Hi Andrew,

Thanks for posting to our website. Your question is a question we frequently get. Essentially, there are other organisations in other countries campaigning against coal which understand the national context, have built up a reputation..and speak the language. We’d not do a very good job over there.

The UK has made a historic contribution to CO2 from burning coal that ranks it 4th in the world for its proportion of CO2 in our atmosphere warming our planet right now. That places an onus on the UK to lead the way in phasing coal out and set that hopefully other countries will follow. The UK still support coal mining in other countries via City of London financial institutions and companies traded on the London Stock Exchange. There are 2 coal mines operating in the UK but they don’t produce the type of coal the UK uses so a large part of that is exported, contributing to global supplies of coal which drives demand further. On top of that, the UK imports coal primarily for cement works – there are plans to decarbonise this industry but they aren’t happening fast enough. However, it would not make sense to sink a new coal mine in the UK to feed this dwindling demand – what would happen is that much of it would end up on the global market, lowering the price of coal and increasing the security of supply, both of which would serve to disinvencivise industry from investing in the alternatives that have been proven effective at scale.

I hope that anwers your question.