Comment UK January 2008

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January 2008

 * Brown faces 'defining climate decision of his premiership' as new coal plant is backed by Tory controlled Medway council, Greenpeace, January 3. Greenpeace is warning that if the PM gives the green light to a new coal-fired station at Kingsnorth in Kent it would lock Britain into huge carbon emissions for decades and signal Brown's surrender on the UK's long term climate change targets. Claims that the Kingsnorth plant will be "ready" to adopt Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology in the future are undermined by the evidence. A UN report into its viability predicted it won't be able to play any significant role for decades and earlier this year the UK Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted that the system was "in the foothills" and "may never work". Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore said in January: "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations." Last month Dr James Hansen, the climate scientist, wrote a letter to Gordon Brown telling the Prime Minister his energy policy could be a "tipping point for the world." topic