Five activists at the top of the 200m chimney at the Kingsnorth coal power plant.
It's been a pretty unusual ten days but today has been truly
extraordinary. At 3.20pm, the jury came back into court and
announced a majority verdict of not guilty! All six defendants -
Kevin, Emily, Tim, Will, Ben and Huw - were acquitted of criminal
damage.
To recap on how important this verdict is: the defendants
campaigners were accused of causing £30,000 of criminal damage to
Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they had
'lawful excuse' - because they were acting to protect property
around the world "in immediate need of protection" from the impacts
of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.
So the evidence for the defence centred around the enormous
damage burning coal does to ecosystems, people and property around
the planet - and the UK government's abject failure to take any
meaningful action.
(This is the first case, by the way, where preventing property
damage from climate change has been used as part of a 'lawful
excuse' defence in Crown Court.)
During the trial, the world's leading climate scientist came to
court and challenged the government's plans for new coal, calling
for Gordon Brown to announce a moratorium on all new coal-fired
power plants without carbon capture and storage. Cameron's
environmental policy adviser said there was "a staggering mismatch
between what we've heard from government and what we've seen from
government in terms of policy". An expert on climate change impacts
in the UK said some of the property in immediate need of protection
from sea level rises included parts of Kent (Kingsnorth being
"extremely vulnerable") and that "it behoves us to act with
urgency". And an Inuit leader told of his first hand experiences of
the impacts of climate change.
After hearing all of the evidence, the jurors (representatives
of ordinary British people) supported the right to take direct
action to protect the climate from the burning of coal.
So where does this leave the government's energy policy? Seen in
the light of the verdict, their plans to build a new coal plant at
Kingsnorth (which could emit as much as the world's 30 least
polluting countries combined every year for 40 or 50 years) show
not only their abject failure to act on climate change, but also
that their policies are actively leading us in the wrong (and very
dangerous) direction. Ministers now find themselves in a very tight
corner.
Once I'm back in the office, I'll publish the witness statements
from Jim Hansen, Dr Geoff Meaden, Zac Goldsmith, Jennifer Morgan
and Aqqaluk Lynge in full (they're well worth reading). And keep an
eye out for our next podcast, where we'll be talking to the
defendants and to Jim Hansen about coal, climate change and the
trial.
In the meantime, you can find out more about coal, why we don't
need it to keep the lights on and why the government should be
pursuing efficiency, renewables and combined heat and power
instead.
But for now, with a huge thanks to the brilliant defence legal
team - Michael Wolkind QC, barrister Quincy Whitaker, and Mike
Schwarz and Catherine Jackson of Bindmans Solicitors - it's over
and out from the Kingsnorth trial.
To everyone receiving this by email, thank you for signing up
for the updates, and for your messages of support. If you'd like to
hear from us regularly, you can sign up to get fortnightly(ish)
updates about our campaigns and nonviolent direct actions from us
here.
Finally, we've turned commenting back on, so feel free to leave
your thoughts below (although I might take a wee while to answer
them; I suspect some celebrations with the defendants are
afoot)...