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Climate groups called a decision to open the UK’s first deep coal mine in more than three decades unlawful, claiming that approval was granted without taking into account all the harmful emissions that it would produce.
Lawyers for Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change are challenging the decision to give planning permission to Woodhouse Colliery project in Whitehaven, northwest England at the High Court on Tuesday.
The UK government gave permission for the mine to go ahead in 2022. The developer, West Cumbria Mining Ltd., planned to sell coal from the mine primarily to overseas buyers for making steel.
Lawyers argued the emissions caused by burning the coal were not included in the developers climate assessment and they wrongly treated the mine as net zero.
“No reputable standard-setting or governance body involved in the voluntary carbon market endorsed West Cumbria Mining’s approach,” lawyers for Friends of the Earth said in documents prepared for the hearing. “West Cumbria Mining’s claim to “net zero” status was and is pure greenwashing.”
The lawsuit was given a boost last week when the UK’s new Labour government said it was no longer going to defend the claim. It comes after the country’s Supreme Court ruled that all emissions produced either on site or down the supply need to be fully considered when looking at whether new fossil fuel sites are being approved.
“West Cumbria Mining strongly refutes the claimant’s repeated mischaracterization of the development proposals, the evidence that was presented and the Inspector and Secretary of State’s lawful appraisal of them,” their lawyers said in the documents.
(By Katharine Gemmell)
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