The Royal Society has called for Government to guarantee that new coal-fired power stations in the UK capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2020.

In the letter written to John Hutton the Secretary of State at the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the President of the Society, Lord Martin Rees, makes clear that in order to meet the 2020 emission reduction targets set out in the climate change bill, measures such as the withdrawal of operating permits for coal-fired power stations are withdrawn if they fail to meet the above emissions target.