Climate change

The heatwaves have come early this year. The week starting 13 June saw wildfires in Spain, France, Portugal, Germany, and Morocco, and temperatures in continental Europe over 40ºC, breaking several records. Between March and May multiple weather stations across India and Pakistan recorded temperatures between 45 and 50ºC. Climate scientists have said that such extreme temperatures are now 30 times more likely than in pre-industrial times. It will get worse, by an additional factor of between two and twenty times, if we exceed 2ºC of global heating. Above a certain combination of heat and...

A cut in branch commission — the proportion of members’ dues paid to branches — from 10% to 7.5% was the main item of controversy at this year’s GMB union Congress, 13-16 June. The cut had been approved by the union’s Central Executive Council (CEC) last October, with the backing of the newly elected General Secretary Gary Smith. Nearly 20 motions denounced the decision and the decision-makers. Technically, the motions had a point. Branch commission is fixed in the GMB Rulebook, and only GMB rule-change congresses can make a rule change. But with membership falling for nearly a decade and no...

Hidden in the detail of the Tory windfall tax on energy companies is a 91% tax break on all new investment in fossil fuel extraction. The green capitalist thinktank E3G say the tax cut could equate to handing Big Oil a £5.7 billion subsidy over the next three years to expand production. Shell has already had £200 million cut from their windfall tax bill after they secured “final regulatory approval” on the Jackdaw oil field last week. Jackdaw will add an additional 25 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) to the atmosphere over the course of its lifetime and comes in addition to...

Australia’s newly elected Labor government is planning the world’s largest green hydrogen plant and a hydrogen power station. Many other countries, including the UK, are also stepping up the development of hydrogen technology as an alternative to Russian oil and gas. There are bold claims for hydrogen technology. What role can it actually play in solving the climate crisis? Hydrogen is an extremely powerful fuel in that contains more energy per unit weight than fossil fuels. It has been used as a fuel for over two centuries, and powered the Apollo lunar modules. Hydrogen is similar to fossil...

John Moloney, Assistant General Secretary of civil service trade union PCS, spoke to Sacha Ismail. Our union has recently been in discussion with others about the possibility of a trade union initiative on climate change. There’s now a draft statement that has gone back to unions for amendment — a fairly general political statement. PCS has submitted two amendments: firstly to propose a conference later this year, to bring together unions and union-oriented climate campaigns; and secondly for the creation of a standing union-based organisation that campaigns continually, outside of...

As Just Stop Oil activists protested at oil refineries and on tankers to demand the UK end new fossil-fuel investment, shadow secretary of state for justice Steve Reed called for the Tories to repress more harshly. “Motorists were already being hammered by prices at the pump, and now millions can’t even access fuel”, spewed the MP for Croydon North on 11 April. “The Conservatives need to stop standing idly by and put an end to this disruption that is causing misery for motorists.” A formal statement from the party called for a nationwide injunction to “simplify police operations by enabling...

Over a dozen of us took an Extinction Rebellion Trade Unionists (XRTU) delegation to support the strike and lively picket line of Fawley Oil Refinery workers, from 6 am on Friday 8 April. With inflation predicted by some to be as high as 9.8%, the 2.5% pay offer by bosses to Fawley oil refinery workers is a huge real-value pay cut. There are two entrances to the plant. Around 60 workers and a handful of other supporters were at the main one; 40 at the other. The picket line was lively, and had a high turnout from workers employed at the three contractors in dispute. Older workers told me it...

The April rebellion of Extinction Rebellion (XR) started with blockades at oil refineries from 1 April, and will move on to London on 9 April. It demands that the UK government ends all fossil-fuel investments immediately. XR is still the most visible face of environmentalism and a rallying point for people alarmed at the blithe indifference of capitalist society to global heating and ecological breakdown. However, tactically, XR is misdirecting the good instinct to do something, and courage and persistence of activists, into performative stunts rather than effective activism. Most XR...

We know the role of UK corporations driving exploitation, human rights abuses and environmental and climate damage worldwide. We know about UK support for governments even more repressive and oligarchic than our own. New reporting from the Guardian has underlined just how directly British taxpayers’ money is used to fund social and environmental abuse. Since 2019, over £5.2billion from the “UK Export Finance” scheme has been used to fund deeply damaging overseas energy and infrastructure projects. Many of these projects are in the Gulf state autocracies and run on their murderous super...

Half the global supply of polysilicon, essential for solar panels, comes from the Uyghur region, and processing chains are tainted with forced Uyghur labour. Moves to reduce European reliance on Russian fossil fuels, in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have brought to prominence arguments that the fights against climate change and far-right authoritarianism are one and the same. Prominent environmentalist Bill McKibben has proposed that the transition off fossil fuels and onto renewables is “how we defeat Putin and other petrostate autocrats”. In Solidarity 626, Stuart Jordan...