Climate emergency: What the parties say

Wildfires raging in Australia and California and, earlier this year, in Siberia. Floods in Venice. ‘Biblical’ deluges of rain in northern England. October again the hottest October on record. Must be something going on. Oh right, ‘the world has, at most, about three decades to completely decarbonize before truly devastating climate horrors begin’ (David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, 2019, p.214). Not that you’d necessarily be aware of the seriousness of things from this election, which is somewhat odd, as it was billed as ‘a’ or even ‘the’ climate election.

As fossil capitalism drags us ever closer, or maybe past, the tipping point, politicians struggle to keep up with the panic now gripping climate scientists. Instead, they persist with the conceit that dealing with the climate emergency is just another manifesto pledge, along with funding the NHS or getting Brexit ‘done’. Sleepwalking voters are massaged with traditional electioneering promises by the bucketful. In the meantime, most of us cling to the belief that things will go on getting progressively better while a benevolent state sorts out the climate.

The truth is it won’t. Thus far, political leaders have turned out to be either ignorant, complacent or complicit. We’re living through the beginning of the end of a short-lived (in the context of human history) consumerist frenzy, the unsustainability of which some of us have been pointing out for years. (For a frightening worst-case scenario of the consequences of business as usual see Wallace-Wells’ book, cited above).

So, what do the parties promise to do about the unfolding climate emergency? In order of the most alert to the most irresponsibly complacent we have …

1. The Green Party. As we might expect, the Greens are keenly alive to the climate emergency. They calculate that we need to spend £100 billion a year on a ‘green new deal’ to achieve net zero by 2030. It should be pointed out that this doesn’t save future generations from climate breakdown; it merely staves off some of the most disastrous scenarios.
2. Labour claims that under its plans a ‘substantial majority’ of emissions will be cut by 2030. It promises to spend £250 billion on a Green Transformation Fund, as part of a total £400 billion fund, over the five years of a Parliament. The words are fine – they will ‘put people and planet before profit’ and ‘tackle wanton destruction by taking on the powerful interests that are causing climate change’. But policies are weaker. Moreover, some of Labour’s infrastructure promises, like Cornwall Council’s spaceport, contradict their commitment to tackling the climate emergency. The classic example is their ambivalent position on airport expansion.
3. The Liberal Democrats promise to phase out carbon emissions by 2045 and spend £130 billion on ‘infrastructure investment’. They will also end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. But again, their £130 billion includes spending on carbon-costly projects such as HS2 and 300,000 houses a year.
4. Finally, the Tories offer to spend just £5 billion. £1 billion is going on developing clean energy. This will ‘help us lead the world in tackling climate change’. Another £4 billion will be set aside for funding decarbonisation projects. This will miraculously achieve net zero by 2050. The Tories are hamstrung by their ideology (and possibly fossil fuel donors), living in a dreamworld where ‘free markets, innovation and prosperity can protect the planet’. They refuse to recognise that free markets and prosperity have been part of the problem not part of the solution.

For links to the party manifestoes see this post.

During the 2017 election I pointed out how parties persisted with the fairy tale that action on climate change could somehow be bolted on to a continuing commitment to fossil-fuel driven economic growth, noting how all parties mentioned ‘growth’ at least as many times as they did ‘climate change’.

Things are a little better this time, but the fantasy continues.

	positive mentions of ‘growth’
Greens	0
Labour	2
Liberal Democrats	7
Conservatives	13

mentions of	‘climate change’	‘climate emergency’	‘climate chaos’	total
Greens	6	26	10	42
Labour	17	14	0	31
Liberal Democrats	13	9	0	22
Conservatives	7	1	0	8

In the meantime, the illusions fester. We’re told that more and more voters are raising the issue of climate breakdown spontaneously. Yet only 3% of those concerned citizens intend to vote for the party that most urgently wants to do something serious about it. Doh!

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Climate change; the biggest elephant in the election

Trump pays back his fossil-fuel backers and takes the US back to the early 20th century

All praise President Trump. News that he was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement meant that the yawning absence of this election (and previous ones) at least got a mention. While journalists focus on the minutiae of who will lose out from taxing the top 5%, the costs of this or that policy and whether or not politicians are ‘strong’ or not, we can carry on looting the planet and its natural resources with impunity.

A BBC journalist, when reporting the unsurprising Trump decision, inadvertently described dangerous climate change as ‘arguably, the most important issue we face’. Arguably? It’s only ‘arguable’ because the media allowed themselves to be duped by the lobbying of fossil fuel and some other corporate interests. These poured millions of dollars into climate change denial, effectively and maybe disastrously delaying action for decades. All to give themselves another generation of profits.

