United Kingdom (UK)

By Tina Rothery - Greeener Jobs Alliance, May 21, 2023

The first page of the Greener Jobs Alliance website makes clear what’s needed to face the challenges posed by ever increasing harm to the climate – uniting campaigns and bringing together the solutions.

I work with the campaign group, Zero Hour, on the Climate & Ecology Bill, and as highlighted on our website, we make clear we think the same:

“Zero Hour has been working hard to build a broad and representative alliance of support for the CE Bill, including 165 MPs and Peers, 230 local authorities, 144 leading scientists, 465 organisations—including The Co-operative Bank, Women’s Institutes, National Education Union, and University College—alongside 30,000 members of the public.”

Bringing together a diverse range of groups and organisations to create and support solutions that are essential to a just transition just makes sense—and the power of ‘unions’ has never been clearer. This article asks that the GJA, and its supporters, consider joining Zero Hour in this union – and supporting the CE Bill as one of the solutions.

By James Tapper - The Guardian, May 14, 2023

People investing their pensions in funds that claim green credentials are being warned they may actually be backing the world’s largest oil and gas companies.

Carbon Tracker Initiative said that asset managers have invested $376bn (£295bn) in oil and gas companies, despite publicly pledging to back efforts to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C. The environmental thinktank based in London and New York found that more than 160 funds with a green label held $4.6bn in 15 companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron and TotalEnergies.

It also found that 25 members of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative had invested in those companies and some had increased their holdings in 2022. NZAM said its international initiative started two years ago and investors needed time to change their strategies.

The warning comes as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority prepares to publish anti-greenwashing rules that are intended to clean up how investment funds are labelled.

By Keith Richmond - Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, May 10, 2023

ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, has slammed the government’s decision to approve the use of longer lorries on Britain’s roads.

Mick Whelan, ASLEF’s general secretary, said: ‘There goes this government’s green agenda! We need to move more goods – as well as more people – off Britain’s roads and onto electrified rail if we are to have any hope of hitting our CO2 targets.

‘To encourage the use of longer, heavier, lorries will only mean more emissions, more deadly particles in the air that we breathe, and more danger – with the six extra feet, deadly tail swing, and a bigger area at the rear end when the truck is turning – for pedestrians, cyclists, and people in cars. It will mean more accidents, more injuries, and more deaths on our roads.

‘The government – which always bends its knee to the road lobby – claims it will mean more goods can be transported by fewer vehicles. In fact it will mean the same number of heavy goods vehicles on our roads – just longer, heavier, and more dangerous HGVs.’

Mick added: ‘This is, I’m afraid, a regressive, rather than progressive, measure. A retrograde step. Rather than permitting longer, and more dangerous, lorries, the government should be encouraging more freight to move to rail which we all know is a more efficient, safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly alternative.

‘Each freight train removes 129 lorries from our roads. We need more freight hubs right across the country so we let the train take the strain for the long haul, and then switch the goods to shorter, and more modern, electric vehicles for the last few miles. That’s the sort of forward-thinking, integrated, green transport system we need for the 21st century.’

By staff - National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, May 10, 2023

LOGISTICS UNION RMT slammed the government over plans to permit longer lorries to travel on UK roads despite the climate emergency and the managed decline of rail. There have also been widespread warnings that the move will increase the number of fatal road accidents.

Under government plans the lorries will be a maximum of 2.05 metres longer than the current standard sized trailer meaning lorries over 18.5 metres in length. 

The longer lorries have been trialled since 2011 and there are about 3,000 already on the roads, but from May 31 any business in England, Scotland or Wales will be able to use them.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that it was completely baffling that the government had made the announcement on longer lorries despite the fact that the climate emergency was accelerating and the increasingly obvious managed decline of the rail including the freight sector. 

“Rail freight is the most sustainable and environmentally friendly way to move freight but instead over recent years what we are seeing on our railways is cutting investment, slashing services and staff numbers, scrapping and downgrading vital infrastructure projects and rewarding failed private train operators with lucrative contract extensions. 

“If this government was serious about tackling the climate emergency, they would recognise the critical importance of rail freight to reducing carbon emissions and commit to a historic mass investment in this sector to ensure the UK meets its legally binding climate targets,” he said.

By Daniel Randall - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 4, 2023

By Finlay Asher - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 10, 2023

By Clara Paillard - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 10, 2023

By Equity for a Green New Deal - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, May 10, 2023

By Hazel Graham - Extinction Rebellion Trade Unions, April 30, 2023