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.
This Bill does not mention climate change which is the biggest existential threat to all of humankind; it is not just about the north or the south but the whole world and the Government have been deficient in mentioning it and putting it into a context that can make a difference. Continue reading “Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill Second Reading”
We should make do with less and understand that the climate crisis means we should perhaps want to possess less as well. Continue reading “Shopping”
Something Greens are always very concerned about is marketisation and financial engineering around environmental issues. The UK has a long and dangerous track record of mismanaging this. In the same way that financial engineering around mortgages caused the 2008 financial crisis, there are risks that bankers will abuse the climate crisis as an opportunity to get filthy rich while destroying the very systems we are working to protect. It has been done before.
My Bill is reasonable. It would: establish the right to breathe clean air; set clean air targets for air pollutants and greenhouse gases; set deadlines while allowing postponements; encourage renewable energy and energy efficiency; and ensure a proportional approach to enforcement.
Continue reading “Clean Air Bill passes Third Reading”
COP27 failed to make progress on reducing emissions and the awful reality is that our current economic and political system can’t deliver the necessary change, quickly enough. So have you started wondering how everyday life is going to change in the next ten years due to the climate emergency? It is a timescale that many of us can grasp. My grandchildren will be in their late twenties and I will be retired and struggling to keep the allotment in shape. What will your life be like and what will be the new normal?
The Government are seeking in this Bill to make protest a crime instead of a right. If not completely overcome by corruption, this Government do at least have filaments of corruption winding their way through the whole body politic. Continue reading “Public Order Bill Day 2 of Committee”
This is clearly rubbish legislation. For example, there is a lack of a definition of “serious disruption”, what about arresting the Government for serious disruption to the NHS over the last 12 years? I would support that. The criminal courts in this country are crumbling and cannot cope with the number of cases that they have at the moment. Yet here the Government will insist on more cases which will clog up the courts even more. This is so right-wing; it is not an appropriate Bill for a democracy. Continue reading “Public Order Bill committee stage day 1”
To ask HMG, further to the publication of the all-party, UK-wide Nature and Climate Declaration on 1 November 2022, what steps are they taking to (1) reduce the full scope of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions in line with limiting global heating to 1.5°C, (2) halt and reverse biodiversity decline by 2030, and (3) deliver a more ambitious and integrated environmental protection and decarbonisation plan. Continue reading “Zero Hour”
The Government really do not need the sort of repressive powers in the Bill that are worthy of Russia, China or Iran. We should vote against this legislation—again—to protect the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of assembly and the right to protest, which is what we expect in a free society. Of course protest is inherently disruptive; that is its nature. But do the Lords know what is more disruptive? The fossil fuel companies and extractive industries that are destroying our planet, and the billionaires who are amassing huge claims over the world’s resources while everyone else worries about how to pay our energy bills this winter. BP has made £7 billion profit in three months, yet we will pay the extra cost of coastal defences and higher food prices for the next three decades or more. Shell makes £9.5 billion profit in a quarter. They have billions in the bank; we will have a country that swings from drought and wildfires to floods of sewage. Every dollar or pound that the oil and gas companies make equals the world becoming a worse place for generations. That is what real disruption means, and we have a Government encouraging it with tax breaks and licences for big business. Continue reading “Public Order Bill arrives in Lords”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 