­g­reaves have been grant­ed per­mis­sion to mine at Field House Coun­ty Durham. Miller Argent who run the UK’s biggest mine Ffos-y-Fran are appeal­ing a deci­sion against a new mine adja­cent to it. Five oth­er coal mine appli­ca­tions are still wait­ing a deci­sion. We need to stop coal min­ing in this coun­try.

Com­mu­ni­ties in the UK are fight­ing for their areas and against coal pow­er. As envi­ron­men­tal activists we should fol­low their exam­ple and stand up to the com­pa­nies involved and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with front-line com­mu­ni­ties. We can­not sim­ply wait for the gov­ern­ment to sort this out. The coal indus­try is spread wide across our island. Ditch Coal high­lights where the ports import­ing coal are, where pow­er sta­tions are sit­u­at­ed and which com­pa­nies are min­ing in the UK. There are nine pow­er sta­tions burn­ing coal with­out a clo­sure plan.

Coal pow­er used to be a main focus of the UK envi­ron­men­tal move­ment, it still is in Ger­many and remains an issue here. The Coal Action Net­work will be tour­ing the UK with a Russ­ian activist in the spring, you can catch a pre­view at the Earth First Win­ter Moot. The Coal indus­try’s cur­rent­ly in a posi­tion of change, where new tech­nol­o­gy needs to be imple­ment­ed or pow­er sta­tions closed. Join the Coal Action Net­work in fight­ing the indi­vid­ual pow­er sta­tions and work­ing with com­mu­ni­ties, let’s not rely on the gov­ern­ment to take these impor­tant actions.

The whole report can be viewed at www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal as can the two page sum­ma­ry and info­graph­ics. Check out the web­site to see what we are up to or fol­low us on face­book.

Upton anti-fracking camp eviction in progress!

12th Jan­u­ary 2017 — bailiffs and police have moved in at Upton Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion camp, in Cheshire.

12th Jan­u­ary 2017 — bailiffs and police have moved in at Upton Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion camp, in Cheshire.

The anti-frack­ing com­mu­ni­ty there has been going strong for a long time now and is at the fore­front of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to this nation­al threat.  Get along to help if you can, and sup­port peo­ple to keep resist­ing at least until Sat­ur­day, when there’s a nation­al day of action there already set.

Updates at https://twitter.com/earthfirst_uk and how to get to the camp here