In the narrow window of time remaining to avert dangerous climate tipping points, the next UK government must bring real solutions to move our economy off fossil fuels. It must invest to transform the economy for a cleaner, fairer future, and address the interlocking social crises this country faces.
The election announcement on 22 May was certainly memorable. As Rishi Sunak spoke in the rain, Things Can Only Get Better was played loudly in the background by protesters.
But - 'better' is not enough in a time of climate breakdown. We have had a year of unprecedented global temperatures, with climate disasters around the world, and climate scientists aghast by the world's failure, even now, to step away from fossil fuels.
Time to make your voice heard
It's always worth lobbying MPs - even if they may seem unresponsive, it gives them a sense of what their constituents care about. But it's actually much easier to get them to listen before they've even secured their seat in Parliament. The next government is expected to have a lot of first-time MPs. Before they get in, they need to hear that voters want action on the climate emergency.
There are lots of ways to do this: get on the streets, contact your candidates by email, join together with others in local groups to organise a climate hustings, or attend general hustings and ask a climate question, write to your local paper.
Restore Nature Now march, London, 22 June
Before the election was called, over 150 campaign groups and NGOs had already signed up to support this national demonstration to Restore Nature Now. Demands including no new fossil fuels and investment in climate action. This will be a great opportunity to create a visual statement of the general public demanding a safe future and liveable planet where people and nature can not just survive but thrive.
We'll be marching together with our friends on the climate justice bloc. If you're outside London, some coaches have been organised.
Writing to candidates
You can find out how to contact your election candidates on the Who Can I Vote For website.
Speaking out on the climate emergency, in whatever way, helps break the silence and raise awareness. Remember your ultimate aim is to convince someone who may be your MP for the next five years, not just to vent (totally understandable) frustration and anger at inaction!
You might like to read this guidance from Hope for the Future about writing a letter that's more likely to be read.
A personal appeal - you can choose an angle that's personal to you, or that you think will resonate with the candidate you're writing to, whether that's climate jobs; fuel poverty and the need for home insulation, the impact of climate change and floods on UK farmers, the failure of our planning system which encourages mass expansion of roads and airports - or even just one of the recent news stories about the impacts of climate breakdown around the world or concerns for your children.
Local insight - You can find information here about your own constituency - the proportion of people who consider climate change a high priority, who would support renewable energy projects in the local area, who are worried about energy bills or are in fuel poverty.
The big picture - As the planet heats up, the impacts of climate breakdown multiply, and we are running out of time. The UK is not on track to meet its climate commitments. The bottom line is that the next government must stop new fossil fuel extraction and damaging infrastructure like airport expansion and mass road-building. And massive investment in the infrastructure we do need - insulating homes, public transport, renewable energy, creating a workforce for the climate emergency. For example, Friends of the Earth estimates £50 billion a year or 2% of GDP - slightly less than is currently spent on defence to deliver lasting benefits. The UK also needs to pay its fair share of climate finance to countries facing the worst climate impacts to help them adapt and fund their own emissions reductions.
Ask them if they would back these policies:
No new oil fields in the North Sea, including Rosebank. A just transition plan for workers
Mass investment in climate jobs, including setting up a National Climate Service
A comprehensive home insulation programme, publicly funded
Public ownership of energy and transport
A planning system that works for the climate, scrapping mass road building and halting airport expansion
A National Climate Service would create and coordinate directly employed public sector jobs to cut emissions across key sectors of the economy, with national planning and coordination of strategy and workforce training, and local delivery. Find out more about climate jobs
In their current form, coral reefs have been around for around 60 million years. A quarter of all marine life, including over 4,000 species of fish, are dependent on coral reefs at some point in their life cycle. But these extraordinary ecosystems cannot survive the regular marine heatwaves caused by global heating.
In the 1980s, the first observed incidents occurred of coral reefs turning white over extended areas. Scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg discovered the cause. Corals are animals related to jellyfish and anemones. Their polyps take food from the water but they also depend on symbiotic algae which provide them with an additional food source through photosynthesis. Under heat stress, corals expel these algae, leaving their tissue a ghostly white. Without their algae, corals slowly starve, and may die. By the time of the first global bleaching event in 1998, Hoegh-Guldberg was able to predict that as early as the 2020s some reefs could be bleaching six or more times a decade - far too frequent to give them time to recover. The scientist was branded an ‘alarmist’. But in 2018 a landmark review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that if the earth warmed by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels this “will result in the further loss of 90% of reef-building corals compared to today”.
