By Alan Simpson
IF there are seminal moments in politics, Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the 2018 Labour conference will go down as one of them. This was when the planet took centre stage. From the Kerala floods to the Saddleworth moorland fires and from California to Scandinavia, 2018 has been a roller coaster of extreme weather events. This is the shape of things to come, but it took Corbyn to make “one-planet economics” the centrepiece of tomorrow’s politics.
This couldn’t have come at a better moment. The Conservatives are tearing themselves apart, with their crazies loving every moment. It guaranteed a complete disregard of the most profound event during their conference week — the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The IPCC now warns that the 1.5°C global warming limit will be breached not in 2100 but by 2040.
But at the Tory conference, who cared? Delegates queued to see Boris Johnson strut his “Trump without the intellect” impersonation as a leadership alternative to Theresa May’s “Thatcher without the compassion.” Comedy as tragedy ruled supreme. Humanity deserves something better … especially since the IPCC warns that its most positive projections rely on the widespread use of negative emissions technologies that do not yet exist.
We need a better plan. It was into this maelstrom that Corbyn pitched his leader’s speech — a bold vision, promising that Labour’s “programme of investment and transformation, to achieve a 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, will create over 400,000 skilled jobs.” Pretty unequivocal stuff. But that is just the start. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell was no less uncompromising.
His own pledge was to “reprogramme the Treasury, rewriting its rule books on how it makes decisions about what, when and where to invest … And we’ll make sure it assesses spending decisions against the need to tackle climate change.” Seen through the prism of IPCC warnings that followed, this was the groundbreaking vision Britain desperately needs. Historically, the Treasury has been unwilling to even answer questions about climate change or environmental impact. McDonnell intends to tear up the its “Green Book,” replacing it with one based on climate science not political convenience. The Treasury will have to become the driver of climate-based economics not the obstruction to it.
In practical terms, Britain will have to cut its carbon emissions in half within the coming decade, then do so again in the decade that follows and the one after that. But it is what happens in the first 10 years — the next two parliaments — that will determine whether Britain ends up trying to manage turbulence or survive the chaos. When McDonnell talks about a transformative parliament, this is precisely what he means. The implications are massive. The next government will have to deliver carbon reductions of 15 per cent per year. To do so, Britain will need a much more circular economics — not one that makes do with less but one that certainly wastes and pollutes less.
And as Corbyn stressed, it is in “green jobs” that tomorrow’s transformative economics will be rooted. If you thought income differentials were polarised, just wait till you look at carbon footprints. As Oxfam has pointed out, half of today’s global CO2 emissions come from the lifestyles of the richest 10 per cent. In Britain, if the richest 10 per cent had their emissions cut to the level of the average EU citizen it would cut UK carbon emissions by 30 per cent.
Not a bad place to start. Then, Labour might want to follow Norway’s example, waging its own war on plastics waste. Norway taxes the production of all plastic bottles and has linked it to a national deposit/return scheme. All plastic bottles are barcoded. The public then pays a 10p deposit on a small bottle (25p on a large) all of which is refundable via machines in shops and precincts throughout the land. Manufacturers can even make their own plastics tax “optional” — but only if they recycle over 90 per cent of their bottles … which they have done since 2011. This is what lies behind the 95 per cent recycling rate Norway proudly boasts of. In Britain, Labour could do the same, extending it to include cans.
One way or another, the Westminster Treasury will have to set carbon budgets that spending departments and localities will have to live within. The good news is that this will force the the economy to shift from dumb and dirty into smart and clean. For most people, a more circular economy would deliver real improvements in their quality of life — from the air we breathe, the food we eat, the homes we live in to the jobs and skills the country needs.
This will come not just in the accelerated shift into renewable energy but in using less energy in the first place. Tackling the scandal of “cold homes” will save lives as well as cutting carbon. Clean transport systems offer the same opportunities. These are a world away from the triple absurdity of the GMB trade union sharing a platform with the Taxpayers Alliance at the Tory Party conference in support of fracking. Putting so many absurdities in the same space does not make them climate-credible. “Smart” starts from somewhere else.
Over the next couple of years electric vehicles will become cheaper than fossil fuel vehicles. Smart towns and cities are already talking of whole networks of recharging points, linked to solar roofs, local wind turbines or smart grids. Nissan and Solar Century have jumped the queue, offering “smart” packages — a solar roof, battery storage an EV charging point and a Nissan Leaf, selling the virtues of clean everything. On the railways, Alstom has begun converting the first batch of diesel trains to run on hydrogen. Such approaches will not only “leave the carbon in the ground” but dramatically cut the British cost of imported diesel fuels.
This is a path along which Britain can rediscover old skills, connect them to new technologies, measure them against carbon footprints and build a culture of 21st century resilience that is capable of living sensibly through whatever extreme weather events lie ahead. For centuries, humanity understood that life involved putting back more than we took out. It was the gift of one generation to the next. Whatever your persuasion — Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or other — everyone knew this was what “citizenship” involved.
All this changed in 1979 when Thatcher turned Britain into a nation of “consumers.” Since then, British society has shopped its way towards the abyss. Science tells us we are now at the edge. We can embrace the Corbyn vision of a smarter, cleaner, more secure and equitable future or just “shop till we drop” with the Tories. The choice is still ours … but only just. (IPA Service)
Courtesy: Morning Star
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