And yet little is heard of this in the election. As George Monbiot points out, politicians of all hues run scared of confronting capitalism’s central conundrum – how to square environmental damage and economic growth. No-one dares to suggest that there are limits to our right to consume. No-one (apart from the Greens) question the ‘presumption that there are no limits’… ‘they build their economic programmes on a fairytale’, refusing to admit we live on a finite planet.

The Tories’ stance is one of the better examples of their habit of saying one thing and doing the exact opposite while hoping no-one will notice. The rest of us tend to call this lying through their teeth. Climate change gets five explicit mentions in their manifesto. No actual policies to prevent it are cited but the UK is apparently a ‘world leader’ in combating it. Meanwhile, the word ‘growth’ appears 30 times, clearly informing us where their priorities lie.

The Tories are in fact little better than Trump, just more disingenuous. Every one of our Tory MPs in Cornwall voted nine times in the last Parliament against measures to prevent climate change and not once in favour. Over the longer run, the worst record is George Eustice’s, the best (though hardly good) Sarah Newton’s.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems at least pledge to oppose fracking and recognise that reliance on shale gas will lock us into fossil fuel dependence well after 2030, by which time we’re supposed to be virtually carbon-free. But both complacently persist in pursing the chimera of environmental protection AND never-ending ‘growth’. Both mention ‘growth’ positively in their manifestos about the same number of times as they mention ‘climate change’ negatively.

Two former Lib Dem MPs standing again have positive records on climate change, although still not 100%. Dan Rogerson voted for measures to prevent climate change 75% of the time and against 25%. Andrew George was 60% for and 40% against. Meanwhile, as on other issues, Stephen Gilbert’s record was closer to the Tories. He voted 40% of the time for measures to prevent climate change and 60% against. What a pity there’s no Green standing in St Austell & Newquay.

Dutch elections: what you won’t read in the UK media

Is the extravagant hair style compulsory for right-wing populists?

It’s the Dutch legislative elections tomorrow. If you rely on the British media for your info on this you’re probably thinking the Netherlands is the place likely to see the next populist domino fall into place. Geert Wilders’ PVV (Freedom Party) has for some time been touted as likely to ‘win’ the Dutch elections.

However, there are two problems with the simple picture painted by journalists obsessed with far right populism. First, our media seem to be constitutionally incapable of coping with multi-party election systems. Anything more than a two-protagonist contest and they start to struggle badly. Which is why they love US presidential elections. And why on Monday they homed in with a collective sigh of relief on a simple head to head debate between the leaders of the two parties that are polling strongest in the Netherlands. What they didn’t tell us was that at the other televised election debates, between seven and ten party leaders were invited. That includes tonight’s final eve-of-poll debate, which features eight parties.

The second problem is that ‘win’ in the context of an electoral system that guarantees a fully proportional result, is not quite the same as ‘win’ in our electoral system, which became unfit for purpose around 1900. The leading party in the Netherlands, according to recent polls, is on around 17% of the vote. Moreover, that party isn’t the PVV, but the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy). This is an economically neo-liberal, centre-right party positioned roughly between our Lib Dems and Tories.

Wilders’ PVV is at 15%, not that much more than Ukip’s 13% share in the 2015 General Election, although enough to give it a lot more seats. Admittedly, for the PVV this is an increase (of about 5%) on its showing in the last Dutch elections in 2012. On the latest polling it’s set to gain 7-9 seats.

GL’s slogans: care for each other, share wealth, a clean economy and one society

While you wouldn’t know it from the BBC, another party is poised to gain even more – from 10-16 seats if the polls are accurate. This is the GroenLinks, or Green Left Party. Funny how we haven’t heard too much about them in the British media, even though their support has risen over the course of the campaign to record levels. They’re not that far behind the four parties vying to become the largest in the Dutch Parliament. Together with the VVD and PVV these are the CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal), the traditional centre-right moderate conservative party and D66, a centrist party similar to the Lib Dems.

The big loser in the Dutch elections looks likely to be the centre-left Labour Party, forecast to lose between 25-30 of its current 38 seats. A lesson here for those who put their faith in the ideologically very similar British Labour Party perhaps. The combined support for the two parties to the left of Labour (GroenLinks and the Socialist Party) leads to predictions of around 30 seats. This compares with the 22 predicted for Wilders’ PVV. But this is something you’d never guess from our media.

