United Kingdom (UK)

By Clara P, et. al. - Tipping Point, March 9, 2023

By Mary Church, Craig Dalzell, Roz Foyer, Sean Sweeney, Mika Minio-Paluello, et. al. - Just Transition Partnership, March 8, 2023

An online conference organised by the Just Transition Partnership to set out why public ownership of energy production and infrastructure is an essential part of any plans to hit climate change targets.

This event featured experts on how the privatised energy system is giving us fuel poverty, soaring energy prices and profits; and failing to deliver a Just Transition as well as reviewing the publicly-owned solutions in key sectors, from local to national levels.

Introduction: Mary Church - Reclaiming our Energy introduction

By staff - Greener Jobs Alliance, March 8, 2023

This Blog contains a number of statements and briefings on the Ultra Low Emissions Zone extension.

• Editor’s view (pers cap)
• Health impacts of Polluted Air in Outer London – Imperial College
• Mum’s for Lungs view
• Trade Union Clean Air Network (TUCAN) statement
• Friends of the Earth Briefing
• The truth about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods – Possible

Making Positive Demands to clean up our air and cut car dependence

Anyone who watched the London Mayor’s Question Time from Ealing last week will not have missed the atmosphere of fear and loathing that make this issue almost as toxic as the air we breathe.

There are four overlapping imperatives when dealing with transport in cities.

That greenhouse gas emissions from transport are a quarter of the UK’s total and have not declined for ten years because, while car engines have become more efficient, more people are driving them, and the models they are driving are heavier. This has to be cut hard and fast to allow us to survive as a society.

People have to get around and, overall, cars are becoming more of a problem than a solution. If the 40% of people in London who don’t have cars did, no one would be able to get anywhere; because the streets would be gridlocked. The individual “aspiration” to own a car becomes socially dystopian if universally realised. For freer flowing, quieter, safer streets, we need fewer cars and fewer car journeys. We will have less of a need to travel inconvenient distances if we enrich our immediate neighbourhoods. 

We need cleaner air for our health and life expectancy. 90% of people want it. Some people drive. Everybody breathes. 

Some people are locked into car use, because they can’t afford to live near work and need concrete affordable alternatives as they are understandably anxious about how they are going to cope.

By Alex Lawson - The Guardian, March 6, 2023

Coalition of workers, unions and climate campaigners aims to safeguard shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources.

Workers in the UK’s offshore oil, gas and renewables sector have called for public ownership of energy companies to ensure that the country’s transition to net zero protects jobs, communities and the environment.

The call comes amid a series of demands to government from a coalition of offshore workers, unions and climate campaigners that aim to shift the industry from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources.

A survey of 1,092 offshore workers for the wide-ranging report, Our Power: Offshore Workers, found that 90% of respondents backed its demands, which also include: government-backed jobs guarantees; an offshore training passport that supports workers to retrain in the renewables sector; a commitment to incentivise investment in ports and factories making products such as wind turbines; and equal pay for migrant workers.

Concerns are growing over the pace of Britain’s transition away from fossil fuels and its ability to create green jobs in manufacturing, production and operations. Data from the consultancy PwC shows the number of jobs being created in the renewable energy industry is growing four times faster than the overall UK employment market. But more than one-third of these roles are based in London and the south-east, particularly in professional and scientific roles.

The report argues that public ownership of energy firms would help to ensure a “just energy transition” offering greater job security and conditions. It paints a picture of long stints at sea and low pay in the face of the cost of living crisis, with British workers paid three times as much as migrant staff.

By staff - Morning Star, March 6, 2023

INVESTMENT and reform of the energy sector are needed to secure a just green transition for offshore workers, unions and environmental campaigners are warning today.

A new report by transport union RMT, Friends of the Earth and others demands investment in ports and manufacturing as well as an offshore training passport for oil and gas workers moving to the renewables sector.

Offshore migrant workers must also get equal pay and a higher minimum wage should be available to all, the groups added.

RMT regional organiser Jake Molloy stressed employees must be “fully engaged and empowered in the process if we are to achieve a real just transition.”

“The lack of a real plan from politicians and industry is fuelling workforce discontent and disillusionment,” he said.

Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Mary Church said: “Our current energy system is destroying our climate, is unaffordable to millions and is failing the people who work in it.

“Failure from politicians to properly plan and support the transition to renewables is leaving workers totally adrift on the whims of oil and gas companies, and the planet to burn.”

By Rosemary Harris, Gabrielle Jeliazkov, and Ryan Morrison - Our Power, March 6, 2023

Over the past two years, we’ve come together with offshore workers to build demands for a just energy transition. These workers developed 10 demands covering training and skills, pay, job creation, investment and public ownership.

