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
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 third day of the internal Markets Bill saw a series of amendments relating to issues around devolved powers and the environment
Continue reading “The Government’s Internal Market Bill – on the road to Hypercapitalism”
It is worth saying again that nothing is in a box, and so it is not appropriate to talk about trade and trade policy as only an economic manoeuvre
Continue reading “Trade is about more than the ‘economy’”
Rosie Boycott asked what progress HMG have made towards identifying sponsors for COP 26; and what criteria are used in the appointment of any such sponsors.
My supplementary to Rosie’s question was: Which climate-credible people in the Government will make the decision on which companies are climate credible?
Read the whole debate on Hansard
Lord Bruce of Bennachie asked what steps the government will take to ensure the recovery and diversification of the United Kingdom oil and gas industry supply chain…
Continue reading “This government lacks vision on climate change”
This Agriculture Bill will shape how our countryside looks for the next generation. It will change the way money is spent on food and land management as the £20 billions of subsidies that flowed through the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are replaced by a new system. We do not support this bill, but we are doing our best to make some good of it. We are attempting to insert new clauses and substantial amendments, as well as co-signing a number of important amendments from other peers. The wording of our clauses and amendments are detailed below in topic groupings.
Politicians in the UK have largely wasted the last four years discussing border arrangements, rather than the icecaps melting, rivers flooding and forests burning. The environment and our rapidly changing climate doesn’t recognise legal boundaries or custom checks. Despite the admirable efforts of Extinction Rebellion, Parliament has made few actual changes to end or even limit the damage we are doing to our planet. That has to change and I can only hope with January 31st out of the way, we can focus on promoting the New Green Deal and other essential changes. Continue reading “Brexit – what next?”
Lord Berkeley has sent me a copy of his dissenting report on the HS2 Review and it is damning. It isn’t just his criticisms of the way he was written out of the process, despite being deputy chair of the Review, but his view that the positive conclusions in the Review are not supported by the evidence. Continue reading “Leading Labour peer and rail expert slams HS2”
This is an historic win because for the first time we’ve challenged the police on overstepping their powers and we’ve won. It’s great.
This shows how the police have gone beyond their powers when dealing with peaceful environmental protests, There is a pattern in recent years of the police being under pressure from the government to help impose fracking on communities that don’t want it and to stop the highly successful Extinction Rebellion from raising the issue of climate change. Government Ministers were very vocal in wanting the police to clamp down on Extinction Rebellion’s October protests, after the summer protests led to Parliament passing a motion declaring a climate emergency.
I find it infuriating that Labour and Lib Dem councils are still approving waste from energy incinerators while their national parties declare a Climate Emergency. Labour have passed a motion at their conference aiming for zero carbon by 2030, but contracts between local authorities and incineration companies will last well beyond this timescale.
In 2016 waste incinerators officially accounted for 10.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and that total is going up rapidly as we burn more waste. The real total is double that according to analysis done by the ‘No Incinerator UK’ campaign, who point out that the amount of plastic being burnt has gone up rapidly since 2011 when the government last calculated the mix of waste that was being put into incinerators.
A quick glance at oil company profits from recent years shows that plastic production has become crucial to their profitability with plastics accounting for half of global oil consumption growth to 2040. Oil, in the form of plastic, is the ideal fuel for incinerators and enables them to reach the temperatures where everything else burns nicely. We want to stop cars using petrol in the next ten years, so why are we happy for incinerators to use it?
