On 13th September, the UK’s High Court decided that plans for the UK’s first new deep coal mine in 30 years will not be allowed to go ahead.
The judge ruled that Michael Gove, when he was secretary of state for levelling up, acted unlawfully in accepting a claim by West Cumbria Mining (WCM) that the mine would be “net zero”. WCM claimed that the mine would have no impact on the country’s ability to meet the emissions cuts required under the Climate Change Act 2008, because it was relying on offsetting through purchasing carbon credits from abroad. UK government policy does not allow for reliance on international offsets to meet carbon budgets.
WCM’s justification for the mine omitted the ‘downstream’ emissions from the burning of the coal mined, which would have exceeded 220m tonnes of CO2 equivalent, more than half of the UK’s total emissions in 2022. More details on the judgement can be read here and here.
On 27th September, the UK’s coal watchdog, the Coal Authority, refused to grant underground coal mining licences for the mine, which were among a number of permissions that the mine would require to start operating.