North Sea: fight for the workers’ plan

As we enter another hot summer and emissions hit an all-time high, the Labour leadership sought headlines with a series of feeble announcements on environmental policy. Labour’s policies are an improvement compared to the denialists in charge of the Tory party, but far too timid as an answer to the ecological crisis.

Rank-and-file offshore workers and environmentalist groups have published a set of demands for a worker-led just transition. The Our Power report calls for a wage guarantee and an offer of free retraining for workers made redundant as the oil fields are decommissioned.

But at the beginning of June, Rachel Reeves watered down Labour’s already inadequate flagship policy of borrowing £28 billion a year for green investment. She fears that government borrowing may “spook the markets”, as with Liz Truss. She wants to reduce the national debt, fear to tax the rich, and hopes the climate will wait for a better economic forecast.

Even before Reeves’ wobble, the original £28 billion plan was inadequate. £6 billion of Labour’s £28 billion is ring-fenced to retrofit UK homes with insulation and low-carbon heating. But figures from the government’s Climate Change Committee put the total cost of retrofitting Britain’s housing stock at £676 billion. Labour’s £6 billion a year pledge may subsidise a few construction firms, but it will not create the infrastructure we need to produce climate resilient homes or meet emissions targets.

Reeves trailed her U-turn by reaffirming Labour’s opposition to North Sea oil and gas expansion. This provoked criticism from the fossil capitalist trade body, Offshore Energies UK, and GMB union leaders, who issued near-identical statements complaining that Labour’s plan creates a “cliff-edge” for the 200,000 workers.

Smith is right to complain that Starmer’s plan for an energy transition lacks detail, but wrong to defend the status quo of unending expansion. Even conservative bodies like the International Energy Authority recognise new fossil-fuel developments are incompatible with a liveable future. The jobs cliff-edge will not be avoided by allowing fossil capital to drive us over the climate cliff-edge.

If the GMB were serious about defending jobs, it would be promoting theOur Power report.

Weak

The ban on future licences is actually unnecessarily weak. The Rosebank oil field off Shetland is due for approval within weeks. If Starmer was serious about climate change, he would state clearly that Labour would revoke any licences that broke existing climate pledges. Given Labour’s lead in the polls, such a statement would probably create enough uncertainty to scupper Rosebank.

The key problem for both the Labour leadership and the GMB officialdom is that they regard the fossil capitalists operating in the North Sea as people with legitimate property rights in their licences. Private operation of the oil fields means unending expansion and is clearly incompatible with rational ecological management. The operations should be taken into common ownership and run according to sound ecological principles.

Labour does seek to set up one publicly-owned renewable energy company to rapidly expand wind, tidal and solar infrastructure. But one publicly company is not enough.

TheOur Power report describes the offshore sector as the “wild west”, with high levels of job insecurity, hyper-exploitation and unsafe working practices. Private ownership of the rigs, ports, and wind energy sector is the main barrier to secure, decent jobs and to a well-planned energy transition. We need to take these resources into common ownership for a planned and well-integrated transition.

Forecast

Last month, the World Meteorological Association revised its forecast upwards to say there is a two thirds chance of exceeding pre-industrial climate by 1.5ºC by 2027. As environmentalist Lester Brown puts it: “We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines we do not recognise. Nature is the time keeper, but we cannot see the clock... We are in a race between tipping points in the earth’s natural systems and those in the world’s political systems. Which will tip first?”

By organising around the perspectives contained in the Our Power report, and building the industrial and political strength of an ecologically-conscious workers movement, we can lay the groundwork for a political tipping point.