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Young activists fight Cumbrian coal mine

The great strides in Labour environmental policy over the past few years were largely driven by the concerns of younger activists- both the new members who came into the party as part of the Corbyn surge and the exemplary work of the school students Climate Strike / Fridays For the Future and other movements. 

It is heartening to see that spirit continue in the opposition to new coal mining activities in Cumbria. Labour must throw its full weight behind the movement against continued fossil fuel extraction.

From The Ecologist

Young activists fight Cumbrian mine

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Decarbonisation and Green Finance

Last year the Women’s Budget Group made a submission to the Treasury inquiry into decarbonisation and green finance. 

The key points are summarised below and you can find links to the detailed submission here.

Red Green Labour strongly supports this approach to a gender-equal and socially just transition.

Key points: 

  • The UK Women’s Budget Group believes that decarbonisation is necessary and must be done in a way that promotes equality and justice for all women and girls. This will require restructuring the economy so that less people work in carbon intensive sectors like construction and aviation and more people work in care. A care-led recovery from Coronavirus must be central to decarbonisation.

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For a Feminist Green New Deal

This article first appeared on the Open Democracy website and was written by members of the Women’s Budget Group– an independent organisation which monitors the gender impact of government policy.

We share the concerns they raise here. 

 

Building back better requires building back differently. We need a ‘rainbow recovery’ write Sherilyn Macgregor and Maeve Cohen

20 May 2020
We will need to rebuild after COVID-19, but building back better requires building back differently. It’s time to talk about a feminist green new deal; a ‘rainbow recovery’.
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Solidarity with the HS2 protestors in Euston Square Gardens.

Red Green Labour endorses this statement by the Campaign Against Climate Change in solidarity with the HS2 protestors in Euston Square Gardens.

https://www.campaigncc.org/HS2_evictions

Campaign against Climate Change stands in solidarity with the HS2 protesters at Euston. On 27th January, the National Eviction Team began their eviction of protesters from Euston Square Gardens.

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Sensible Socialism- The Salford Model

This interesting article by Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford, from Tribune magazine looks at practical environmental  policies being implemented by some Labour councils. This approach should be at the heart of Labour’s manifesto for future council elections.

Like its near-neighbour Preston, Salford’s left-leaning council has put socialist policies into practice at a local level – and been rewarded with public housing, well-paying jobs, insourcing and a greener city.

Last December, it was my privilege to announce the next stage of Salford’s Council House building scheme, through which the council intends to build 3,000 more homes over the coming years.The announcement was the culmination of over four years of work on our council-owned development company Derive since my election as Salford City Mayor in 2016. These have been four years in which Salford has pursued a radical policy agenda in local government, which I have come to term ‘Sensible Socialism’ – or the Salford Model.

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An Open Letter on the Food Emergency

Red-Green Labour endorses this open letter calling on the government to act over the food crisis.

The Open Letter is to be found here

Leading food academics call for emergency procedures to protect UK food supplies in open letter to Boris Johnson 

The UK Government is failing in its duty to adequately protect food supplies and support healthy nutrition among its citizens in the face of the twin threats of Covid and Brexit, three eminent food policy experts are warning.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and senior ministers the trio of senior academics press the case for urgent Government investment in ‘food defence’ measures to ensure adequate infrastructure is in place to protect the population from insecure food supplies.   

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2020 was the joint hottest year ever recorded

This Guardian article makes for alarming reading, confirming what we expected, that global warming continues apace bringing with it climate chaos…

RedGreen Labour will be re-doubling our efforts in 2021 with a strong focus on mobilising for the biggest possible turnout of activists from the Labour Party, the trade unions and environmental campaigns to the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow in November. 

Global heating continued unabated despite Covid lockdowns, with record Arctic wildfires and Atlantic tropical storms writes Environment editor

Map showing land surface temperature anomalies from 19 March to 20 June 2020
 The Arctic and northern Siberia saw particularly extreme average temperatures in 2020, with a large region 3C higher than the long-term average. Photograph: Nasa/EPA

The climate crisis continued unabated in 2020, with the joint highest global temperatures on record, alarming heat and record wildfires in the Arctic, and a record 29 tropical storms in the Atlantic.

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Building for COP26- Trade Union model motion

The COP26 Coalition Trade Union Caucus has agreed a model motion for trade union branches.  
Please circulate and pass in your trade union branch and modify for trades councils and other union forums.  
Model Motion for Union Branches
This union branch notes that:
1.Human-caused climate breakdown is leading to and exacerbating extreme weather events across the globe: heat waves, wildfires, floods and hurricanes, and loss of biodiversity.
2. The IPCC 2018 Special Report has warned of the dire consequences of exceeding 1.5ºC global average warming and that a societal transformation would be needed to avoid this, including halving global carbon emissions by 2030; nevertheless, global emissions have continued to rise.
3. The climate crisis is a social justice issue, with those who have done least to cause the crisis and who are least able to address it facing the worst impacts. We need to mobilise for a just transition which protects and improves workers’ livelihoods, creates a more inclusive society and stops greenhouse gas emissions.
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Stopping the Silvertown Tunnel

The Mayor of London is pressing ahead with the Silvertown tunnel project, even after the coronavirus pandemic has turned traffic projections (and Transport for London’s finances) upside down, writes Richard Kuper.

Local residents, environmental groups, CLPs, Labour councils, and prominent Labour MPs have urged him to cancel the project, handed to a construction consortium under a PFI in 2019. The estimated cost, ultimately to be borne by TfL, has risen from £600m to £2 billion.

It will be a financial and an ecological disaster.

Many London Labour MPs, including Matthew Pennycook, MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, who is also Shadow Minister for Climate Change, have called for the Mayor of London to cancel the project before construction work begins. Other London Labour MPs to call on Khan to cancel the Tunnel include: Abena Oppong-Asare, Lyn Brown and John McDonnell.

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