Yesterday's scenes at the Drax power station near Selby marks a new turn in concern over global warming and climate change. The 4,000 megawatt power plant last year consumed 9m tonnes of coal and as a result emitted an estimated 20.8m tonnes of carbon dioxide - as revealed by this newspaper in May - making it the worst polluter of greenhouse gases in the country. By targeting Drax, in a quixotic attempt to close it down for the day through mass protest, campaigners were hitting at the heart of the matter: Britain's aging industrial infrastructure and the continued need for coal-fired generators such as Drax to provide so much of Britain's electricity. Drax alone pumps out more carbon dioxide than Sweden, hence the anger that drew hundreds to North Yorkshire this week. The protesters failed to shut down the plant: since it produces up to 7% of Britain's electricity, the consequences could have been dramatic and widely unpopular.
Unlike many of the fights carried on by their predecessors, today's environmental protesters find themselves pushing at an open door. The British government, and Tony Blair especially, may talk a better game in tackling climate change than its final actions reveal, but no one can seriously accuse it of not appreciating the danger. The Conservatives too are at pains to demonstrate that they are concerned - even displaying the rare sight of a Tory shadow chancellor offering to raise taxes, as George Osborne did yesterday, to aid the environment. The Tories also appear ready for a remarkable volte-face, by floating the reintroduction of the fuel-duty escalator - a device the party adopted when in government in 1993 but then disowned, in a blatant display of bandwagon jumping following the nationwide fuel protests of 2000. But better a sinner repents. If the Tories are sincere, then it ill serves Labour to turn the same cynical tactics against them.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, the amount raised by environmental taxes has fallen as a proportion of overall revenue in recent years. If there is now a consensus between the three main parties - itself a remarkable event in modern politics - then there is no barrier to the government taking the bold measures that will be needed to lower the UK's carbon output. The shrinking political divide can also be seen across the Atlantic. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California, the US's richest state, has broken with sections of his party to back caps on greenhouse gases and allow emission trading, similar to the scheme that operates within the EU.
As a result, the protesters outside Drax find themselves following rather than leading public and political opinion. Mr Blair and his government have pledged to allow new nuclear power generators - a decision strengthened by the reliance on coal-fired plants such as Drax and Didcot, a cosmic irony for many protesters. Yet, like the Conservative party, even Drax is not beyond redemption. High-tech scrubbers remove 90% of sulphur from its output, while investment in biofuels and development of carbon sequestration techniques could even clean up the dirty man of Europe. The example of the vanishing ozone layer shows that international action can avert disaster. The 1987 Montreal protocol helped ban damaging halogenated hydrocarbons, and Nasa says that the layer is mending itself. Halting climate change may not be as simple, but it is easier when the political will is there.