Post by Anne Harris (Coal Action Network).
Smoke filled the sky across the industrial parts of the UK, as coal powered the industrial revolution. First coal brought prosperity and progress, but over decades the smoke stacks have been identified as a major cause of the climate crisis.
September 2024 saw 3 major changes, cementing the transition away from coal in the UK. The planning permission for a new coal mine off Cumbria was withdrawn, the last UK coal power station closed and Port Talbot turning off its last blast furnace using coal.
When Ratcliffe on Soar coal power station closed it marked the beginning of a coal free power generation. As recently as 2012, coal provided 40% of the UK’s electricity, with around 40 coal mines extracting 17.1 million tonnes of coal, with an additional 45 million tonnes of coal imported from Russia, Colombia and the USA.
Ratcliffe on Soar, near Nottingham opened in 1967, with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts, enough to power 2 million homes. Since the early 2000s people across the UK have campaigned against coal power stations, coal mines and other coal infrastructure. Coal is the greatest historical cause of climate change and still a major global contributor of green house gas emissions.
In 2015, the UK was the first country to announce it would phase-out coal by 2025. While lauded as a big climate victory the Government’s intention was also to ensure coal didn’t exit the UK’s grid any earlier than 2025. At the time coal still contributed 9% of the UK’s electricity supply.1
Ratcliffe power station has seen its fair share of protests demanding closure. Including direct action in 2007, when Spring into Action, saw 11 people locked on to the dumper trucks and the conveyor belts, feeding coal to the power station. Back then Ratcliffe was the 3rd largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.
Three years ago, prior to the Glasgow COP climate summit, the phase-out date was brought forward to 2024. The UK wanted to be seen as a climate leader in phasing-out coal and setting up the Powering Past Coal Alliance with Canada in 2015.
Although the UK was first to announce the end of its coal power sector, Belgium was the first European nation to stop burning coal and several others have beaten the UK to enact coal phase-outs.
In 2017, the UK had sourced 49% of its imported coal from Russia, where coal mining contributed to cultural genocide and laid waste to large areas of the country, decimating rivers, forests and agricultural areas. The UK stopped Russian coal imports in response to the war.
Imported coal comes with a high toll for the local populations. Campaigners in the UK have been pushing for an end to imports of coal from Russia as well as Colombia, while calling for the end of its mining and use in the UK. Over the years London Mining Network has brought visitors to the UK from international coal affected regions, particularly in Latin America.
Meeting these campaigners has been profoundly moving experiences for people living close to proposed coal mines in the UK, as the similarities in their struggles are numerous, and it shows that the campaigns are thinking globally by acting locally and pushing for the end of coal power.
The movement against coal power in the UK has been wide, with people standing up and saying no to opencast coal mines near their homes and joining together to stop 45 planned new opencast coal mines from development. Significant battles were fought at Lodge House in Derbyshire, in the Pont Valley in Durham and Ffos-y-fran, the UK’s largest opencast mine, which was allowed by the Welsh Government to mine coal for an unbelievable 15 months after planning permission ended.
Coal Action Network has worked with communities resisting opencast and, later, deep coal mining across the UK. From its inception in 2008, it has supported more than 25 communities to stop coal mines and extension from destroying local wildlife, filling local people’s lungs with dust and the industrialisation of the countryside.
Campaigners are optimistic that we have seen the last of new applications for coal mines. In September 2024 the planning permission for the proposed West Cumbria coal mine was revoked, and then the license from the Coal Authority was rejected. Communities in Cumbria and beyond were overjoyed having fought long and hard to bring about these results which were secured in court by South Lakes Action on Climate Change and Friends of the Earth.
Elsewhere site occupations have been a significant tactic in slowing or stopping coal mines from starting. Coal Action Scotland set up action camps that disrupted operations on existing opencast sites. Scotland’s last coal power station, Longannet, closed in March 2016, and the Scottish Government banned coal mining in 2022, in a protest against the proposed West Cumbria coal mine.
With the coal-phase out announcement and pressure on opencast coal mines, coal companies started saying that their coal was destined for use in the steel industry. Steelworks at Port Talbot and at Scunthorpe were amongst the biggest single site emitters of carbon. Both are transitioning away from coal, but due to bad planning from government and industry, without a Just Transition for workers.
The UK battle against coal is not over. ERI Ltd want to extract coal for burning from spoil heaps at Bedwas, Aberpergwm Colliery has permission to operate until 2039, the massive void left by Ffos-y-fran opencast fills with water as the company tries to escape all restoration obligations and Chinese owned British Steel is expected to lay off thousands of workers, with as poor a deal for workers as at Port Talbot steelworks.
Coal Action Network is fighting for a coal mine ban and a coal export ban to stop UK coal once and for all.