Europe is Still Burning....

Damning new report reveals the indigenous communities torn up by coal imports that continue to power Europe and its steel industry

Today, Tuesday 30^th March, Still Burning - a network against hard coal and neocolonialism – releases a new report Still Burning. The report shines a spotlight on Europe's continued coal imports in the run-up to COP26. It also tells the harrowing but little-known stories of the communities from Russia, Colombia, the USA, and Australia whose homes and way of life are literally torn up to mine the coal beneath them, suffering widespread human rights abuses.

Coal production around Europe is falling, but in Russia it’s rising to compensate and to extend the market eastwards.

Some European governments have announced coal power phase-outs, but some like in Germany are so far away (2038) as to be almost meaningless. Even in countries where coal for electricity has been phased out - such as Austria - are consuming coal to make steel. In fact in Austria coal-fired blast furnaces, are the single biggest site emitters of CO2 in the country.

There is an urgent need to stop all coal extraction and decarbonise the electricity and steel making industries.

You can download the report from https://stillburning.net/book/

Still Burning concludes that European utilities and governments must bear more responsibility for the disaster that is unfolding in coal producing regions, and so must act to halt and reverse the damage as well as compensate those impacted.

Our high energy lifestyles are fuelled by coal mines abroad forced on people unfortunate enough to live close to large coal deposits. These people rarely see any of the financial wealth raised from the exports to Europe of coal from under their homes. Instead, they are left with all the local harms and often the worst impacts of climate change.

Continues below...

Russia is the biggest exporter of coal to Europe supplying 41% of the coal imported into the European Union in 2017. 76% of Russia’s coal is mined in Kuzbass – an area in southwest Siberia and most of the coal produced there is shipped to Europe and Asia.

Valentina Bekrinova, a native Shor person living in the village of Chuvashka, Kuzbass, Siberia says, “In front of the house is the Sibirginsky mine. On the other side of the house there is a waste tip from another mine. Our village is surrounded by coal mining, and the dust which blows from the mines and waste heaps coats everything…I’m afraid that Shor people will soon become extinct. This is why the most important thing is the protection of our ecology, our rivers, our taiga for the protection of our nation. We cannot live without [them].”

While the impacts of burning coal in power station on our climate receives some attention the human and local ecological consequences are almost always overlooked. But the consequences are dire:

“I wish that people became more aware of where their coal comes from. And about the consequences” says Luz Angela Uriana Epiayu, mother of Moisés Daniel, a young child who is seriously ill with lung disease living next to the Cerrejón coal mine, owned by foreign interests.

The giant open-pit Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, northern Colombia. The mine is the biggest of its kind in the world and is jointly owned by Anglo American, BHP and Glencore. The Cerrejón mine is in Wayúu indigenous territory and when mining began over 30 years ago, local people were not consulted. Instead their lands were seized, and communities were forcibly displaced, violating their constitutional land rights. The Colombian government has failed to adequately compensate any of the affected communities. Pollution and dust from the coal mine has caused the contamination of water supplies and the air.

Narlis Guzmán Angulo a human rights defender from Cesar in Colombia living near the Drummond coal mine says, “In La Sierra we have always been able to feed ourselves with our agriculture, but that is over... Opencast coal mining ruined everything. It has brought us all this: the collapse of the social fabric, unemployment, death, missing persons, displaced persons, political corruption, the loss of the vocation of our ancestors, the loss of our roots, environmental pollution, disease, prostitution, the sexual commercialisation of children, drug addiction, and poisoned water...”.

The answer to these problems is not to open more coal mines in Europe. True solidarity with people at the front-lines of coal extraction means closing all coal mines globally and to move rapidly away from technology which relies on coal and produces vast emissions.

Read the full report https://stillburning.net/book/ and also see films about these issues by Still Burning here.

Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine quietly becomes a massive reservoir

March 27th 2024

Coal Action Network’s drone footage on Monday 11th March raised the alarm bell about the rising water levels. With this footage, a local resident informed Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council of the rising water levels, only to be told…

Global Week of Action: Putting Insurance Industry in the Hot Seat

March 13th 2024

The insurance industry found itself in the spotlight last week as a Global Week of Action blossomed across the world. From February 27th to March 3rd 2024, a wave of protests, both online and in the streets, swept through the doors of insurance giants, demanding accountability over their support for polluters and decisive action on climate change.

Protesters walk with banner reading 'Insure Our Futures Not Polluters'

Success: Yet another major insurer rules out coal and oil projects

March 5th 2024

After a week of peaceful protest around the world, alongside hundreds of groups, our efforts have paid off. Yet another leading insurance company, Probitas, has ruled out insuring the proposed West Cumbria coal mine and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

Bedwas coal tip: a new frontier for coal in South Wales?

February 26th 2024

‘Energy Recovery Investments Ltd’ is proprosing to extract the coal from 3 large coal tips in Bedwas, Caerphilly, South Wales. The company claims that it would use some of the sales of the coal to restore those coal tips later. The coal tips lie above a coal seam, which the company claims it would coincidentally have to dig into to create ‘lagoons’ for processing the coal from the coal tips…

Charges dropped for activists blocking Ffos-y-fran coal mine

February 26th 2024

The Crown Prosecution Service has dropped all charges against the four Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists who blockaded the entrance to the UK’s largest open-cast coal mine, last summer with a pink boat. While removing the immediate burden of legal confrontation for the defendants, the decision has left a “crater of unfinished business” in the fight for climate justice and accountability for local residents…

Coal clings on in Aberpergwm appeal

February 26th 2024

Citing different grounds to the High Court, the Court of Appeal has nevertheless found against our appeal. The Court of Appeal judges disagreed with the judge in the High Court, and decided that current statute limits Welsh Ministers to only deciding whether a new conditional licence may be issued…

12 3 Next Last >

Never miss an update! Sign up to our Newsletter

OTHER STORIES

Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine quietly becomes a massive reservoir

Global Week of Action: Putting Insurance Industry in the Hot Seat

Success: Yet another major insurer rules out coal and oil projects

Bedwas coal tip: a new frontier for coal in South Wales?

Charges dropped for activists blocking Ffos-y-fran coal mine

Coal clings on in Aberpergwm appeal

Aberpergwm coal mine extension debated in court

✌🏿Victory!✌🏼 Leading Global Insurers Rule Out East African Crude Oil Pipeline

EMR Capital’s other coking coal mine – Kestrel, Queensland

CONNECT WITH US