In March 2023, global sea surface temperatures started breaking records, and have stayed that way since. The warming impact of El Niño has further exacerbated the heating caused by fossil fuel burning. These extreme ocean temperatures have led to what is believed to be the worst planet-wide coral bleaching event ever. This is the fourth global bleaching event on record and the second in the last 10 years. A global bleaching event is declared when at least 12% of corals in each of the main ocean basins - Pacific, Atlantic and Indian - experience bleaching-level heat stress within a 12-month period.
In the past days, wildfires have ravaged central Chile with a death toll of at least 131, and more than 300 people still missing at the time of writing. These fires are the most deadly, but not the first in recent years - six of the most destructive fire seasons on record in Chile have occurred in the past decade. Particularly notable are 2017 and February 2023 when fierce fires raged across the country killing dozens, injuring thousands, and leaving many people homeless.
The fires come on the back of an extreme heatwave. Chile’s capital Santiago reached 37.3C on 31 January, the country’s third-highest recorded temperature in more than a century. This heatwave has affected large parts of the continent.
On top of the long-term global heating trend, temperatures have been pushed even higher by El Niño. This summer heatwave was preceded by an extraordinary winter heatwave across much of South America. In August 2023, temperatures in the Chilean Andes rose as high as 38.9C in mid winter.
The long-term trend is just as worrying. For over a decade, Chile has been grappling with a megadrought. This is a crisis of climatic change and lack of rainfall, but also a social and economic crisis of water management. Huge amounts of water are consumed by monoculture tree plantations to the south of Santiago and the avocado orchards in the north. Meanwhile the glaciers of the Andes continue to shrink. In 2022, water rationing was introduced in the capital, Santiago, the capital.
The recent decision by TATA to close down its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot steel works over the coming year, with loss of around 2,800 jobs, is a devastating blow to both the workers and to their wider community.
What is happening in Port Tabot is precisely the “cliff edge” of sudden mass redundancies, the threat of which is often ruthlessly weaponised to create opposition to climate action
But despite the rhetoric about decarbonisation, TATA’s decision to shut down the blast furnaces ahead of starting production with an electric arc furnace is based purely on financial not climate considerations.
Their decision not to install the additional technologies needed for low carbon primary steel production (as opposed to recycling) is not a decarbonisation plan, but a business plan.
In contrast to this disaster, a worker-led, socially just transition plan would determine the most effective way to decarbonise across the economy, whilst meeting the immense labour needs of new or growing sectors vital to the transition.
It would do this whilst fully protecting the pay and conditions of all workers affected by technological transitions, whether work is currently available for them or not, as well as during any re-training.
The level of coordination and planning required across numerous sectors is not possible within the context of private companies vying for markets, but implies a need for public ownership of key industries, with full worker participation in planning, and delivery overseen by a public National Climate Service.
Below is a motion of support for the TATA steelworkers written for urgent adoption by union branches, regions and trades councils.
A ‘historic agreement’? COP28 was the first such summit in three decades of UN climate negotiations to agree the necessity of moving away from fossil fuels. Which frankly says more about the failures of the process as a whole than the success of COP28. So what are the key outcomes from Dubai that we need to understand?
The final text, the ‘Global Stocktake’ did not in the end agree the ‘phase out’ of fossil fuels which more than 100 countries had called for, with oil producing nations, notably Saudi Arabia, implacably opposed. Instead, it called on countries to contribute to global efforts to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.
The overwhelming message from Global South countries was that while language might be significant, at COP28 it was much less important than the failure of richer nations to put money on the table. Poorer countries face three overwhelming costs they are unable to meet without this:
Adaptation: In a heated and unstable world, preventative investment in climate-resilient food production, coastal flood adaptation, management of scarce water resources, etc., is essential. But climate finance for this has been minimal. The adaptation finance gap is estimated at $194-366 billion. At COP28 an adaptation framework was agreed but not the money needed to deliver.
Loss and damage: Extreme weather events are increasingly causing severe losses, and those in poorer countries who have done least to cause the climate crisis are least able to bear the cost. At COP27, countries finally agreed to set up a fund to pay for this loss and damage, after a 30-year fight led by small island states and developing countries. On the very first day of COP28, the fund was formally adopted, and by the end of COP28 $770m had been pledged. Some countries, such as the UK, re-pledged funding already announced. Notably the US pledged a measly $17.5m. By comparison, estimates for the annual cost of climate damage have varied from $100bn-$580bn - the fund so far covers less than 1% of what is needed.
