31 August 2006The Guardian
wouldn't bet much money that the Camp for Climate Action will succeed in shutting down the Drax power station today. The protesters are outnumbered by the police - they will struggle to get through the cordon, let alone to disrupt the running of the plant. But they have already succeeded in their real aim, which is to draw attention to the government's failure to cut carbon emissions. Drax is a good symbolic target: with sufficient political will, and at some expense, the government could have closed all our coal-burning power stations by now. Even without the use of any carbon-free technologies, a switch from coal to gas represents a major saving: coal contains an average of 24.1kg of carbon per gigajoule of energy, while natural gas contains 14.6kg. It is true that simply switching to gas doesn't go nearly far enough - we must cut our total emissions by 90%, which requires massive energy efficiency programmes and new technologies. But, knowing what we do about climate change, burning coal in 2006 looks like an outrageous extravagance. No one is doing anything about it because no one - until now - has had the courage to stand up and say "stop". But after ten years of dormancy, the direct action movement is rising again. In the early 1990s, the scuzzy, uncivilised people (I was one) who sat in trees on the routes of new motorways helped catalyse a surge of public revulsion against the Conservatives' road-building programme. The government was forced to cut its roads budget from £23bn to £4.5bn.
Now the movement intends to do the same for global warming: by keeping the issue in the news and by showing that people are prepared to risk being beaten up or imprisoned for their beliefs, the protesters will help ensure that climate change can no longer be ignored. Anyone who cares about the health of the planet should wish them luck.
