The Climate Emergency / Mark Banahan 25 Printed and Published Homes / Designing for Nature, Climate and People / Rebecca Pullinger 27 by UNP, the I.O
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NEW GROUND SUMMER 2019 Campaigning for environmental change & social justice CRISIS POINT Labour’s answers to the Climate & Environment Emergency Sue Hayman MP This is a Climate & Environment Emergency Clive Lewis MP Science tells us our Planet is Broken Liam Byrne MP Municipal Socialism Welcome to our 2019 Summer Edition What a difference a few months can make! largest climate mass lobby of Parliament we Our last issue of New Ground marked ten have seen in the UK with hundreds of MPs years of Labour’s Climate Change Act, which meeting and listening to their constituents was a landmark at its time, aiming to achieve concerns and fears face-to-face. We should 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, also not forget the BBC’s Climate Change The and how we can build on that progress. Facts programme, the Committee on Climate Fast forward to the Summer of 2019 and Change’s report, the IPCC warnings and the UK now has a new net zero target and Labour councillors and Labour/SERA members one of Labour’s key policy commitments is pushing Climate Emergency declarations to kickstart a green industrial revolution. and putting in place plans to respond. This hasn’t happened overnight. We’ve seen Politicians can no longer ignore the environment a massive shift in public concern for the and climate emergency. It was thanks to Labour environment which is clearly illustrated in recent on the 1st May that Parliament unanimously polling. On the same day temperatures rose declared a climate emergency. The Shadow to record highs across the UK, a new ComRes Chancellor and SERA member John McDonnell survey showed 71% of the UK public believe has said the ‘existential threat to our planet the climate crisis is more important than Brexit. is the absolute priority of next Labour And other polls have shown ‘the environment’ Government’. and Jeremy Corbyn questioned is now above ‘immigration’, ‘housing’ and Boris Johnson extensively in their first dual in the ‘terrorism’ which was not the case until recently. House of Commons on the Government’s plans. What has led to this welcome and rapid change We have seen some fantastic political progress in public opinion? Increased high-profile voices over the last few months with our elected and campaigns. Two are certainly Extinction representatives accepting the challenges we Rebellion protesters taking over the streets face. However, since the 1st May we have not PHILLIP FENTON of London and cities across the UK and the seen anything from the Government on how is National compelling and the astounding Greta Thunberg they plan to respond to the emergency. The Organiser for (who we were proud to co-host in Parliament hard work is only just beginning, we need new SERA and editor earlier this year) who has inspired hundreds creative ideas, radical plans of action and policy of New Ground. of thousands of school children across our that will rapidly decarbonise our economy Get in touch at planet to strike for the future of everything whilst creating thousands of new green jobs. phillip.fenton@ we hold dear to us. Extinction Rebellion and This issue of New Ground looks at how Labour sera.org.uk the school strikers have led to many new can provide that rapid and urgent response campaigns and campaigners including the to the environment and climate emergency. WELCOME SUMMER EDITION 2019 / Phillip Fenton 2 ABOUT FEATURE / Science tells us our planet is broken / Clive Lewis MP 3 FEATURE / Climate Emergency Spending Review / Jake Sumner 4 New Ground is published by FEATURE / Divest Parliament / Thangam Debbonaire MP & Matt Western MP 6 SERA, Labour’s environment campaign www.sera.org.uk FEATURE / Net zero – is it enough? / Bryn Kewley 8 Email: [email protected] FEATURE / A home shouldn’t cost the Earth / Alex Cunningham MP 10 If you would like to contribute to Sue Hayman MP FEATURE / This is a Climate & Environment Emergency / 12 future editions or join our mailing TRAVEL / New Climate Perks Scheme / Sarah Barfield Marks 13 list, please contact Phillip Fenton, National Organiser at SERA TRAVEL / Flight of fancy / Alex Sobel MP 14 [email protected] RENEWABLES / Renewable energy: a key climate solution / Nathan Bennett 15 The views expressed in New Rebecca Bell CARBON CAPTURE / CCS and the Green Industrial Revolution / 17 Ground are those of the NATIONAL PARKS / Restoring nature / Adam Barnett 19 authors and not necessarily TRADE UNIONS / Just transition to a greener economy / Tim Page 21 those of the editor, SERA its executive or its members. FRACKING / We need a fracking ban / Steve Mason 23 FOOD / Role of food in taking on the climate emergency / Mark Banahan 25 Printed and