The strange re-birth of Liberal (Democratic) Cornwall 5: Lib Dems and lifestyle Cornwall

They’ve been fighting for a fair deal for a long time now – and we’re still waiting

Liberal Democrats have over the years been in a position to protect Cornwall from the consequences of ongoing population growth and the parallel gentrification of the place, fuelled by massive housebuilding in order to accommodate (and encourage) in-migration mainly from the south east of England. Yet, when the Lib Dems were in control of Cornwall County Council, they steadfastly refused to force their officers to construct a strong case for fairer treatment for Cornwall. This was despite growth rates three times higher than those of England and four times those of Wales since the 1960s, despite the fact that housebuilding in Cornwall runs around 50% higher in relation to its resident population than in England, despite the reality that we’re losing our countryside at a relatively faster rate than in England, and despite the blindingly obvious conclusion that continuing such rates of growth is unsustainable.

While some Lib Dem councillors, such as Rob Nolan in Truro or Mario Fonk at Penzance have to their credit persistently opposed the imposition of unnecessary housing on Cornwall, others have equally consistently favoured excessive developer-led housing and population growth. For example, in Bodmin Lib Dem councillors have been to the fore in demanding massive housing growth, which could see the town expand by as much as 60% in just 20 years.

In addition, Dan Rogerson, ex-MP for North Cornwall, has admitted (on Facebook, 17 Mar 2016), that he has never made a public statement condemning the excessive housing targets recently adopted by Cornwall Council. In contrast, his colleague Andrew George regularly claimed the planning laws of his own government were akin to a developers’ charter, driven by greed, not need, and called for a much-reduced housing target.

So which do you get when you vote Lib Dem, the Lib Dem who favours manic housing growth or the Lib Dem who recognises its disastrous impact on our culture, landscape, environment and wildlife? The truth is that the Lib Dems are not so much a political party with credible policy positions but a collection of Independents masquerading under a party label.

Fear and loathing on the referendum trail 7: Combating climate change

The biggest challenge facing the planet is runaway global warming. As the media distract us with trivia, the globe spins onward towards its tipping point, propelled by our addiction to fossil fuels and stubborn refusal to countenance the possibility of changing our way of life to prevent it. The Paris agreement of last year, when governments agreed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees but declined to provide many specific examples of how exactly they would do it, is already dead in the water.

Temperatures this year have soared to record levels. At this rate the 1.5 degree limit will be reached and passed within a year or two. Meanwhile politicians prevaricate, caught in the vice-like grip of their allegiance to neoliberalism and subservience to corporate interests. The super-rich have to maintain their planet-destroying lifestyles, the fossil fuels have to be exploited, profits have to be made.

Which outcome, Brexit or Bremain, is most likely to confront the urgent need for environmental regulation and de-carbonisation of the economy? This is clearly another transnational issue and can only be solved on a transnational scale. Again, we’re back to trust.

The leading ranks of Brexiters are dominated by those in denial about man-made climate change, people like the two Nigels, Lawson and Farage. Lawson, who curiously prefers to live in France, set up his own Global Warming Policy Foundation to oppose climate change mitigation policies. Meanwhile, Farage admits to not having a clue about the causes of dangerous climate change. Ukip policy in last year’s election included a plan to scrap the Department for Energy and Climate Change and end ‘burdensome green levies’.

Does this man understand the issue of climate change and global warming?

Another leading Brexiter, our own PR lobbyist, MP and ‘farmer’, George Eustice, wants to scrap the EU’s birds and habitats directives and re-direct the ‘green dividend’ to farmers. Scrapping environmental protections across the board is likely to trigger an even more frenzied developmental free-for-all on sites currently shielded by EU designations.

With most environmentalists lining up behind Bremain, on the climate change crisis criterion alone the decision looks pretty clear cut. Vote Remain. Putting the Brexiters in charge of the environment seems like another case of John Major’s python in charge of a pet hamster, except that the python may well succumb to the current wave of global mass species extinction before the hamster.

Do as I say, not as I do

With the Climate Conference in Paris upon us we’re being urged by the assorted great and good attending to change our ways. All well and good – we do need to consume less to help achieve a carbon-free economy asap. But we might also ask what example those assorted great and good are setting.

Take our Duke, lawd bless him. He’s keen on saving the forests and walking lightly on the earth. So what’s been happening to his own greenhouse gas emissions?

In 2014-15 the http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/media/annual-review/annual-review-2015greenhouse gases emitted by the Duke of Cornwall’s household rose by 10%, to 1,619 tons. This was on top of a smaller rise of 2% in 2013-14. This figure doesn’t even include all those official overseas trips, which in 2014-15 added another 1,818 tons.

And it doesn’t include the global warming effect of the Duchy’s agenda at Newquay

The growth in hot air greenhouse gases from the Duke’s household comes at a time when domestic carbon emissions in the UK are falling. (Although that doesn’t allow for all the consumer junk we import from China, thus allowing us to blame the Chinese for selling it to us.)

The average UK household emits around nine (9) tons of greenhouse gases.