A furious row broke out on GB News today as climate campaigner Jim Dale heralded the decision to quash plans to build the UK’s first deep coal mine in more than 30 years.
At the High Court, judge Justice Colgate cited “legally flawed” environmental assumptions surrounding the Cumbria development for the ruling.
Jim Dale told Nana Akua and Ben Leo he was delighted about the decision, claiming it as a “victory for common sense”.
Nana hit back to argue that Britain will instead get its coal from abroad, claiming countries like China are continuing to happily up their production.
Nana Akua clashed with Jim Dale on GB News
GB NEWS
“We’ve got to move in this direction, and coal has to be one of the things we get rid of”, said Dale.
Nana responded: “We still need coal, so where are we getting it from? It’s not a case of what you think - just answer the question.”
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Dale insisted coal is “diminishing worldwide” and even in China.
Ben Leo waded in to comment on Dale recently taking a trip to Thailand, using a gas-guzzling jet to flock there and back.
“I thought you might mention that”, Dale responded.
“I have never been a purist in terms of saying ‘don’t fly’, it’s an evolution, not a revolution. I do pay back my cO2 use.”
Jim Dale joined Ben Leo and Nana Akua on GB News
GB NEWS
Nana contested the latter point, saying carbon offsetting is a “scam” that does not work.
Dale hit back to say Nana and Ben were “struggling with the answers” as they are both “climate deniers”.
“What’s a climate denier?”, Ben asked. “I’ve blocked you on Twitter [X] for that now because you keep calling me it.
“What does it mean?”
A High Court has quashed a planning application for the UK's first coal mine in 30 years following backlash from climate groupsPADale responded: “Fossil fuels put cO2 and other carbon gases into the atmosphere that creates a greenhouse effect and puts the Earth’s temperatures up step by step.”
Climate campaign group Friends of the Earth (FoE) and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) took legal action over the decision by the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government, then led by Michael Gove, to grant planning permission in 2022.
While the Government withdrew its defence in July, the developer of the proposed site, West Cumbria Mining (WCM), continued to oppose the claim.
At a hearing in July, lawyers for FoE said the decision “smacked of hypocrisy” given the UK’s “vocal international advocacy” over the phase-out of coal in energy systems.
Lawyers for WCM said there had been “repeated mischaracterisation” of the plans and the development would have a “broadly neutral effect on the global release of greenhouse gas”.
In his judgment, Justice Holgate said: “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.”