published HOMES / Designing for nature, climate and people / Rebecca Pullinger 27 by UNP, The I.O. Centre, Unit 7, Skeffington Street, WEST MIDLANDS / Municipal Socialism / Liam Byrne MP 29 London, SE18 6SR SCOTLAND / Tackling the climate crisis in Scotland / Claudia Beamish MSP 30 2. SERA Campaigning for environmental change & social justice SERA Campaigning for environmental change & social justice FEATURE SCIENCE TELLS US OUR PLANET IS BROKEN FIXING IT REQUIRES RAPID AND RADICAL CHANGE CLIVE LEWIS MP Getting your head around an existential that the art of the ‘politically possible’ must and question the world around them. To threat to the entirety of human civilisation now make way for that of the ‘scientifically see through fake news, demagoguery is no easy thing. It’s why World War necessary’. Here in the UK that means and lies, and possess the confidence to Two analogies are often deployed to net zero-carbon by 2030 and zero-carbon challenge power. To resist the ever-lurking describe the sheer scale of the challenge by 2050 (on UK consumption figures, not threat of ethno-nationalism. To understand the climate crisis presents to us as a just production) if we want to remain and grasp a world of AIs and the power society. But in many ways, it’s actually in our ‘fair carbon budget’ threshold. of data. To be scientifically literate. To the post-war rebuilding that better understand that history can show us resembles the type of challenge that But the GND is so much more than just democracy’s past failings but cannot alone confronts us here in the 21st century. an economic strategy to decarbonise the predict what form future threats will take. economy. It’s an entirely new political After the War, we were confronted with a economy whose contents are being This is the challenge Labour now faces. devastated European continent, a global constantly updated and debated. It will Grappling with policies not for the 20th political and economic order in tatters, need to cover everything from health to century, not even for today, but what millions of displaced people, hunger and defence, accounting to law, food security we face tomorrow, and that is already the looming threat of further conflict to new democratic national and global here for many parts of the Global South. with the Soviet Union. In the context institutions. It will need to be a blueprint not of the here and now, much of this is just for the problems we face today but also The 2017 Labour Party manifesto was yet to happen (although I would argue the ones our children will face tomorrow. in many ways a social democratic reset. the early warning signs are here). And It was a reaffirmation of the values yet we know, according to the science, Of course, no plan survives contact with we embraced to rebuild Britain after that systemic ecological and climate reality. The future cannot be predicted a devastating war. Values which saw shocks are coming. In fact, in the global exactly. This is exactly why our watch public good trump private good. Where South they are already here. Arguably, word must be ‘resilience’ i.e. the ability the 99% were put before the one. when these shocks start to happen to endure and then quickly recover from all across the world, global civilisation difficulties. We must build it into our After 40 years of embracing neoliberal will be left in a worse state than 1945. economy, our democracy and, if we’re economic dogma, democratic socialist honest, most importantly, our people. parties across Europe paid a high What we therefore need is a pre- price for forgetting those basics. If we emptive Marshall Plan. One that can In a democracy it’s us, the people, who forget them again, if we fail to step up decarbonise and democratise our are the most important resource we have. to transformative change, unparalleled economy; reduce consumption and waste; It’s our political choices, our decisions in peacetime history, it will be much replenish natural habitats; put food and to change things, to maintain things, to more than mere elections we lose. farming on a sustainable footing and determine our values, to decide how build resilience into our democracy in to respond and how to pre-empt; it’s preparation for what we know is coming. our ingenuity, our compassion and our determination. It’s all these things and more CLIVE LEWIS MP Enter the ‘Green New Deal’ (GND). Here that will shape and determine the future is Shadow Treasury in the UK the Labour Party has coined of our democracy in these perilous times. Minister for Sustainable Economics and Labour the term, ‘Green Industrial Revolution’. MP for Norwich South. Whichever you prefer, the key words to That means an education system fit for He tweets at note are ‘new’ and ‘revolution’, shorthand purpose. Teaching children, the skills and @labourlewis for radical, systemic change.