We surveyed over 1000 additional offshore workers and over 90% agreed with these demands. This plan is comprehensive in scope, transformative in scale and deliverable now.

Below you will find a series of resources setting out the demands and the paths we can take to turn them into reality.

We need a rapid transition away from oil and gas that protects workers, communities and the climate. But the government has no plan to phase out oil and gas production in the North Sea.

Oil and gas workers are ready to lead a just transition away from oil and gas, but they are caught in a trap of exploitation and fear created by oil and gas companies. Working conditions are plummeting, just as profits, prices and temperatures are soaring.

The UK and Scottish Governments must listen to workers to make this transition work for all of us. These demands lay out a comprehensive plan, which includes:

• Removing barriers that make it harder for oil and gas workers to move into the renewable industry.
• Ensuring safety, job security and fair pay across the energy industry.
• Sharing the benefits of our energy system fairly, with public investment in energy companies and communities.

Workers have told us what they need for a just transition, now we need to work with them to make it happen.

Read the report (PDF).

By staff - Morning Star, March 2023

A GROUNDBREAKING alliance of unions and campaigners have announced their commitment to stand with Extinction Rebellion as the climate group is set to take mass action next month.

Thousands are expected to descend on Parliament between April 21 and 24 for The Big One, a weekend of protest against the government’s ongoing failure to tackle the climate emergency.

PCS union, NEU Climate Change Network, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Global Justice Now and Black Lives Matter (BLM) are among groups that have joined the alliance.

John Moloney, PCS assistant general secretary, said: “PCS members taking strike action understand the need to co-ordinate across our movements to win our demands for better pay and to safeguard jobs.

“The climate and nature emergency requires the same to win the future we desperately need in the face of multiple crises — this is why we are supporting XR’s action.”

The announcement falls on the day the latest UN intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report is published, warning that drastic action is needed to meet its target of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5°C.

By Peder Ressem Østring - Just Transition Research Collaborative, February 24, 2023

The recycling of oil rigs can provide new jobs within the circular economy, particularly beneficial for oil-dependent regions. If we get it right, the process of cleaning up after the fossil economy can itself serve as a bridge from fossil dependency towards a just transition.

Globally, there are over 7000 offshore oil and gas platforms. Together with other structures and pipelines, these form an impressive built environment. If we are to have a fighting chance of keeping global warming well below 2°C however, virtually all of these installations would have to be shut down, dismantled and recycled. This process — known as offshore decommissioning — is already taking place, but will see a dramatic increase in the coming decade. It will be increasingly necessary to confront the ways in which decommissioned infrastructure is handled, both with regards to the environment and labour conditions.

A case study of the decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure in the North Sea shows some of both the possibilities and challenges decommissioning presents in terms of a just transition.

While some oil companies would like to leave the oil platforms in the sea, eagerly promoting the idea of repurposing old rigs as artificial reefs, this is not allowed under current regulation. After the plans of Royal Dutch Shell of dumping the oil storage tanker Brent Spar in the North Sea in the 1990s was met with massive public scrutiny and campaigns from environmental organizations, regulations came in place that effectively banned the practice of abandoning manufactured structures in the North-East Atlantic.

Companies have since sought other ways of disposing of the problem with structures put out of commission. Another approach for cutting costs for the oil supermajors has been to send old floating rigs for breaking in the global South. This has taken place under horrendous conditions for both workers and the environment, as has been uncovered by the BBC.

Both these false solutions are in reality ways of externalizing costs of cleaning up after the fossil companies. Both approaches should be rejected, while insisting on the principle that the polluter should pay.

By Paul Atkin - Greener Jobs Alliance, February 15, 2023

This report from “Democracy Now” on the rail disaster in Ohio last week, in which a 150 car freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and a “controlled burn” by the company released “a fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke” into the environment, shows where the Tory “modernisation agenda” for the Railways ends up. 

All their key themes

• cuts to staffing 
• cuts to safety procedures
• restrictions on the right to strike

are all in place in the USA; which is a model for the government’s attempts to deregulate employers while tying up workers’ capacity to resist.

The interviews with Emily Wright, community organizer based near the site of the derailment; Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and co-chair of Railroad Workers United; and Julia Rock, an investigative reporter with The Lever tell a cautionary tale everyone in the UK should know about.

 Please think of this next time you hear a government minister chuntering on about “modernisation” and “outdated practices” and pass this on.

“Bomb Train” in Ohio Sickens Residents After Railroad Cutbacks, Corporate Greed Led to Toxic Disaster | Democracy Now!

Ellen Robottom, Tina Rothery, and Allan Todd - Climate Justice Alliance, February 8, 2023