1. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

WCM eventually accepted that, over the lifetime of the mine, 220 Million tonnes of greenhouse gases would be released by USING the coal. CONSTRUCTING and OPERATING the mine would release 9 Million tonnes of emissions. Over 7 million tonnes of that is methane. But they claimed that the new mine would be “climate neutral” and any impact on global heating could be ignored. How come? 1. they claim climate harm from the USE of a fossil fuel should NOT be considered as an indirect impact in the Environmental Impact Assessment . 2 they claim that the coal would substitute for other coal, rather than inhibit the use of low carbon alternatives for steel making. 3 They claim that they can and will capture 95% of those methane emissions, which has never been claimed or achieved before, and 4 that offsets would cancel out the rest.

A separate case , “Finch v Surrey County Council”, in the Supreme Court established that the mining company were wrong on point 1. The subsequent ruling on the Cumbria mine in the High Court showed that the mining company had failed to provide any evidence for point 2. i.e. WCM hadn’t shown there would be 100% substitution rate (leaving coal from other mines in the ground) and on point 4. said the the claimed offsets were all outside the UK and therefore not legally acceptable, and there was no evidence they would provide permanent sequestration of the carbon emissions.

2. Global Leadership

SLACC always said that approving the Cumbria coal mine (that was originally scheduled to run until 2070) would impact badly on UK leadership. As the Public Inquiry in 2021 came to an end, the UK took over as Chair of COP 26 and hoped to show climate leadership. COP26 did issue a weak intention to stop “unabated coal for energy generation”: giving a green light for metallurgical coal for steelmaking, which has continued through COPs 26 -29. However, the coal mine decision was not made until COP leadership passed on to the next host country, and relied on a continued pretence that carbon capture and storage will stop emissions while new extraction continues. The mining company’s claim that a new coal mine can be “climate neutral” was unfounded and unreasonable, and our opposition was vindicated by the decision of the High Court in September 2024.

3. Low Carbon Steel is the Future

Sweden’s progress on use of hydrogen, rather than metallurgical coal, to make steel; and that EU and UK blast furnaces would close to meet our carbon targets. We were right. Even before Gove approved the mine, the UK agreed to help both UK steel makers to shift to Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs). EAFs use hardly any coal, and not this type. Hydrogen-Direct Reduced Iron furnaces could have fed the UK EAFs and retained a full UK steel industry but that never happened. As confirmed in a recent report Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is NOT being added to blast furnaces in the UK or the EU. Apart from China and Asia steel makers prefer EAF and Hydrogen to CCS , as WCM’s own expert also predicted when they highlighted the costs and technical difficulties of CCS for steel plants. SLACCtt believed Mr Gove’s decision ignored all that evidence and was unreasonable

4. High Sulphur Content

The coal was never going to replace UK imports as supporters claimed. The targeted coal seams are too high in sulphur to be used by UK and European steel makers, except in very small quantities. Even early WCM “small print” admitted 87% would be exported, and British Steel said (again) they couldn’t use any of it. WCMs experts at the inquiry claimed it would still be cost effective for Asian blast furnaces in spite of higher delivered costs, assuming that those jurisdictions would continue to have no controls on air pollution.

5. Jobs

WCM promised jobs, apprenticeships, and work for local suppliers, but admit there is no mechanism for ensuring these would benefit existing residents. Indeed WCM has plans for group accommodation, presumably for workers from overseas who would have existing experience of working in underground coal mines. West Cumbria does need jobs, especially well paid alternatives to the nuclear industry, but local support for the mine is strongly linked to a lack of faith in government supplying any good alternatives, not a burning desire to work in a deep mine under the Irish Sea. In any case coal is not the future, and the jobs at Whitehaven would not last until 2049. New jobs in renewable energy, energy efficiency and a low carbon Cumbria would be preferred, and would not risk environmental harm from disturbing the highly polluted old chemical site where the mine would be constructed.

6. Ancient Woodland

SLACC argued that constructing the concrete enclosed conveyor belt through an area of Ancient Woodland would cause unacceptable harm. Ancient Woodland is literally irreplaceable, and planning regulation is very strict on forbidding any harm unless there are exceptional reasons to do so. We were clearly correct in our assessment, because just weeks before the Public Inquiry WCM started to mention an alternative proposal that tunnelled under the wooded valleys before continuing to the railway sidings where coal would be loaded onto wagons. Drawings including sections were produced in the days after the Public Inquiry closed, but no site investigations have been done. WCM is simply required to investigate and then develop a method. Even if it proves feasible, the costs of construction could be very high and the risks of harm to the woodland remain.

A number of UK organisations tried to explain why investing or insuring the mining project was a bad idea. – another video