UK Being Sued Over Approval of Gas Power Station

The plant was approved despite climate change objections from the government’s own planning authority.

According to environmental lawyers ClientEarth, the plant could be responsible for 75% of the UK’s power sector emissions when it becomes fully operational.

ClientEarth are the lawyers behind the judicial review against the plant being developed in north Yorkshire.

The Drax project was the first large-scale power project to be rejected due to climate concerns. The 3.6GW gas plant was recommended against by the planning inspectorate as it “would undermine the government’s commitment, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008, to cut greenhouse emissions”.

Despite this, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, Andrea Leadsom, gave the plant the go-ahead back in October last year. ClientEarth have now obtained permission from the high court to sue the government over the issue.

Defending her decision, Leadsom said that: “While the significant adverse impact of the proposed development on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to atmosphere is acknowledged, the policy set out in the relevant National Policy Statements makes clear that this is not a matter that should displace the presumption in favour of granting consent”.

ClientEarth have already defeated ministers three times previously over their insufficient efforts to curb air pollution. The new case is expected to be heard in around two months’ time.

Sam Hunter Jones, a lawyer for ClientEarth, said: “With scientists ringing the alarm bells for decades, we shouldn’t need to take the government to court over its decision”.

Adding: “[Leadsom’s] decision is at odds with the government’s own climate change plans. As the planning inspectorate found, if this plant goes ahead the public risks a carbon budget blowout, or a huge stranded asset that would require propping up by the taxpayer, or a combination of the two”.

A spokesperson for Drax explained that the company aspired to be removing carbon from the atmosphere by 2030, not adding to it. They planned to do this by burning wood and plant material to generate energy, and then capturing the emissions and storing them.

However, the spokesperson said that Drax’s ambitions to be carbon negative could be achieved alongside the “new, high efficiency gas power capacity as part of our portfolio”.

This year will see the government’s actions to handle the climate emergency come under scrutiny due to its hosting of the UN summit in November. On Thursday the government will bring its environmental bill before parliament - which it claims underlines ministers’ commitment to tackling the climate issue.

However, it was recently revealed that fossil fuels were at the heart of over 90% of the energy deals made at the UK-Africa investment summit held in London last month.