Will Michael Gove’s carbuncle coal mine frustrate Britain’s green ambition?

Levelling up shouldn’t be relying upon dirty, backward-looking technologies, says James Moore

It is perfectly possible to boost the North by encouraging investment in greener, more forward-looking projects instead (PA)

City folk see real potential in London becoming a centre of green finance. The place to go to find the capital required to get projects off the ground and a means of giving a financial centre locked out of Europe and slowly leaking jobs a handy shot in the arm.

How are those who’ve thrown themselves into this idea, which has some committed and enthusiastic proponents, supposed to react to Michael Gove approving the polluting carbuncle of a coal mine in Cumbria? With outrage? Or simply a weary shrug?

It ought to be the former. The first new coal mine to be approved in decades will be built near Whitehaven by the privately owned West Cumbria Mining after the levelling-up secretary finally signed it off.

When it comes to Britain’s claim to climate leadership, the decision really ought to be a stain on the conscience of Gove and the government in which he serves (assuming, of course, that it has one).

Gove might point out that, compared to Cumbria, the capital is living in a sun-kissed meadow. London is a global city, a magnet for talent, a powerful economic engine. It’s doing just fine. He’s looking out for those who live in places without those advantages. This is more than levelling up as a slogan, he might say, it is a real project that will create jobs where they are badly needed.

Sorry, but no. With this mine, which will produce coal for coking used in the steel industry among other things, Gove offers a false choice. There absolutely is no reason to cast a pall of suffocating black smoke over London’s green ambitions by facilitating environmentally destructive projects elsewhere. It is perfectly possible to boost the north by encouraging investment in greener, more forward-looking projects instead.

It speaks volumes that the steel producers still in the UK (Tata, British Steel) are, to their credit, set upon finding cleaner ways to operate their plants which will deprive the coal mine of a domestic market. At best, maybe 10 per cent of its output will be used here.

It is also a terrible irony that a Tory party which was willing to rebel to bring an end to the ban on new onshore windfarms – projects which could help provide an income to hard-pressed farmers in the north, for example – is now presiding over this monstrosity.

The economic justifications advanced for it are dubious at best. They include the claim that most of its produce will be exported and so won’t contribute to the UK’s carbon footprint, which is one of the most painfully wrongheaded and regressive arguments I’ve heard in some time. Then there’s the suggestion that it’s greener selling its coal to Europe than seeing customers importing the stuff from the US. That argument also holds about as much water as one of Starbucks’ Christmas-themed espresso cups.

Both fail to address the stain on the UK’s reputation the mine will leave or the fact that coal, one of the most environmentally damaging fuels humanity has happened upon, desperately needs throwing into the dustbin of polluting history

It is hard to see anything other than a naked, and cynical, political calculation behind Gove’s decision, which was delayed until after the 2021 United Nations Climate Conference (Cop26) had been held in Glasgow.

The motivation seems to rest on little more than the fact that Tory MPs local to the mine have decided they want it, even though plenty of local residents don’t.

It is true that, if the City can source green finance cheaply and efficiently, and do it better than its rivals, then the clients will come. That’s the way it works with financial services.

As an alternative to excuses, perhaps the City could say: “We hear what you’re saying and we’re embarrassed, too. But this government will be out of office soon and the replacement will probably have more of a commitment to practising what it preaches on the environment. Now, shall we talk fees?”