A small experiment in an unlikely place, launched today, could prove momentous. In Spremberg, a German coalmining town, the Swedish power company Vattenfall is building a pilot plant to clean up the filthy process of making electricity from coal - and hence tackle the looming threat of climate change.

Coal is centre stage in the climate change debate because it is cheap, plentiful and dirty. Burning coal to make electricity produces almost three times as many climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions as burning gas. Given that the world is set to burn a great deal of coal in the next 20 years, half of it in India and China, it is vital to clean up the coal act.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in principle extracts carbon emissions from coal and pumps them underground. In practice, this has not yet been proven from power stations at scale. Nor, crucially, is it clear enough how much it might cost. The pilot in Spremberg will advance knowledge on both fronts, and spawn larger demonstration projects.

The Germans and Swedes have stolen a march on Britain. UK ministers have launched a competition for a CCS pilot scheme, but nothing has yet been built, and they have simultaneously appeared willing to give the green light to new coal-fired power stations without the technology. Utilities in Britain have been waiting around for subsidy, while Vattenfall is putting its own money into the project. It could reap enormous commercial rewards, not least from China, which is sitting on enormous coal reserves.

The race for clean coal is on. The British need to catch up.