Heroes and villains as historic rebellion in Parliament fails to secure a block on dirty coal

An emissions performance standard would mean no more unabated power stations.

We almost did it. Thousands of you emailed your MP via our website, WWF's, and with online campaigners 38 degrees. And they listened, and turned out to vote, and we almost secured an emissions performance standard - a legal limit to pollution which would have stopped dead any future plans to build dirty, unabated coal power stations.

The problem was this: Despite Ed Miliband's clear concerns about coal emissions, the government have been firmly resisting setting a legal limit on power sector pollution.

Even though it's been a step forward, government coal policy still risks handing piles of cash to power companies to research carbon capture and storage with no regulatory guarantee that power plants will actually be cleaned up. It's a high stakes gamble - because if CCS doesn't work, then we're back to square one.

An emissions performance standard would provide a legally binding insurance policy to help ensure future emissions are curbed, no matter what.

Ed Miliband really should have just adopted the standard - but since he refused, it came to a vote in Parliament on Wednesday night. And the result was massively, massively close. 27 Labour MPs rebelled against the government, and in the end, the amendment to the energy bill that would have delivered an emissions standard was only defeated by 8 votes.

So, who were the heroes of the night?

Alan Simpson, for tabling the amendment calling for an emissions performance standard in the first place. His suggestion would have effectively ruled out any future plans for unabated coal plants. It was a good idea, and it would have provided some strong signals to the energy industry about the future of energy provision in Britain. It's a shame that Mr Simpson is standing down at the next election - he's been a great advocate for the climate - but at least he'll get to spend more time in his eco-house.

It was great that 27 Labour MPs rebelled against the government and supported the amendment. That's a big rebellion, especially close to the election, and shows how important the issue is to progressives.

The Tories deserve some praise as well. David Cameron and lots of his MPs came out to bat for the amendment, even including the self-declared climate skeptic John Redwood. (You see, a low-carbon economy is a good idea whatever your other beliefs.) Great stuff from the Conservatives, and it provides some reassurance that even with the grumbling about green issues from some parts of his party, David Cameron was able to get most of his team to vote the right way. Most but not quite all - the positive effort was tempered by the 39 Tory MPs who didn't turn up.

And the villains?

Well, villains might be a bit strong. But weirdly, it looks like the Liberal Democrats have really dropped the ball on this one. They've had a very progressive policy on coal, including supporting an emissions standard. But the hard truth is that when it came to a vote 13 liberal democrats, including 9 of their front bench, didn't bother to turn up. That's about a quarter of their MP's. So what happened? Our campaigners spoke with their advisers, and we know they feel they made a mess of this one. We're sure that with the benefit of hindsight they'd have done thing differently, but lest we forget, the amendment was only defeated by 8 votes.

Although the proportion of Lib Dem MPs not voting was the same as the Tories, we usually expect more of them. If I was a Liberal Democrat MP with a passion for environmental issues - and they do exist, in significant numbers - I'd be feeling pretty embarrassed today. As a response to getting it wrong this time, it'd be good to see the Lib Dems giving some serious profile to their environmental commitments - pushing the other parties on issues like tar sands, and having senior people like Vince Cable making the economic and competitiveness case for clean energy investment in the UK.

In conclusion...

THANKS! Thousands of you emailed your MP telling them to support the amendment - and at very short notice. I also get that ‘emissions performance standard' is a bit of a dry issue, so that so many of you put pressure on policymakers is really immense. We were up against powerful special interests - the CBI and E.ON for example, who were lobbying hard - but we gave them a good run for their money.

The close result and Tory support for the amendment means there's now more space to pursue emissions standards post-election. And the breadth of support for the issue is a strong signal that whichever party forms the next government the future for highly polluting power stations in this country is very, very uncertain.

We're definitely coming back to this one.