CNN —Britain’s approval of its first new deep coal mine in decades was unlawful, London’s High Court ruled on Friday following a legal challenge brought by environmental campaigners. Friends of the Earth and South Lakeland Action on Climate Change challenged the previous Conservative government’s 2022 approval of a coking coal mine in northwest England. Britain dropped its defence of the legal challenges after a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year said planning authorities must consider the impact of burning, not just extracting, fossil fuels when deciding whether to approve projects. Developer West Cumbria Mining fought the case and said the project — which planned to extract coking coal for manufacturing steel, rather than to generate electricity — would be “a unique ‘net zero’ mine”. A spokesperson for West Cumbria Mining said the company “will consider the implications of the High Court judgment and has no comment to make at this time”.

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Persons: CNN —, Niall Toru, Toru, James Strachan, David Holgate Organizations: CNN, Lakeland, Conservative, Earth, Developer West, Mining, West Cumbria Mining’s, West Cumbria Mining Locations: England, Britain, West Cumbria