UK High Court Rules Against Plans for Country’s First New Coal Plant in 30 Years

UK High Court Justice David Holgate ruled on Friday against a controversial coal plant project, which would have been the country’s first new coal plant in 30 years.

At the end of 2022, the UK government had approved the West Cumbria Mining coal plant, planned for Whitehaven, Cumbria, despite the government’s climate advisors warning against it. The approval had previously come from Michael Gove, former Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) of the UK.

But climate activist groups Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change challenged the project approval in court, casting doubt on claims that the project would not increase global emissions, The Associated Press reported.

As South Lakes Action on Climate Change noted in a press release on the decision, the West Cumbria Mining company argued that the project approval should stand due to “perfect substitution,” or the idea that the demand for coal wouldn’t increase and the amount of coal mined in Cumbria would match the same amount of coal left unmined somewhere else. Further, the company had argued that the project wouldn’t contribute to atmospheric greenhouse gases because it would rely on carbon credit offsetting, The Guardian reported.

But the judge blocked the project, stating, “The assumption that the proposed mine would not produce a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, or would be a net zero mine, is legally flawed,” as reported by The Associated Press.

The UK Supreme Court had ruled in June 2024 that Surrey County Council’s approval of an oil production project in Horse Hill without considering climate impacts from used oil was unlawful, creating a precedent to challenge fossil fuel projects on climate bases, The Guardian reported. In that ruling, the UK Supreme Court said that fossil fuel projects will have to consider downstream emissions, or emissions from fuel combustion, not just production.

The ruling today is the first decision on a fossil fuel project since the June 2024 ruling.

“Today’s detailed and well-reasoned ruling clearly shows the logical flaws that infected the grant of permission for the mine and deserves close reading; it exposes the fallacies that led to the conclusion that this mine was ‘carbon neutral,’” said Matthew McFeeley, who represented South Lakes Action on Climate Change in court. “The Finch ruling means that combustion emissions must be assessed in the Environmental Statement, while today’s judgement means any claim those fuels would ‘substitute’ for other fossil fuel sources must be also assessed robustly in the Environmental Statement. Simple assertions will no longer pass muster.”