MP Slams ‘Sloppy’ BBC Attack on Home-Grown Coal-for-Steel Project

The West Cumbria Mining development to produce coal for processing into coke for the UK steel industry has faced opposition from activists, with the government recently announcing a review of the project.

A backbench MP has laid into the BBC's criticism of a new coal mine to fuel domestic steel production — and reduce carbon emissions from shipping imports.

On the fringes of the COP26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow, BBC climate editor Justin Rowlatt launched a tirade against Prime Minister Boris Johnson for refusing to block the project in Cumbria in north-west England.

Johnson stressed that the UK's share of energy use from coal had fallen from 80 per cent in his childhood 50 years ago to 1 per cent now, with half that fall coming since he took office as mayor of Greater London in 2008.

But the agitated journalist implied the PM was a hypocrite for urging developing nations including China and India to move away from the abundant fossil fuel while not blocking the development.

"You're going to the developing world, saying 'phase out coal', at the same time as not ruling out a new coal mine in Britain – a new coal mine in Britain!" Rowlatt shouted. "We started the industrial revolution, we should close the mines!”

How can it be acceptable for a BBC ‘journalist’ to tell the Prime Minister ‘we should have closed the [coal] mines’ and call him ‘weasel-y’? This is pure climate activism not journalism. #DefundTheBBC #COP26 pic.twitter.com/Xo4slJABX6

— Defund The BBC (@DefundBBC) November 1, 2021

But Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight Bob Seely criticised the Beeb's "sloppy journalism", pointing out that the mine would be producing coal to be processed into coke for British steel mills — and that the alternative was to import coal from abroad, resulting in several times higher total carbon emissions.

Seely even accused the BBC of wanting to kill off the UK steel industry, which supports 1,100 companies and over 33,000 skilled jobs.

2/9 Maybe he & @BBCNews want to shut down steelmaking in this country, but until then, the cleanest way of getting coal from the ground to steel plants is from UK coal. Coal from abroad dramatically increases carbon transport emissions.

— Bob Seely MP (@IoWBobSeely) November 2, 2021

4/9 Here are the facts from a CPS report, rather than grandstanding BBC questions:

Transporting coal from the large Bailey mines in Pennsylvania (USA) emits 235 per cent more in CO2e emissions than British coal.

— Bob Seely MP (@IoWBobSeely) November 2, 2021

The MP criticised environmentalists for promoting schemes — such as carbon offsets — that he said merely "offshore" emissions to other parts of the world rather than reducing them.

9/9 Why do so many green campaigners think you can be ‘green’ by offshoring UK emissions to less ‘green’ nations like China or India. We need to onshore our own pollution so we can own it, reduce it and fix it, not offshore it to bathe in virtue signalling or sloppy journalism.

— Bob Seely MP (@IoWBobSeely) November 2, 2021

"We need to onshore our own pollution so we can own it, reduce it and fix it, not offshore it to bathe in virtue signalling or sloppy journalism," Seely said.