Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
11/20/2015
To better address growing concerns about climate change, the United Kingdom will begin to move away from the use of unabated coal in the next decade with a goal of closing all unabated coal plants by 2025, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd announced this week. “It cannot be satisfactory for an advanced economy like the UK to be relying on polluting, carbon intensive 50-year-old coal-fired power stations. Let me be clear: this is not the future. We need to build a new energy infrastructure, fit for the 21st century,” Rudd said in a speech.
These coal plants, Rudd said, will in large part be replaced with natural gas generation. “To set an example to the rest of the world, the UK also has to focus on where we can get the biggest carbon cuts, swiftly and cheaply. That is hard to do when, after 20 years of action on climate change, 30 [percent] of our electricity still comes from unabated coal. One of the greatest and most cost-effective contributions we can make to emission reductions in electricity is by replacing coal fired power stations with gas,” she said.
The U.K. would be one of the first developed nations to move away from use of coal in such a major fashion, Rudd said. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will soon release a consultation, requesting plans from experts and stakeholders that would result in the restricted use of coal from 2023 and the closure of all unabated coal plants by 2025. But let me be clear, we’ll only proceed if we’re confident that the shift to new gas can be achieved within these timescales,” Rudd noted.
Rudd stressed the importance of energy innovation to develop technologies that will deliver on the goal of a low-carbon future. “DECC funding for innovation is already supporting the development of transformative technologies here in the UK. In energy storage, in low carbon transport fuels, in more efficient lighting. These and many more examples, such as [carbon capture and storage], point to the creation of new industries and new jobs in the UK,” she said.
Environmentalists Laud Announcement
Greenpeace U.K. celebrated the announcement, saying in a blog post that “this is hugely important, both in terms of the emissions saved by ending our use of the dirtiest fossil fuel, and the symbolic importance of the country which started the industrial revolution evolving beyond the need for coal.”
Former Vice President and activist Al Gore also commented this week that “the UK has become the first major economy to set a clear date to phase out coal, and I am hopeful that others will follow suit as we repower the global economy with the clean energy we need for a sustainable future.”
