When will the Coalition clean up coal?

Earlier this week, 38 Degrees members emailed their MPs about the Coalition putting “on hold” the promise to introduce Emission Performance Standards (EPS) in their first energy bill. Establishing minimum standards for how clean power stations should be is important for achieving the carbon targets that the Climate Change Act laid out.

Although the standard was promised in the Coalition agreement, plans to make the law seem to have been delayed. Thousands of us e-mailed our MPs to tell the government to clean up coal power production by sticking to their promise on delivering the standard.

Our pressure is clearly having an effect. On Tuesday, just one day after thousands of 38 Degrees members e-mailed their MPs, the Guardian published a letter from Chris Huhne MP, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, that restated his promise to delivering the standard. But so far, there’s no clear commitment about when it would be introduced. Many people are worried that this means the new emissions standard won’t be brought in for years.

If you haven’t yet, you can still email your MP to ask them to support an emissions performance standard: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/clean-up-coal

38 Degrees members will be keeping a close eye on the Coalition’s plans, to make sure they deliver the standard as fast as they can. In the meantime, share what your MP says on the 38 Degrees Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/peoplepowerchange/), so we can keep tabs on who is behind working quickly to get a standard made into law.