“350.org and others are calling for mass actions this November and we should make sure there is a huge trade union component to those. The ice is cracking under our feet.”
By Paul Atkin, Greener Jobs Alliance
The hottest June ever, daily temperature records broken three times in the first week of July, the Southern US under a heat dome, Beijing breaking 40C three days in a row, Montevideo down to two weeks worth of drinkable water and an extraordinarily mild Antarctic Winter 10 – 20C above average temperatures from 1979-2000, should be injecting an increased urgency into climate action.
350.org and others are calling for mass actions this November and we should make sure there is a huge trade union component to those. The ice is cracking under our feet.
Because the Financial Times is right on the money when it states the following:
This is a role that Western Governments, and the private sector they support,are resisting.
The UK government is proving peculiarly cloth eared. Hence the perverse decisions they keep making, from trying to row back on aid to the Global South, to investing in new (expensive) oil and gas while continuing to block (cheap) onshore wind; resulting in FOE and Client Earth once more deciding to take them to court to force them to make a plan that would match their own targets.
The challenge for the Labour movement is to recognise that our struggle is to lead the transition.
That means boldness in government in making the investments needed at the scale and pace that will make a difference; and for that to work concrete plans have to be made now on how, where and when those investments will be made; and how the skilling up of the necessary workers will be put in place.
It also means a recognition in the unions that we have to take initiatives to force the pace.
- The JT plan for the North Sea is an example that the appropriate unions can be taken to the government and through Labour’s structures too.
- The GJA draft motion for Labour Conference can also be used in union branches to focus the debate we need on setting up structures to allow a determining voice to the workers and communities affected; whether that’s the rail unions on transport, education unions on curriculum and training, health unions on a net zero NHS and the rest of us in every sector.
It is a cloud cuckoo land fantasy to imagine that dropping off the pace on this won’t have horrific consequences, and costs.
- This article was originally published in the Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA) July 2023 Newsletter.
- Paul Atkin is the editor of the GJA newsletter. You can follow the GJA on Facebook and twitter.
