Climate activists from the community group South Lakes Action on Climate Change – towards transition (SLACC) have launched a legal review at the High Court of Manchester against the government's decision to approve the opening of a new coal mine located in Cumbria in Northwestern England.

The mine is the nation's first in the last 30 years. The government gave the formal approval on December 7 to greenlight the mining project led by Australian-owned West Cumbria Mining.

The project, which is expected to generate 500 jobs and operate for 50 years, states the extracted coal will be solely consumed by the steel industry, not electricity generation. 

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Climate activists criticize the move as contradicting a bill passed on October 2021 requiring it to decarbonize all sectors of the British economy to meet net-zero targets by 2050.

Another group named Friend of the Earth said they filed a statutory review of the decision at the High Court in London last Friday. 

Both the SLACC and Friends of the Earth have criticized housing secretary Michael Gove for undermining the UK's policy which is to decarbonize all sectors of the UK economy to meet net-zero targets by 2050.

"Planning to open a new coal mine in the middle of a climate emergency is unthinkable," according to Tony Bosworth, a campaigner from Friends of the Earth campaigner.

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