Happy- and determined- Campers
Kingsnorth, Kent, August 3 Despite a
police raid during which crayons, board games and sanitation equipment
were confiscated, the Camp for Climate Action has arrived within sight
of its target- a coal-fired power station in North Kent. Months of
meticulous planning by hundreds of unpaid activists are coming to
fruition,with several thousand people expected to arrive at what will
become a kind of 'temporary university of climate change', with 200
workshops on everything from baking a vegan cake to understanding the
science and building mass movements. The week will
culminate in a day of mass action against Kingsnorth on Saturday 9th
August (see page 2 for details)
E.ON, the world's largest investor-owned power and gas
company owns the site and plans to spend
£1.5bn to demolish the existing plant and replace it with one “20%
cleaner.” This would be the first new coal-fired power station in the
UK for decades. Greenpeace claims that the CO2 emissions from this one
new plant would equal that of the 30 lowest emitting countries in the
world combined. Medway Council has given planning permission. Final
approval now lies with the government.
On Friday, energy minister Malcolm Wicks gave what may be an indication
of his intentions when he said “the rather boring fact is that the
world is going to be burning a lot more coal.... whatever people
singing songs in the sunshine at summer camps might idealise, the world
is going to be using lots of coal in the future.”
However, over 225 Members of Parliament, including 70 Labour
backbenchers, have called for the Kingsnorth proposal to be referred to
a public enquiry. A Parliamentary select committee (a committee made up
of a small number of MPS appointed to deal with particular
areas or issue) has called for a ban on new coal-fired stations until
“carbon capture and storage” technology has been proven to work.
The mass action
E.ON has been granted an injunction protecting the airspace above the
plant and also the jetty where coal is landed. Protestors
from a number of organisations are planning to converge on Kingsnorth
from the land, sea and air on a day of mass action on August 9.
A group within Camp for Climate Action calling themselves the “Great
Rebel Raft Regatta”, featuring pirate ship rafts and rubber dingies,
will attempt to block the jetty. The “Sky Group” have vowed to fly over
and into the power station using everything from kites to remotely
controlled helicopters.
