World's leading climate scientist writes to Brown, pleads for action

Greenpeace News - Wednesday, 19 December 2007

NASA expert tells PM, "You have the potential to influence the future of the planet"

Dr James Hansen, the world's leading climate scientist, has today written a remarkable letter to Gordon Brown telling the Prime Minister his energy policy could be a "tipping point for the world."

Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology and his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.

In a letter to Brown sent today he writes: "Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today's children, and especially the world's poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate."

(Full copy of Dr Hansen's letter below).

Medway council is next month expected to vote on proposals to build a new coal-fired station at Kingsnorth in Kent. If given the go-ahead the plan will go to Gordon Brown. A coal-fired power station has not been built in the UK for 30 years.

His letter to Number 10 - copied in to the Queen - says: "You have the potential to influence the future of the planet. Prime Minister Brown, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points."

The letter marks an increase in the pressure on the government over climate change. The outcome of Brown's decision on new coal will go a long way to determine whether Britain can meet its long-term global warming targets, which the Prime Minister has suggested will be revised upwards to an 80% cut in emissions by 2050.

Greenpeace is warning that giving the green light to a new coal-fired station at Kingsnorth in Kent will lock Britain into huge carbon emissions for decades and signal Brown's surrender on the new 80% target before he's even formally adopted it. Now Dr Hansen says the decision has massive international implications.

E.ON's application to build a new coal station at Kingsnorth is expected to be considered on January 2nd next year. A new plant would emit over eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. Waiting behind Kingsnorth are proposals for at least seven other new UK coal stations.

Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore said in January: "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations." In October Greenpeace protesters shut the Kingsnorth plant down and scaled the 220m chimney before painting the Prime Minister's name down the side (footage and stills available).

Greenpeace climate campaign leader Robin Oakley said: "This is an extraordinary intervention from the world's leading climate scientist. If Brown doesn't understand the implications of new coal plants after reading this letter, then he just doesn't get climate change. Dr Hansen is telling the Prime Minister that the single most important thing he can do during his time in office is to block plans for new coal-fired power stations."

Greenpeace has calculated that a new generation of coal-fired power stations will account for half of Britain's permissible carbon emissions in 2050 if Brown goes for a new 80% target, as expected. Claims that the Kingsnorth plant will be "ready" to adopt Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology in the future are undermined by the evidence. A UN report into its viability predicted it won't be able to play any significant role for decades and earlier this year the UK Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted that the system was "in the foothills" and "may never work".

The full Hansen letter reads:

18 December 2007

Prime Minister Gordon Brown
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

Dear Prime Minister,

Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today's children, and especially the world's poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate.

For the sake of identification, I am a United States citizen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute. I am a member of our National Academy of Sciences, have testified before our Senate and House of Representatives on many occasions, have advised our Vice President and Cabinet members on climate change and its relation to energy requirements, and have received numerous awards including the World Wildlife Fund's Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from Prince Philip.

I write, however, as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. I was assisted in composing this letter by many colleagues, including Europeans, Americans and others, who commented upon a draft letter. Because of the urgency of the matter, I have not collected signatures, but your advisors will verify the authenticity of the science discussion.

I recognize that for years you have been a strong supporter of aggressive forward-looking actions to mitigate dangerous climate change. Also Great Britain has been active in pressing the international community to take appropriate actions. We are now at a point that bold leadership is needed, leadership that could change the course of human history.

Global climate is near critical tipping points that could lead to loss of all summer sea ice in the Arctic with detrimental effects on wildlife, initiation of ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland with progressive, unstoppable global sea level rise, shifting of climatic zones with extermination of many animal and plant species, reduction of freshwater supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and a more intense hydrologic cycle with stronger droughts and forest fires, but also heavier rains and floods, and stronger storms driven by latent heat, including tropical storms, tornados and thunderstorms.

Feasible actions now could still point the world onto a course that minimizes climate change. Coal clearly emerges as central to the climate problem from the facts summarized in the attached document. Coal caused fully half of the fossil fuel increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air today, and on the long run coal has the potential to be an even greater source of CO2. Due to the dominant role of coal, solution to global warming must include phase-out of coal except for uses where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. Failing that, we cannot avoid large climate change, because a substantial fraction of the emitted CO2 will stay in the air more than 1000 years.

Yet there are plans for construction of new coal-fired power plants in Great Britain, plants that would have a lifetime of half a century or more. Your leadership in halting these plans could seed a transition that is needed to solve the global warming problem.

Choices among alternative energy sources - renewable energies, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil fuels with carbon capture - these are local matters. But decision to phase out coal use unless the CO2 is captured is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being.

If the West makes a firm commitment to this course, discussion with developing countries can be prompt. Given the potential of technology assistance, realization of adverse impacts of climate change, and leverage and increasing interdependence from global trade, success in cooperation of developed and developing worlds is feasible.

Great Britain, the United States, and Germany have contributed most to fossil fuel CO2 in the air today, on a per capita basis. This is not an attempt to cast blame. It only recognizes the reality of the early industrial development in these countries, and points to a responsibility to lead in finding a solution to global warming.

A firm choice to halt building of coal-fired power plants that do not capture the CO2 would be a major step toward solution of the global warming problem. Germany has strong interest in solving the climate problem. Citizens in the United States are stepping up to block one coal plant after another, and the next national election is less than a year away.

If Great Britain and Germany halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the CO2, it could be a tipping point for the world. There is still time to find that tipping point, but just barely. I hope that you will give these considerations your attention in setting your national policies. You have the potential to influence the future of the planet.

Prime Minister Brown, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.

For your information, I plan to send a similar letter to Chancellor Merkel.

Sincerely,

James E. Hansen
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania
United States of America

cc: Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth
cc: Sir David King, Sir John Houghton

ENDS

For more information, contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.

Sources:

• E.ON estimates that the new plant at Kingsnorth will emit 8.4 million tonnes of Co2 per year
• Alistair Darling on CCS - speaking at the launch of the Energy White Paper, 23rd May 2007
• Greenpeace coal calculation - if we have an 80% CO2 reduction target that will mean a 2050 emissions quota of 117.8mt/CO2 per yr. The new generation of coal-fired stations would emit 56.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year, representing 48% of the new 2050 target.

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