Picture a climate criminal. What does he look like? Mine is a white bloke, in his twenties, and with dreadlocks. He was in this newspaper yesterday, and on his naked chest were written the words “No New Coal”.

I doubt he’d much like to be called a climate criminal. I suspect, in fact, he might be a bit miffed. But it’s thanks to the likes of him that the energy company E.ON has shelved plans for a new coal power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. Is that, unequivocally, a victory for the environment? I’m not so sure. I’m worried it might be the exact opposite.

You see, Dreadlocks Man, logically, there are two possible scenarios for the future of coal. In one scenario, nobody burns any more coal, ever again. Not E.ON, not anybody. Not even in the developing world, where they’ve got access to vast amounts of cheap coal and a rapidly expanding appetite for power, and an opinion on man-made global warming that is, roughly speaking, analogous to our opinion on the tooth fairy. The other scenario is that people do continue burning coal, but just not here.

Tell me, Mr Dreadlocks, which of these scenarios do you consider to be the more likely? Don’t rush. I’ll go first. Let’s see, I dunno, hmmm, maybe the second? At a push? I mean, the first would be lovely, and I’m obviously particularly attracted by the way that vast swaths of people would probably freeze to death, but, let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a pipe dream, isn’t it? Until the recession, after all, they were building two Kingsnorths a week in China. And all those pesky selfish bastards in Africa are going to want tellies and fridges eventually, too, aren’t they? So, I reckon people probably will keep burning coal, cynic that I am.

With that as a given, I suppose it’s vitally important that somebody comes up with a way to do it as cleanly as possible. Yes? Well, the new plant at Kingsnorth would have been one of the most efficient, cleanest coal stations in the world, at the forefront of developing what they call “carbon capture and storage” technology, which seeks to find a way to hold on to CO2, rather than blasting it out in the world. Who’s going to figure that out now, then? Sierra Leone?

Sure, maybe Kingsnorth was a bad idea. Maybe it was too poisonous, and maybe it would have cost too much money that could have been spent on other, greener things. I could be convinced of that. But no new coal? No new coal? That’s not saving the planet. It’s environmental Nimbyism.

Coal isn’t going to disappear from the world just because it disappears from a small corner of Kent. Why isn’t that obvious? The more I try to be green, the more the showy extremism of the green lobby infuriates me. Not because it’s pious and hypocritical — although it is — but because it’s so wantonly ineffectual. Face it, Dreadhead, it’s time for some pragmatism. People in the developing world aren’t going to spend their lives in dank holes, eating weevils, however much you might like them to. Failure to accept that will only hold us back. You might even call it criminal.

No-pie zone

To the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this week. Have you ever been to a really swanky London nightclub? One where everybody runs around trying to spot famous people, but never manages because they are all hidden away in some secret VIP room that you wouldn’t get into, and can’t ever find anyway? Imagine that, but with the lights turned on, and with lots of stalls saying things like “Conservative Friends Of People With Pets That Have Bowel Cancer” instead of a bar. That’s basically how it was.

I’ve been to a party conference in Manchester before. Labour, last year. Oozing with Cabinet ministers. Couldn’t move for them. Sit down at a table for more than three minutes, and John Prescott would turn up, munching a pie. The Tory conference wasn’t like that at all. No mingling. Aside from Liam Fox, who was getting frisked, you only really saw frontbenchers out in the hall when they were making furious beelines for somewhere else. This is not, I kept thinking, a political party preparing itself for power. It is seven or eight people preparing themselves for power, who are all constantly terrified that everybody else is about to cock it up.

Smooth operators

Why is it, though, that the politicians in this country look so different from the politicians in every other part of Europe? Or rather, why is it that male European politicians all look so odd? I think it’s the skin. Always preternaturally smooth, as though they never have to shave. They all could be Hillary Clinton, in rimless spectacles.

I was writing this week about Tony Blair’s rivals for the European presidency. I’d never heard of any of them. I doubt anybody else has, either. Afterwards, I realised I’d missed a trick. I should have just made one up. “A clear front-runner,” I could have written, “is Gustav von Unreelpersson, the former Danish Education Minister.” Who would ever have known?

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