Transition: Richer nations built their economies on exploiting fossil fuels. The Paris agreement includes a commitment from developed countries to transfer funds not just for adaptation to climate impacts but so that poorer countries are able to develop without reliance on fossil fuels and meet their emissions targets. The commitment to provide $100bn a year by 2020 has not been met. The governments of countries such as Uganda say they cannot be expected to forgo the billions that exploiting their oil reserves would bring in when no alternative funding is forthcoming. Many countries are locked in a debt trap, forced to keep drilling to service their debts. 'Climate finance' as further loans is a bitter irony.
There are clear loopholes in the text, such as the call for the acceleration of carbon capture & storage, a technology which is unproven and expensive but can be used as a fig leaf for fossil fuel expansion. ‘Transitional fuels’ are ‘recognised’ for ensuring energy security, a clear reference to the idea that gas could be used as a ‘bridge fuel’ - which is not compatible with staying below 1.5C.
COP28 was supposed to finalise rules on carbon markets (Article 6). However, talks ended in deadlock. Despite multiple scandals around carbon trading, the US had been pushing for ‘light touch’ regulation, which would allow secrecy and potentially double counting of emissions cuts. This was blocked by countries demanding greater scrutiny as well as human rights and environmental safeguards. However this leaves the existing ‘voluntary’ carbon market unregulated for at least another year.
When it comes to climate breakdown, the bottom line is not politics but physics, which is not affected by words but only by the reality of cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions which continue to rise. The nations facing the most immediate existential threat, the Alliance of Small Island States, were clear in their statement, “It is not enough for us to reference the science and then make agreements that ignore what the science is telling us we need to do. This is not an approach that we should be asked to defend.”
The annual UN climate summit, COP28, arrives as 2023 is set to be announced the hottest year the planet has ever experienced. Accumulated heat in the oceans and on land has driven a series of climate disasters and the urgency of the crisis has never been greater - but still the fossil fuel industry is determined to block action.
COP28 is hosted by the United Arab Emirates. The COP President, Sultan Al Jaber, is CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, planning a massive expansion of its own oil and gas production (the biggest expansion of any single company), and UAE is reportedly planning to use the summit as an opportunity to strike oil and gas deals. COP28 will see record numbers of fossil fuel lobbyists, as well as representatives of other polluting industries - and of course government delegations who are closely linked to vested interests. Greenwash measures such as carbon capture and storage are expected to be heavily pushed.
The UK government is deliberately blocking the path to a green transition, intending to grant over 100 new oil and gas licenses and giving consent for the massive Rosebank oil field which would generate more CO2 emissions in total than the 28 lowest-income countries do in a year.
Rishi Sunak even boasted in his speech at COP28, “We’ve scrapped plans on heat pumps and energy efficiency, which would have cost families thousands of pounds,” showing a remarkable lack of shame about his backtracking and his ignorance that these measures are essential to actually cut energy bills.
Climate finance for climate justice
Last year’s COP27 saw a crucial victory for countries on the frontline of climate breakdown. After decades of blocking by rich nations, a Loss and Damage Fund was finally agreed for countries most affected by climate change to cover devastating impacts like flooding and drought. The fund was formally set up at the start of COP28. For the first four years it will be hosted by the World Bank, a temporary arrangement reached in negotiations against the wishes of countries in the Global South who wanted an independent body to control the fund under the UN. The World Bank model is based on loans not grants, and is not set up to allow rapid access to funds after climate disasters. They also fear the dominance of the US over World Bank decision-making.
The history of climate finance has not encouraged trust. In 2009 in Copenhagen, rich nations pledged to provide US$100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and develop sustainably. That target was not met in 2020. It was claimed to have been reached in 2023. However, analysis by Oxfam found that the majority of climate finance was in the form of loans to be repaid. Project funding which was not genuinely climate-related was also included - leaving the real value of funding just a fraction of the claimed total.
Take action
Communities and activists around the world will take to the streets on 9 December for the Global Day of Action. You can find events near you here.
In June the motion will be voted on at BFAWU conference and Unison conference (see agenda pdf download, p83 onwards for the motion as adapted by NEC and brought by branches)
The motion has been passed at PCS conference, May 2024
It has been passed at the NEU conference, April 2024 (amended text here)
Background to motion
Below and in printable form is a General Motion intended for wide circulation across the trade union movement, and adoption by branches, regions, trades councils and annual conferences, with an ultimate aim for it to be heard at the 2024 TUC.
