According to Green Action, the mine, which will be based in Cumbria, could release as much pollution as putting an extra 200,000 cars on our roads.

It’s not just inconsistent with the UK’s climate obligations, it drives a bulldozer right the way through them.

It was only 13 months ago, in Glasgow, the UK joined other governments from across the world in pledging to phase coal out altogether.

An aerial view of the former Woodhouse Colliery site where West Cumbria Mining (WCM) have been given approval to once again extract coal. Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

All of those promises have been cast aside in this brazen and destructive move.

It is no wonder the decision was so instantly and widely condemned. Even Tory MP Alok Sharma, who had chaired discussions at COP26, branded it a "backward step" and warned that it will damage the UK's international reputation.

The contrast with what we are doing in Holyrood could not be clearer.

Only six weeks ago I was proud to announce to the Scottish Green Party conference the Scottish Government had adopted our position of opposing all new coal extraction in Scotland.

It was an important move. Scotland – the country that helped bring the coal-fired industrial revolution to the world – was finally drawing a line

We had no choice. If we want to have any kind of sustainable future, then we must leave fossil fuels in the ground and achieve a fair transition, which protects existing jobs and creates many new ones in the renewables sector in which Scotland can and must be a world leader.

That doesn’t just go for coal, it also goes for oil and gas. Yet the UK Government is in the process of issuing over 100 new exploration licences. These aren’t the actions of a government that is taking its climate commitments remotely seriously.

We can never be complacent. This week's Climate Change Commission report underlined the scale of the challenge that we face here in Scotland.

With Greens in government, it is a challenge that we are doing everything that we can to meet.

From free bus travel for everyone under 22, which has been taken up by over 540,000 young people, to investment in recycling and warmer and greener buildings, and our £60 million nature restoration fund, Scotland is leading the change across the UK.

Next week I will be representing the Scottish Government in Montreal at the COP15 biodiversity conference. It will be a chance to highlight the crucial work we are doing and learn from other governments.

But we can’t meet our climate potential as long as we have one hand tied behind our back by a Westminster Government that is doubling down on the polluting industries of the past.

What we need isn’t more coal mines. It is an urgent and just transition to renewables. That is the only way that we can finally break our dependency on oil and gas.

This wouldn’t just be the right thing for our environment, it would also play a key role in lowering household bills, with millions of people in Scotland and beyond being punished by soaring gas prices.

When it comes to climate change, every fraction of a degree matters.

The choices that we make today will have an impact for generations. So we need to ensure that we are making the right ones.

It is long past time for governments like the UK to listen to the scientists, and to the young people whose future they are gambling with, and take the vital climate action that is so badly needed.

- Lorna Slater is the Scottish Greens co-leader and the minister for green skills, circular economy and biodiversity.

Why UK coal mine decision is the worst kind of climate vandalism and hypocrisy – Lorna Slater

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