Clean Coal Dirty Joke – Keep it in the Ground

Wednesday 23rd September 2009: Climate activists have stopped work at the controversial Ffoss-y-fran opencast coalmine near Merthyr Tydfil, doing their bit to keep coal in the ground and switch to clean energy to avoid runaway climate change.



Today’s action is part of a growing movement of people addressing the root causes of climate change. In particular the endless pursuit of economic growth on a finite planet is the driving force behind climate change and today’s action shows how effective ordinary people can be, with just two people bringing Wales’ biggest coalmine to a standstill.

Following the inaugural Climate Camp Cymru last month, today’s action draws international attention to UK government hypocrisy on climate change and ensures the people of Wales play their part in the growing global movement of climate action. Experts agree that globally emissions must peak by 2015 or earlier if we are to avoid runaway climate chaos[i].



“Coal is nearly all carbon and must be left in the ground” said Paul Jones, from a net suspended above the site’s access road. “Ffos-y-Fran is a big black hole in the climate change policies of our governments, we must switch to clean energy to avoid climate chaos!”



“Action like this is essential to bring home the urgency to politicians in the build up to Copenhagen” Dr. Larch Maxey, from Swansea University said, “Climate change is already killing three hundred thousand people every year[ii], yet our politicians push polluting fuels like coal to chase economic growth at any cost. To stop climate chaos we must leave fossil fuels in the ground”

Footnotes

[1]The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report  http://www.ipcc.ch/ proposed 2015 as the point at which emissions must peak, although this report is out of date, with the latest research indicating that emissions should peak sooner and be brought to zero by 2050. See, for example Public Interest Research Centre “Climate Safety” (2008)  http://climatesafety.org/

[1] Kofi Annan's think-tank, the Global Humanitarian Forum, recently calculated that 300,000 people a year are already being killed by climate change, which is set to increase dramatically with increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. See “Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis” (2009) available at  http://www.ghf-geneva.org/OurWork/RaisingAwareness/HumanImpactReport/tabid/180/Default.aspx