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Tag Archives: Cumbria

Cumbria is one place that could really benefit from a green recovery plan

Posted on 10 March, 2021 by Green Alliance blog 2 comments

This post is by Nick Robins, professor in practice for sustainable finance at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute, and Ciara Shannon, director of EdenWorks

Cumbria is a county with a strong industrial heritage and unrivalled natural assets. But it has also attracted international notoriety for the county council’s decision to approve plans to open the new Woodhouse Colliery. The decision is widely seen to be wholly incompatible with the UK’s climate objectives: the Climate Change Committee (CCC) states that “a new coking coal mine in Cumbria will increase global emissions and have an appreciable impact on the UK’s legally binding carbon budgets”. More than this, the colliery risks becoming a stranded asset, as the use of coking coal in steelmaking could be displaced completely by 2035, according to the CCC. This means that any economic benefits in terms of regional revitalisation and jobs would be fragile and short lived.

Green economy

Why Europe doesn’t need Cumbria’s coking coal

Posted on 9 February, 2021 by Green Alliance blog 10 comments

This post is by Valentin Vogl, an academic working on sustainability transitions in the global steel industry.

This was supposed to be the UK’s climate leadership year. In November, global leaders will gather in Glasgow to try to tame and temper humanity’s climate disruption. Meanwhile, a mere 137 miles south in Cumbria, the UK is set to do the polar opposite and open up a new coal mine.

Cumbria deserves better than this proposed coal mine

Posted on 15 January, 2020 by Green Alliance blog 7 comments

This post is by Professor Rebecca Willis and Professor Mike Berners-Lee of Lancaster University, co-authors of The case against new coal mines in the UK.

Cumbria’s West Coast, the very north western tip of England, is a place of beauty. From the rolling cliffs of St Bees, on a clear day you can see over the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man. Turning inland, the Lake District fells dominate the view. William Wordsworth was born just a few miles away. Read more

Low carbon future

From Cumbria to Paris: when climate change gets personal

Posted on 7 December, 2015 by Rebecca Willis 2 comments

This post is by Green Alliance associate Rebecca Willis and also appears on her website.

I write this in the aftermath of Storm Desmond, which battered my home town of Kendal this weekend. I am lucky to live up a hill and, over the weekend, our house filled with flood refugees. We hunkered down to watch films as the wind howled outside. Today, a sizeable portion of my town is still under water. Schools are closed, which my kids obviously think is brilliant. But across the county of Cumbria, the devastation is truly terrible. It is only this morning, as the waters subside, that the extent of the damage to homes, livelihoods, transport and infrastructure is becoming clear. Read more