Where next for the Climate Camp? 15 December 06

Climate change activists are spoiled for choice at the moment. Whereas once we used to mess about with graphs and Powerpoint, now the centre of action has moved out into the real world – to power stations, airports and road schemes, the places that are causing climate change in the real world. The UK direct action movement is currently discussing where to host the next Climate Camp – and as I say, there are plenty of locations to choose from.

Just this week the government announced that despite all its reassuring words on climate change, it still wants to see a full-throttle expansion of aviation, with four new runways – at Heathrow, Stanstead, central England and Scotland. The government’s aspirational policy is to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but its practical policy is to increase them. No wonder even scientists, unflappable people at the best of times, are beginning to despair as temperatures continue to soar to ever-higher highs.

In Bristol, expansion of the airport is linked to the construction of a new ring road – already the scene of a vibrant opposition campaign. As I’ve written before, building new roads simply encourages more traffic, further increasing carbon emissions. So why is the government spending billions on widening the M1? Because, again, its practical policy is to continue encouraging the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, whatever ministers tell press, parliament and the general public to the contrary. The Luton M1 roadworks, the first stage of this massive motorway widening, might also be a good focus for some inspired direct action. (Thanks to Road Block for these links.)

The 2006 Climate Camp was based at Drax coal-fired power station in Yorkshire, the biggest single source of UK emissions. I remember telling someone at the time that it would be impossible to build any more coal-fired power stations in the UK with the current high awareness of global warming. Well, I was wrong. The generating company E.ON is planning to spend a billion pounds constructing a new coal-fired power station in Kent. As a recent BBC report shows, there is much talk about capturing the carbon and pumping it underground – but underneath the PR chatter the plan is clearly for the smoke to go up the chimney and into the atmosphere just as it has always done.