Barry White
The week prime minister Johnson suggested that Britain should start mining and burning its own coal again, despite the climate emergency. He said it “makes no sense” for Britain to be importing coal from abroad for use in steelmaking “when we have our own domestic resources”.
During an exchange at Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions, Chris Green, the Conservative MP for Bolton West, said he had “concerns about the ethics of holding back British industry and exporting and magnifying our carbon emissions overseas”. This was being done “in the name of net zero“, he said, adding that “for much of Britain, levelling up means the revitalisation of British industry and the jobs that go with it”.
Commenting on the exchange the countryside charity the CPRE said that “With an ever-closer decision impending on the Cumbria coal mine, it’s alarming that the Prime Minister is making these remarks. It may indicate that the government is close to approving the first deep coal mine in over 30 years. Despite hosting an international climate summit just eight months ago, it seems Boris Johnson has already forgotten we’re in a climate emergency.”
They are calling on people to get the message across to the prime minister directly. So please copy and paste the tweet below to use on your own Twitter account. Feel free to adapt it as you see fit!
@BorisJohnson – the #ClimateEmergency is the greatest threat facing our beautiful countryside – now is NOT the time to be burning new coal. #NoNewCoal @CPRE
“With a decision on the Cumbria coal mine potentially within the next few days, any pressure we can add will go a long way” the CPRE says.
(Send your comments to: acesettleandarea at gmail.com (replace at with @))
Photo: CPRE at https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/a-quarter-of-a-million-of-you-sign-a-petition-against-new-coal-mining/
