Biofuelwatch’s response to the consultation titled “Coal Generation in Great Britain : the pathway to a low-carbon future” (which can be found on the Government website here.)
We argue that, whilst we welcome a coal phase-out, these proposals contain loopholes to ensure continued coal-burning (e.g. through installing CCS onto a portion of power plants) and will result in increased levels of biomass generation, which is not compatible with conserving biodiversity nor a healthy and liveable climate.
Furthermore, other aspects of the proposal ensure a coal phase-out cannot occur before 2025, when the central economic scenario indicates all coal power stations will disappear by 2023. We need to phase-out coal as quickly as possible to have a chance of combatting climate change and for the many communities around the world that suffer from coal mining.
The Government should greatly increase support available for low-carbon generation such as community wind, solar, hydro and tidal power, remove coal from capacity market auctions and remove renewable subsidy support for biomass.
The full response can be found here : Biofuelwatch response to coal phaseout consultation.