The UK government recently approved Europe’s largest gas-fired power station. This did not sit well with Client Earth; an environmental charity run by lawyers that use the law to protect planet Earth and the people who live on it. In retaliation the charity is suing the UK government, a motion green-lighted by the British court for undermining the country’s own planning authority’s concerns about the climate crisis.
The government disregarded the planning inspectors’ recommendation to not approve the construction of the power plant in North Yorkshire due to its enormous carbon footprint. The company behind this is Drax, the large biomass and coal-fired power station in England. According to a lawyer at Client Earth, if the gas-fired plant is built, it could produce 75% of the UK’s power sector emissions once fully operational. Electricity makes up 20% of the UK’s overall carbon footprint.
The secretary of state for business, energy, and industrial strategy, Andrea Leadsom, ignored the warning and approved the project in October 2019. Immediately, Client Earth interfered with legal action, at which point Britain’s high court ruled in its favor, granting the charity legal authority to sue ministers.
The Drax plant was the first large-scale project to be rejected as a result of the climate crisis. When the planning inspectors recommended against it, their reason was that the massive power plant is at odds with the path that development needs to take to reach climate goals.
The planning authority warned:
The 3.6GW power plant would undermine the government’s commitment, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008, to cut greenhouse emissions by having significant adverse effects.
When Leadsom decided to ignore this stark warning, it angered Client Earth because her resolution threatens the UK’s commitment to net-zero emissions. It doesn’t help combat the climate crisis either.
Sam Hunter Jones, a Client Earth lawyer, said:
With scientists ringing the alarm bells for decades, we shouldn’t need to take the government to court over its decision. The secretary of state has ignored the recommendations of her own planning authority, and her decision is at odds with the government’s own climate change plans to decarbonize in a cost-effective manner.
As the planning inspectorate found if this plant goes ahead the public risks a carbon budget blowout or a huge stranded asset that would require propping up by the taxpayer, or a combination of the two.
Drax defends the plant, claiming it is part of a bigger plan to remove carbon from the atmosphere by 2030. However, that contradicts what the planning inspectors concluded. A Drax spokeswoman defends the company saying that the company can achieve its carbon-negative ambition alongside “new, high-efficiency gas power capacity as part of our portfolio” that would provide electricity when the sun isn’t shining, or the wind blowing.
Meanwhile, Leadsom stands by her approval for the project, stating that the climate crisis is not reason enough to stop the plant from being built. She said:
While the significant adverse impact of the proposed development on the number of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere is acknowledged, the policy set out in the relevant National Policy Statements makes clear that this is not a matter that should displace the presumption in favor of granting consent.
Regardless, the UK doesn’t need power from the new Drax station, as Client Earth points out. The UK government’s most recent prediction is that the nation will need 6GW more of electricity by 2035, and it has already approved over 15GW of large-scale gas-fired plants – meaning the new Drax station is unnecessary.