The motion is deliberately pitched at a high level, starting with the basic assertion that climate change is a class issue and a trade union issue. It sets out the fundamental elements that should underpin the climate policies of every union in order to achieve a common understanding of the crisis, and how to respond to it in the interests of climate justice for workers, public service and the planet. Many of these elements will already be clearly understood, but there is a need for a consistent and coherent articulation of these across the movement.
The reason this General Motion is being raised now is due to the fragmented and inconsistent responses of different trade unions, within unions, and between members and their leaderships. In particular, the climate-related motions passed at recent Trades Union Congresses have been deeply regressive, producing a narrative that runs counter to the long term interests, and job security, of workers, both in the U.K. and globally. This motion seeks to redirect that narrative towards more progressive and radical solutions that will produce and secure thousands of jobs, restore a public service ethos, and make genuine progress towards countering the climate emergency.
Adaptations to the motion are welcomed to incorporate specific local, sectoral or international factors; the motion needs to be relevant to each constituency while ensuring that the fundamental elements are retained. It purposely avoids specific references in order to be universal, and it is envisaged that details of specifics would be covered in complementary motions.
Finally, this motion is not viewed as the property of any one union, climate organisation or political faction. It has emerged from a common analysis among activists across a number of trade unions, many of whom are also involved with the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union group (CACCTU), Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA) and other climate networks.
We stand with millions around the world calling for:
Ceasefire now. An end to the siege on Gaza: safe water, food, fuel, and medicine now.
Release all hostages and all Palestinian political prisoners being held illegally.
An end to Israel's occupation and work towards a just peace
We are horrified at the ongoing suffering and condemn all attacks on civilians and collective punishment. We also look to a just solution to the conflict, based in human rights for all, and addressing Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land, apartheid policies and permanent sieges of Gaza and West Bank, which have limited access for Palestinian people to agricultural lands, clean water and fuel.
We stand with millions around the world calling for:
Ceasefire now. An end to the siege on Gaza: safe water, food, fuel, and medicine now.
Release all hostages and all Palestinian political prisoners being held illegally.
An end to Israel's occupation and work towards a just peace
We are horrified at the ongoing suffering and condemn all attacks on civilians and collective punishment. As trade unionists we also look to a just solution to the conflict. Many of the unions we belong to have policy which opposes Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land, apartheid policies and permanent sieges of Gaza and West Bank, which have limited access for Palestinian people to agricultural lands, clean water and fuel.
We're joining a protest at the Home Office this Saturday 4th November, following Suella Braverman's inflammatory speech at the Conservative Party Conference where she suggested that the UK was facing a 'hurricane' of migration and that the government's policy on immigration had been hampered by being 'far too squeamish about being smeared as racist'.
What are the links between refugees and climate change?
An obvious connection is that people are forced to leave their home by climate breakdown. Most starkly, the very existence of Pacific island states is at risk from rising sea levels. In recent years, we have seen a regular series of climate disasters around the world, extreme weather events which would have been unlikely or impossible without fossil-fuelled climate breakdown. These can force thousands, or even hundreds of thousands from their homes temporarily. But the destruction of homes and livelihoods mean not all can return. Changing weather patterns also cause less visible changes: repeated crop failures from drought, floods or both; rising sea levels causing salinisation of farmland.
Some areas, such as the Sahel region of Africa, face both climate change and armed conflict. Exacly how resource scarcity and conflict are linked is debated, but one thing is clear: this is a deadly combination. From Honduras to Afghanistan, from South Sudan to the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar now in Bangladesh, climate breakdown exacerbates situations of violence and inequality. And consistently, those who have done least to cause the climate crisis are suffering worst from its impacts.
Another link is that both immigration and climate action are being used by this government to in an attempt to stoke a 'culture war' ahead of the 2024 general election. This has led to complete abandonment of rational policy-making. Braverman's plans for asylum-seekers, including deportation to Rwanda, combine cruelty with sky-high costs to taxpayers and as a whole are widely considered unworkable. On climate change Sunak is wooing backbenchers and right-wing media by taking a wrecking ball to the political consensus on the UK's legally binding climate targets, ignoring not just climate scientists but industry experts, businesses and public opinion polls.
