Climate change

The world’s biggest 60 banks have provided in the order of $4 trillion of finance for fossil fuel companies and projects since the 2015 Paris Climate Deal. The UK’s Barclays is the worst European culprit. In 2020 it provided $27 billion (£19.4 billion) of fossil fuel funding. Four other UK banks are in the list of 60, including Natwest , still majority government-owned. Climate campaigners have rightly targeted the UK financial sector and the City of London, highlighting their continuing fuelling of climate change. But the dominant demands are essentially for the existing private, deeply...

In 2019 China’s greenhouse gas emissions passed the total of the richer countries (OECD and EU) to reach 27% of the world total (USA 11%, India 7%, EU 6%). Proportional to population, China’s emissions are still much lower than the USA’s (though now higher than the UK’s). And its historical total emissions are much lower. To get from here to a world with average temperature rise limited even to 2C, China will have to cut emissions. For COP26, the UK offers a plan by 2030 to cut emissions to 33% of 2005 levels, and the USA, to cut to 49%. China offers that by 2030 emissions will stop rising...

I spoke at an online members’ meeting about the union’s climate change activity on Tuesday 26 October. Although much of the discussion understandably focused on the upcoming COP26 conference, I was keen to emphasise that the real fight for us is after COP, both industrially, in terms of organising around decarbonisation demands in civil service workplaces, and politically, in terms of pressuring the government to take radical action. The government has no serious plan, either as an employer, for the decarbonisation of government workplaces, or at societal level for meeting its targets for...

Over 400 new coal mines underway or announced as of June 2021. 118,500 new oil and gas wells projected to start up in 2021-2, 468 new oil and gas pipelines or pipeline expansions in active development as of February 2021. Behind the empty words of COP26, the terrible reality is that the capitalist class is investing trillions of dollars in expanding extractive industries and the production of CO2 emitting machines. The personal consumption alone of the capitalist class is responsible for world-altering carbon emissions. The highest-income 1% emit 15% of global emissions, more than double the...

Our outsourced worker members in Royal Parks, who have been on strike for the entirety of October, may be close to a breakthrough in their dispute. The latest communication we’ve received from their employer, the outsourced contractor Just Ask, suggests they are prepared to agree a recognition agreement. They have also abandoned their initial plans for job cuts of up to one third, although obviously we will push them to commit to no cuts at all. We are hopeful for progress on other issues, such as sick pay, too. Throughout the dispute, we have sought ways to pressure not only Just Ask but...

What should we, as socialist environmentalists, say about proposals for "geoengineering" (or "climate intervention"). The most common proposals are for a variety of methods for carbon sequestration ("drawdown", or "negative emissions"), to remove CO2 from the carbon cycle and air; and "solar radiation management", seeking to reflect more of the sun's rays back into space, such as by spraying vast quantities of sulphur into the high atmosphere. Are these proposals for climate intervention a distraction from the need to prevent ongoing emissions? Too risky or harmful to try? Or a necessary move to mitigate the harm of historic (and ongoing) emissions?

See the following articles from a debate about the implications, usefulness, and meanings of "metabolism" and "metabolic rift" in Marxist ecology, and wider questions about Marx's ecological writing, and climate politics today. This debate was sparked by a reading group Workers' Liberty ran on Kohei Saito’s book, Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy (2017). See: A review of Marx's Ecosocialism by Paul Hampton, 2019 Study guide for the reading group , 2021 So far, in the debate, are the following articles: Marx, the environment, and...

“ Build back better, blah blah blah. Green economy, blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050, blah blah blah… Climate neutral, blah blah blah.” This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises… They’ve now had 30 years of “blah blah blah” and where has that led us? Over 50% of all our CO2 emissions have occurred since 1990, and a third since 2005. — Greta Thunberg, 28 September 2021 After a summer of fires, floods, and freaky weather, the gap between widespread green rhetoric and the...

See other articles in this debate here . At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign power like someone standing outside of nature – but that we, n flesh blood and brain, belong to nature and exist within its midst, and that all the mastery of nature consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.” - Engels, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man I think Matt Cooper takes a too narrow definition of “metabolism” as a rather dull process...

I speak to one of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) coordinators over the weekend to ask about potential anti-incinerator action at my workplace. XR: “We’ve not planned anything in this city. XR Zero Waste are targeting Edmonton and other places in the south — I’ve not heard about anything here. To be honest our XR group is barely holding it together, and they’re quite a tame lot.” Me: (laughing) “Well, my company are shitting themselves anyway.” We talk about the attitudes at the plant, and the confusion with the Insulate Britain action. XR activist tells me about the conflict over Insulate...