The environment

Just Stop Oil activist Phoebe Plummer has been given six months in jail — on remand, until 16 May 2024 — without even being convicted. Plummer has already served a month on remand, late last year, after throwing soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers picture (no damage to it). Since then Plummer has had an ankle bracelet as part of bail conditions, confined to student accommodation except for 12 hours a day for classes. The new spell in jail is for breaking those bail conditions to go on a march. UN Special Rapporteur Ian Fry has written to the government protesting at the fierce sentences on JSO...

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...

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...

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...

In the Inaugural Address he wrote for the First International, the first big international workers’ movement, Karl Marx hailed the ten-hour legal limit to the working day won in Britain as a first victory in “the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class”. Social foresight! A string of government and corporate decisions to promote and develop more and more “carbon bombs”, fossil-fuel-based developments set to...

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...

On 4 October Rishi Sunak cancelled most of the HS2 rail project. There are reasons for being more sceptical about high-speed rail (or new rail lines generally) in Britain than in Spain, France, and China, where new lines can go through more relatively “empty” space. But cancelling the project and writing off most of the years of labour which have gone into planning, securing the route, and part-building, is bad. Especially bad as it is part of a whole Tory policy of rowing back on measures to limit carbon emissions. The case for HS2, since 2010 at least, was not primarily about making it a bit...

“No new fossil fuel projects” is currently the most unifying demand of the climate movement in Australia. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said, there can be no new coal, oil and gas projects if there is to be any chance at limiting warming to 1.5°C. Around two thirds of Australia’s contributions to global GHG emissions are from burning of exported fossil fuels in other countries, and the majority of extraction in Australia is for export. Only governments have across-the-board powers to stop new coal and gas projects. Companies and corporate investors can decide to halt or withhold...

Holly Jean Buck has emerged in recent years as one of the most incisive voices on the left on climate change, notably with After Geoengineering (2019), along with a range of academic and popular articles. Her recent book, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough (2021) is another valuable contribution, confronting realities, facing difficult questions and drawing out serious, grounded political conclusions that take the struggle forward. Fossil fuel realities The first merit of the book is to underline the power of the fossil fuel industry and the scale of what has to be ended. Fossil...

Activists from Workers' Liberty and supporters of Solidarity will be at Labour Party conference and women's conference, 7-11 October in Liverpool. We'll be there to help the efforts of Free Our Unions, the Labour Campaign for Free Movement, the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, India Labour Solidarity, and other campaigns; to sell literature, seek discussions and contacts. There will be demonstrations for the NHS and for abortion rights on Saturday, for free education on Sunday. And agitation for a block on new North Sea oil and gas fields, following the Tories' decision to "max out" licences in...