The fate of the UK’s potential first deep coal mine in 30 years will be fiercely debated at a public inquiry starting tomorrow, in what is expected to be a landmark test case on what new fossil fuel projects should be allowed as countries act to hit net-zero emissions.
The mooted Woodhouse Colliery near Whitehaven, Cumbria, has escalated from a local planning issue to a national one with international implications, as the UK prepares to host the COP26 climate summit.
Supporters say it will provide jobs for a region that desperately needs them and displace coal imports. Critics highlight the carbon dioxide emissions from the most polluting of fossil fuels, say it risks undermining the crucial COP26 conference and argue the coal isn’t needed.
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The , which is backed by an Australian private equity group, would produce about 2.8 million tonnes of coking coal a year, which is used in steel-making, not burning in power stations. The latter has been almost eliminated in the UK, but decarbonising the steel industry is seen as a much harder task.
Normally, planning approval would be a decision for the local authority, Cumbria County Council, which has already given the go-ahead three times. However, amid an outcry over the climate impact of the mine, the UK government on 11 March it would instead take the decision to block or allow it. Tomorrow sees the start of a 16-day , to a backdrop of protests planned in Cumbria and London, that will play a key role in a government decision expected early next year.
“Our law is really not clear on whether the coal mine is legal or not,” says Rebecca Willis at Lancaster University in the UK. The is to block permission for coal extraction by default, but allows exemptions if developments are deemed “environmentally acceptable” or provide enough local benefits to outweigh wider impacts.
WCM emissions resulting from the operations of the mine itself will be “net zero carbon” from “day one”. But emissions from using the coal, not from mining it, are the far bigger impact. The coal’s use if the mine operates for 50 years. Globally that may seem small, at about 1 per cent of humanity’s annual emissions. But it isn’t insignificant: it is on par with total last year.
“We’re principally opposed to the mine because the coal it produces will really increase global carbon emissions just at the time scientists have produced their greatest warning yet,” says Estelle Morris at environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, referring to the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It’s a dangerous thing to be contemplating at this stage.”
Morris rejects the idea UK steel-makers need the coal, arguing the industry is already shifting away from it. WCM has focused on the benefits of UK steel-makers using its coal, instead of imports, which mostly come from Russia and Poland today. However, to export about four-fifths of the coal to northern, western and southern Europe, and Turkey. In the UK, steel-makers have raised concerns the coal may have sulphur levels too high for their needs.
UK steel-makers don’t need to stick with coal, says Willis. “There are technologically available alternatives,” she says, such as recycling steel using electric arc furnaces and adopting technology pioneered in Sweden to convert iron ore to steel using hydrogen instead of coal. However, Gareth Stace of trade body UK Steel says: “In the medium term, coking coal will remain an essential raw material for steel-making, even as the sector increasingly decarbonises.”
The mine has also resurrected an old debate pitting jobs against climate action. “I think the economic argument is a no-brainer,” says Mike Starkie, mayor of Copeland Borough Council, which covers the area where the mine would be. WCM says it would create 532 jobs directly, which Starkie says would boost spending in the area. “It would be a tragedy if this mine doesn’t go ahead,” he says. Morris acknowledges the area needs jobs, but questions how long-term they will be and argues green projects would yield more employment.
If the mine goes ahead, it could have implications at a global level. UK prime minister Boris Johnson for the world to “consign coal to history” after the IPCC report, and the UK government is understood to want a commitment to some form of global coal phase-out to be one of COP26’s outcomes.
“Allowing a new coal mine to open in the UK would completely undermine our international credibility and the fragile, complex COP26 negotiations,” says Ed Miliband of the UK’s opposition Labour party. “How can a government tell others around the world they should not dig new coal whilst planning to do so themselves?” He says the government should block the mine, and a Labour government would instead support UK steel to decarbonise and invest in “long-term, good jobs in Cumbria”.
The mine’s future is likely to be decided after COP26. Willis argues that whatever the result, it will be the wrong one for people locally. “If they get it, they’ll have an uncertain number of jobs in an industry that is on its way out. If they don’t get the mine, they’ve got nothing,” she says. “It just underlines how essential it is to look at the transition to net zero at a local level.”
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