End Coal! WDM joins new global campaign for an end to dirtiest fossil fuel
Date: 4 November 2014
The battle against coal is heating up. From our very own Carbon Capital campaign to get the banks out of coal to the fossil fuel divestment movement being led by 350.org and People and Planet in the UK, more and more pressure is being brought to bear to end the coal industry.
Coal is obviously a disaster for climate change. But it is also a more immediate disaster to the 400,000 people who die every year as a direct result of local pollution caused by coal. In places like Indonesia, Colombia and South Africa, whole communities have been uprooted and moved, often without decent compensation, to make way for coal mines. Around the world, coal is destroying the lives of people who live near where it is mined, transported and burned.
It is in this context, where links between those affected in the global south and the global north are strengthening, that a new campaign has been launched.
On Friday, around 50 organisations from both north and south, including WDM, set up the new EndCoal.org website. It brings together many of the great anti-coal campaigning organisations from across the world under one (virtual) roof.
Alongside our current fight to get BHP Billiton to stop trashing indigenous land in Borneo with their coal mines, the fight to stop coal companies destroying the Great Barrier Reef in Australia also features on the site. You can also catch up on the latest news, such as the report I blogged about last week which revealed that RBS and Barclays are among the worst banks in the world for funding coal.
There is also a “plant tracker” which you can use to see a map of all 2291 coal power stations being planned for construction across the world.
As time goes on, I expect that EndCoal.org to be a useful one stop shop for global anti-coal campaigns, but it is already also becoming a way for campaigners to work together across borders. For example, our petition against BHP Billiton is being shared with campaigners in Australia, who will present the company with the petition at its Adelade AGM on 20 November.
