Climate change

Union pushes plan for steel

The UK steel industry is at a crossroads. Steel production is carbon intensive. A transition is needed if the UK is to meet its carbon goals. And the UK’s four blast furnaces, which produce 80 per cent of our steel and provide thousands of jobs, need replacing over the next decade or so. Their owners have proposed a more rapid closure with the loss of up to 5,000 direct jobs and many more beyond that. Steel production has been in a long decline in the UK. At its peak in the early 1970s, the industry employed around 320,000 people. It is now somewhere around 5-10% of that. Just before Margaret...

Free the JSO prisoners!

Pressure is mounting over the sentences of Just Stop Oil (JSO) protestors Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland. Both scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Suspension Bridge, stopping traffic for almost 40 hours in October 2022. Decker was imprisoned for two years and seven months, for “public nuisance”, and Trowland for three years. These are the longest sentences ever given to non-violent protestors in the UK. Ian Fry, the UN’s rapporteur for climate change, has said the sentences were “significantly more severe than previous sentences imposed for this type of offending in the past… I am gravely...

Why there is so little hope from COP

For many years the representatives of fossil capital have outnumbered politicians and scientists at the COP talks, but this year fossil capital has openly, brazenly taken control. COP28, starting 30 November, will be chaired by Sultan Al Jabr, CEO of ADNOC, the UAE’s state-owned oil company. He recently announced plans to increase output from 2.7 billion barrels to 5 billion barrels a day, and leaked documents reveal ADNOC’s plans to use the summit to broker business deals. For the past 28 years the capitalist class has demonstrated it will not and very likely cannot halt rising emissions...

Why scientists say CDR is necessary

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (2014) highlighted the potentially important role for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies in keeping global temperature rise below 2°C. The report defined CDR as methods that “involve removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing the carbon in land, ocean, or geological reservoirs”. CDR is also called “negative emissions technologies” (NETs). The IPCC’s fifth report discussed CDR technologies such as land carbon sequestration by reforestation and afforestation; soil carbon management, or biochar; ocean carbon...

Motions on “climate interventions”, “geoengineering”

Workers' Liberty decided the following on 19th November 2023. On climate change, the overwhelming priority remains the struggle to reduce emissions as swiftly as possible. Geoengineering is not a substitute for sharp emissions reductions. Some of the geoengineering technologies might have major downsides and risks. But they may prove necessary to confront a world we never wished for. The present stage is mostly about research, experiments and testing. On balance, it makes sense to support authorised, publicly-funded research. We raise the questions of governance of geoengineering, pushing for...

Climate interventions and workers' agency

Expanded and updated 11 th November “If we could come up with a geoengineering answer to this problem, then Copenhagen wouldn’t be necessary. We could carry on flying our planes and driving our cars.” — Richard Branson, 2009 “[A]ddressing climate change risks SRM [Solar Radiation Modification] cannot be the main policy response to climate change and is, at best, a supplement to achieving sustained net zero or net negative CO 2 emission levels globally. SRM contrasts with climate change mitigation activities, such as emission reductions and carbon dioxide removal (CDR), as it introduces a ‘mask...

Just transition and curbs on aviation

Aviation sector bosses globally are pursuing rapid expansion despite the climate crisis, with the International Civil Aviation Organization predicting doubling of air traffic by the late 2030s. Even in the UK, with its already over-expanded aviation industry, the Government’s climate-indifferent “Jet Zero Strategy” endorses 70% expansion by 2050. Expansion plans have already been launched or greenlighted at airports around the country — though with strong opposition from community and climate campaigners. A key way the industry sells its antisocial agenda is job creation. Even before the wider...

Union’s steel campaign must reach out

On 2 November the Unite Save UK Steel campaign held a day of action in Sheffield, Port Talbot, Teesside and Scunthorpe. In Sheffield about 20 people took part, mostly Unite staff members, Unite Community, and retired members. Three students from Sheffield Solidarity Group also took part. The action consisted of a short march followed by holding banners above bridges over the roads. The main chant was “We don’t need your pity, invest in our steel city”, and most of the banners read “Support UK Steel”. There was a lack of specificity to the chants and demands, though a detailed policy report is...

Climate day in the south-west

On 28 October 1,000 climate activists from across the South West came together for a day of action and a march in Bath. The day of action was called by Extinction Rebellion South West and had over 40 sponsors including local XR groups, climate groups, local trade unions and trades councils. It was pitched as a “family friendly” day in a park to unite for the climate, nature and social justice, with stalls, panels, workshops, music and a protest. Speeches before and after the march covered topics such as Shell’s safety record, local ecology, the environmental impact on the military...

The debates on geoengineering

What if fossil fuels continue to be burned unabated? What if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their upward trajectory? What if capitalist firms carry on putting profit before human needs and the ecosystems on which we depend? What if bourgeois states fail to reach the necessary agreements to reduce emissions and undo the damage already done? What if the impacts of climate change are greater than expected? What if tipping points are reached and boundaries exceeded? Socialists active in climate struggles have a duty to face realities now and in the foreseeable future. We have an obligation...

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