Court rejects attempt to block Europe's biggest gas power plant in Yorkshire

The Court of Appeals has blocked a legal bid from environmental activists to prevent the building of Europe's largest gas power plant in North Yorkshire, England following its approval by the UK government.

The court rejected a bid from environmental NGO ClientEarth, who claimed the Drax plant was in direct violation of climate change warnings laid out by the local planning authority.

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Then-environment minister Andrea Leadsom reportedly rejected their notions and gave the plant the go-ahead in October 2019.

ClientEarth's appeal was thrown out by the High Court in May, which was then deferred to the Court of Appeal.

Representatives from the court agreed projects should not be rejected for climate grounds under current frameworks.

If completed, the plant could account for 75% of the UK's power sector emissions and would be by far the biggest power station of its kind in Europe and could be in direct violation of the Climate Change Act 2008, which underlined the government's committal to reducing the nation's carbon footprint.

The government was recently met with a mixed response following its decision not to block the country's first deep coal mine in over 30 years in Cumbria.

This ruling appears to be antithetical to the government's policy of reducing the nation's carbon emissions.

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The plant's total capacity is estimated to be roughly 3.6GW.

Drax has previously laid out ambitions to become fully sustainable and has also recently joined a coalition to lay out plans to become carbon-negative by 2030 as part of its Covid-19 pandemic recovery scheme.

The company claims the plant will be part of a plan to remove carbon from the atmosphere, not add more.

A Drax spokesperson said: “Drax power station plays a vital role in the UK’s energy system, generating reliable electricity for millions of homes and businesses.”

Green groups have called out Drax for their perceived hypocrisy, noting that the energy firm aren't considering potential environmental implications of a gas plant of this size on a national scale.

The NGO claim the ruling sets an important new precedent, that current planning policy could be used to assess major energy projects and gauge their environmental impact.

ClientEarth lawyer Sam Hunter Jones told BusinessGreen that new energy projects could theoretically be rejected on climate grounds and that the government must consider the potential risks of such projects.

He added: "Crucially, and contrary to Drax's position at the planning inquiry, the judgment confirms that decision-makers must consider a project's carbon lock-in risk, that they can refuse permission on the basis of climate impacts, and that the public can raise these issues in planning inquiries.

"The Secretary of State's decision still stands and that's problematic of course, but we believe that the judgment brings vital clarity to the meaning of national planning policy."

Doug Parr, the director of policy at Greenpeace UK, said: “This is yet another failure of climate leadership from the UK government ahead of a crucial UN climate summit. Ministers are behaving like someone trying to galvanise a pacifist rally by waving a machine gun.

“The government must U-turn and halt climate-wrecking projects, while the onus is also on Drax to do the right thing and take this project off the table.”

The UK government has pledged itself towards a greener recovery from the pandemic.

Boris Johnson has vowed to make all UK homes powered by offshore wind by 2030 and has proposed a complete ban on the sales of full-petrol and diesel-fuelled cars within the same timeframe.

Read more: UK to ban all sales of diesel and petrol vehicles by 2030

This ban has been met with approval from many within the automotive sector.

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