“Capitalism is the cause of the climate crisis, not the solution to it. To tackle the climate emergency requires a break with the economic consensus of the past 14 years.”
We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions. Yet the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.
As a new Government approaches, we need to mobilise for policies that could address the depth of the crises we face, including the 10 ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ demands. To help build this campaign initiative, we are publishing a daily blog on the importance on each of these demands. Today, Sam Browse looks at the demand to “End austerity for good – and invest in our future with a Green New Deal.”
With the General Election in full swing, discussion has turned to the demonisation of migrants, dodgy claims about Labour’s tax plans, or the need for a nuclear “deterrent” capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people in moments. Despite its existential importance, conspicuously absent from the debate has been how we tackle one of the major challenges facing the world’s global population – the climate crisis. A strategy for addressing this challenge should be at the centre of any serious agenda for governing the country.
Three years ago, in their 2021 Net Zero Strategy, the Government were unusually clear: ‘if we fail to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the floods and fires we have seen around the world this year will get more frequent and more fierce, crops will be more likely to fail, and sea levels will rise driving mass migration as millions are forced from their homes.’
But they were also clear on their method for taking climate action: ‘create the conditions for the private sector to invest with confidence, unleashing the unique creativity of capitalism to generate and grow new green industries.’ Mistaking the ailment for the cure, they argued that the solution to the unravelling climate catastrophe – or what the World Bank’s Chief Economist and certainly no friend of the left, Nicholas Stern, once called ‘the greatest market failure in human history’ – was more markets.
Now, the mood music (though perhaps not the policy) has changed completely. Rather than the laissez-faire hidden-but-green-fingered-hand, the Government has since actively intervened to encourage fossil fuel extraction, with tax breaks for oil and gas companies who plough more capital into projects in the North Sea. The cheques are written in the name of ‘energy security’, although – given Ministers’ admission that domestic supplies of oil and gas will do nothing to change the volatility of prices set by international markets – the only ‘security’ they provide is to oil and gas shareholders, and fossil fuel bosses.
Notwithstanding the climate-hostile tax giveaways, the government are also utterly failing to unleash the so-called dynamism of the private sector. Far from investment “crowding in”, the Climate Change Committee have said that additional net-zero investment needs to grow 500% from £10bn per year to £50bn by 2030.
And no wonder the taps are running dry. The premise of the Government’s strategy is the same as all the attempts of the last 14 years to breathe life into the ailing UK economy. It is the logic of austerity – that we need to rip away the barriers inhibiting the animal instincts of those entrepreneurial ubermensch, the captains of (in this instance, green) industry, in the hope that they will invest.
It has failed. Despite 14 years of ripping away “red tape” and providing incentive after private sector incentive, the only things that have grown are big business profits and – despite the ostensive reason for austere public spending cuts – public sector debt as a percentage of GDP.
Even where the Government has stimulated investment in green infrastructure, it has squandered the opportunity to develop the domestic economy or lay the foundations for a just transition. For example, while the offshore wind sector has grown exponentially, like the wind farms themselves, the jobs have also been offshored, with the most labour-intensive aspects of the supply chain found abroad in Germany and Scandinavia.
All of this is why the Labour Assembly Against Austerity ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ petition rightly calls for an ‘end to austerity for good – invest in our future with a Green New Deal – end the dependency on fossil fuels and soaring oil and gas prices’; for ‘a massive investment in renewables, green infrastructure and jobs’; and to ‘insulate buildings to bring bills down’. Now is the time to reject the failed austerity dogma and intervene directly, not in aid of the fossil fuel bosses, but to rise to the challenge of the climate and nature emergency.
That means a planned industrial strategy for decarbonisation, leveraging both the borrowing and revenue-raising power of the state to bridge the green investment gap; putting money into harnessing the power of the sun, wind and tide, while developing domestic supply lines – and the jobs and skills that go with that – here, in the UK; lowering our energy consumption and bills, through insulating cold, energy-inefficient homes; protecting and extending green spaces and revitalising nature; and developing and decarbonising our green infrastructure – such as our public transport system – and industry.
These measures would bring real benefits to our lives through cleaner air (pollution is associated with the premature death of nearly 50,000 people per year); stable energy prices and better, warmer homes, driving down the cost of living; an affordable and accessible transport system making it easier to get around; more parks and access to green spaces, improving mental and physical health; and the creation of new, good unionised jobs, supported by a long term plan for developing education, skills, and training in growing green sectors of our economy. The lowering of everyday costs and improvements in our local areas and good job creation are what politicians of a type often refer to as ‘bread and butter’ issues. All the above shows that we address them while we invest in combatting the climate emergency – not by ignoring the crisis and ploughing on with the same failed austerity agenda.
Capitalism – its extractivism and prioritisation of profits over people and planet – is the cause of the climate crisis, not the solution to it. To tackle the climate emergency requires a break with the economic consensus of the past 14 years, not continuing in the same vein. That is why the Government’s approach is failing.
But it’s also why Keir Starmer’s policy is, on its own, not up to the task. Some on the opposition frontbench have sought to play down the retreat from investing £28bn per year for the next decade. But the truth is the policy had been to invest £280bn into tackling the climate emergency, and £140bn over the next 5 years. That number has now evaporated to less than £30bn over the next parliament. By any projection, that is a far cry from the resources necessary.
The only benchmark for climate policy that matters is whether it will improve people’s lives in the meeting of our Paris obligations and help – or hinder – the effort to keep global temperatures from rising beyond the critical point. It’s increasingly clear that the only guarantor of that aim is a confrontation with capital, and a planned, socialist policy of public, state-led investment in green jobs, skills and infrastructure.
Workers can’t wait for less – and it’s no exaggeration to say our future depends on not waiting, but organising now. A good first step is to support the Workers Can’t Wait demands and join the struggle against austerity – for an economy that puts people and planet first.
- You can find the Worker’s Can’t Wait demands – and join over 22,000 people in support here.
- We’re publishing a series of articles for each of the Workers Can’t Wait demands, you can find them as they are published here.
