I write for Green World: “Both the Conservative and Labour parties are stuck in a past that hasn’t kept pace with how rapidly the world is changing.” I reflect on the urgent need for the Government to adapt and respond to climate change.
Category: Climate change
We need a new era of fossil free politics
Our pension funds should divest from fossil fuels, our ministers should reject the advances of fossil fuel lobbyists and our councils and mayors should be supported to transition to a zero carbon economy
Jenny works with campaigners and industry to promote a more radical policy agenda on climate change
Read on for her latest posts on this topic
The Environment Bill finally reaches the Lords
I am not going to argue that we have an environmental or ecological crisis, or a nature or planetary crisis, because for me those things are absolutely self-evident. What we have is a political crisis. The Government are creating a new system of environmental law that is almost undeserving of being called law because it is so full of loopholes and get-out clauses and allows unlawful acts to carry on unimpeded. We have to be absolutely sure that what we are doing is the safest way forward. The Government simply do not understand that the environment encompasses everything. It is not an issue on its own; it encompasses the economy, transport, education and social well-being. It is absolutely everything, and this Bill is our one opportunity to get it right.
Continue reading “The Environment Bill finally reaches the Lords”
What are HMG’s aims for Cop26?
Will it not be embarrassing for a Government who cannot stick to the Paris Agreement? They are dithering about opening new coal mines, they are planning new roads and they are encouraging airport expansion—plus they have just given £750 million to a Mozambique scheme for a fossil fuel project. How is this reducing global CO2 emissions?
Read the whole debate on Hansard
New climate targets, but no restraint on domestic flights
I won the ballot for Topical Oral Question, for the first time, on 20th April with this question: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the passing of a law by the National Assembly of France to prohibit domestic flights to destinations that can be reached by train in two and a half hours or less, what consideration they have given to reducing domestic air travel in the United Kingdom.
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Considering the climate in advice to Planning Inspectors
Any national planning system that allows Heathrow to expand or fails to stop new and bigger roads, is clearly not going to deliver net zero emissions. At a local level we are still building new houses that will have to be retrofitted in the next few years and incinerators that add to greenhouse gas emissions.
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The Trade Bill: Report Stage – ISDS
If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe… a process known as ‘investor-state dispute settlement‘, or ISDS.
(The Economist, October 2014)
This Trade Bill the government has written includes ISDS…
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HS2: Destruction and broken promises
The first day of the Report stage of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill saw four votes on amendments, three of which Jenny voted for in an attempt to improve the project if it cannot be stopped:
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Burning waste: Letter to Climate Change Committee
Thank you for your response to my previous letter regarding incineration and climate change. I am writing to you ahead of the publication of the CCC 6th Carbon Budget advice to government to draw your attention to serious failures in your previous analysis of this issue.
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Incineration vs reuse and recycling
If all the incinerators in our planning process are built in the next few years we will double our capacity to burn waste and double greenhouse gas emissions. So if government aims to reduce the waste we produce, do we have less recycling or import more waste?
The Government’s Internal Market Bill – on the road to Hypercapitalism
The third day of the internal Markets Bill saw a series of amendments relating to issues around devolved powers and the environment
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