Ed Miliband’s keynote speech was disrupted and stopped by an activist disputing his climate credentials after extending subsidies for the UK’s single biggest carbon emitter, Drax Power Station last year. The young woman stood on her chair, highlighting Drax’s ‘deadly’ history and called upon Ed Miliband to put a stop to any Drax powered data centre, before being violently dragged out by security and ejected from the building.
This disruption comes as the Government is considering a joint bid from Drax, the North Yorkshire Combined Authority and the University of York to build a Drax powered AI data centre as part of the Governments AI Growth Zone initiative. Meanwhile, a recent investigation found that Drax has violated environmental regulation over 18,000 times in the US and residents of Gloster, Mississippi are suing Drax over the air pollution caused by Drax’s pellet plant.
Rosie Gloster, Axe Drax co-founder, said:
This government cannot claim to care about climate action while extending the lifespan of the UK’s single biggest carbon emitter, Drax. Funding Drax makes a mockery of the UK’s climate commitments, and is a death sentence for forests and communities around the world suffering under Drax’s deadly pollution. The absolute least Ed Miliband can do now is reject any of Drax’s dirty data centre plans.