January 2021 – Employment, Energy and Environment

Net Zero Targets – just greenwashing?

In the lead up to COP 26 in Glasgow the UK government will be pushing governments and corporations to declare new net-zero targets. With every announcement we can expect politicians and large parts of the media to declare that these are real steps on the road to tackling the climate crisis. In most cases this will not be the case.

An excellent new report ‘Not Zero: How net zero targets disguise climate inaction’ produced by a partnership of six climate justice organisations spells out why we should look very critically at the claims made for net zero.

The report argues that

Far from signifying climate ambition, the phrase “net zero” is being used by a majority of polluting governments and corporations to evade responsibility, shift burdens, disguise climate inaction, and in some cases even to scale up fossil fuel extraction, burning and emissions. The term is used to greenwash business-as-usual or even business-more-than-usual. At the core of these pledges are small and distant targets that require no action for decades and promises of technologies that are unlikely ever to work at scale, and which are likely to cause huge harm if they come to pass.

Typically net zero strategies allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue while assuming that at some stage in the future equivalent amounts of carbon can be removed from the atmosphere. The technologies proposed for this are untested at any significant scale. Moreover, the sums just don’t add up. We’ve written elsewhere on this site about BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage). Where they use tree planting or other forms of taking carbon dioxide by plants there is simply not enough space on the planet to achieve the targets.

The report suggests some key questions when net zero plans are being discussed.

When the “net zero” target is reached, how much GHG pollution will still be taking place? Will GHG emissions be reduced to nearly zero – or not?
How much CO2 removal does the plan rely on to reach “net zero”? How and where will this be achieved?
Which sectors and GHGs are included? Some or all?3
How many years or decades before a country or corporation can claim to be at “net zero”?
Between now and the “net zero” target date, how many cumulative emissions in total will have been added to the atmosphere?
Will there be “overshoot”, i.e. accumulating atmospheric emissions that take the planet to more than 1.5°C of warming before the assumed CO2 removals take place, thus significantly increasing the risk of crossing irreversible tipping points?

The conclusion is that effective action on climate requires strategies to drive down greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

Key findings from the report

The term “net zero” is used by the world’s biggest polluters and governments as a façade to evade responsibility and disguise their inaction or harmful action on climate change.
“Net zero emissions” does not mean “zero emissions” and should not be accepted at face value.
There is simply not enough available land on the planet to accommodate all of the combined corporate and government “net zero” plans for offsets and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) tree plantations.
Collectively, “net zero” climate targets allow for continued rising levels of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, while hoping that technologies or tree plantations will be able to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air in the future.
By putting the burden for carbon sequestration onto land and tree plantations in global South countries – which have done little to cause the climate crisis – most “net zero” climate targets are effectively driving a form of carbon colonialism.
Many governments and corporations have pledged to achieve “net zero” by a distant date, further compounding the harm caused. “Net zero by 2050” is too little, too late.
When assessing “net zero” targets, we must remember key questions of fairness and ethics: Whose land? Whose forests? Whose emissions? Whose responsibility?
Instead of relying on future technologies and harmful land grabs, we need climate plans that radically reduce emissions to Real Zero.

COP26 Coalition – solidarity with GMB British Gas Workers

Important statement from the COP26 Coalition in support of striking British Gas Workers

Solidarity with GMB British Gas Workers.

The COP26 Coalition sends solidarity to the GMB members in the gas industry taking action to resist the outrageous fire-and-re-hire tactics of their employer. Big employers like British Gas who have made massive profits over many years must not be allowed to make workers’ pay for failing profits through loss of jobs, lower wages and cuts in terms and conditions.

The current crisis of British Gas is emblematic of a deeper crisis that is and will continue to affect many industries. Your fight deserves the support of all workers and all those who demand a fairer and more just society where the rights of shareholders to squeeze profits out of the labour and impoverishment of workers is ended. The rights of workers must be protected and must be a priority for the climate justice movement.

The UN Climate talks at the Glasgow COP26 meeting in November 2021 is a critical moment for all of us, for the climate and for communities in the global south who have contributed the least to climate change yet are suffering first and most through more extreme weather events, rising sea levels, deforestation and the deterioration of agricultural land and water sources. The COP26 meeting is also critical for workers in carbon industries like gas.

The COP26 Coalition, made up of trade unionists, environmental, faith and justice activists are demanding that workers’ and their families’ lives are not only protected but afforded the dignity and respect we all deserve. Workers in Britain and communities in the global south both need a Just Transition to a zero-carbon economy. This means significantly changing existing industries and providing training for workers to gain new skills. A sustainable and just economy must be a greener economy. The COP26 Coalition believe gas workers must be part of the solution to the climate crisis whilst British Gas are part of the problem.

We send you our solidarity and wish you well in your dispute.

What you can do to support the strike

Get your organisation, union branch or group to write a letter of solidarity to the striking workers.

Donate to the strike fund
Share the COP26 Coalition Statement

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Like and retweet our Twitter post:

Free Our City

Scot.E3 is a sponsor and supporter of Free Our City – the campaign for free public transport in Glasgow. This is the campaign’s response to a consultation by Glasgow City Council.

Dear Sustainable Glasgow team,

Please accept this as Free Our City’s response to your consultation on the Climate Emergency Implementation Plan.

Founded in September 2020, Free Our City is a new coalition of community organisations, local trade unions and environmental groups, campaigning for a world class, fully-integrated public transport network which is free and the point of use.

Free public transport is already in place in hundreds of forward-thinking towns and cities across the world from Tallinn in Estonia, Calais in France and Kansas City in the US – where this policy is rightly seen as the only realistic way of addressing persistent poverty and inequalities and tackling the climate emergency with the urgency that we need.

The Free Our City coalition’s aim is to bring these brilliant examples from around the world to Glasgow, to raise our city’s ambitions (please read our manifesto attached). We were inspired by the Recommendations of the Climate Emergency Working Group (CEWG), which were approved by Glasgow City Council on 26 September 2019. These included the commitment to:

“engage with interested local authorities and other stakeholders and undertake a formal assessment of the potential for making the transition to a public transport system that is free to use” (Recommendation 20)

As well as the commitments to investigate the new powers available in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 – for re-regulating buses using ‘franchising’ and for greater public ownership – as the most efficient and affordable way to deliver a fully-integrated public transport network, with the potential to become fare-free (Recommendations 17 and 19).

Responding to the launch of Free Our City in September 2020, a spokesperson for Glasgow City Council acknowledged that without utilising these new powers, free public transport would not be “viable”. They said:

“At the very least, it would require public ownership – the alternative being taxpayers write a blank cheque for private operators, with little say in the service.” Quoted in The Herald, 6 September 2020

Further to this, on 29 October 2020, Glasgow City Council approved a motion “welcoming” the Free Our City campaign (see full text below). We therefore fully-expected the CEWG’s Recommendations on public transport to be at the heart of the “major transformative action” proposed by the Council’s Climate Emergency Implementation Plan (CEIP).

Unfortunately, the CEIP’s proposed actions on transport lack any ambition. Instead of the CEWG’s Recommendations to fully-utilise the new powers available in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, the CEIP has opted to ‘explore these issues’ through:

“ongoing work on Bus Service Improvement Partnerships, as required by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 and Transport Scotland funding programmes.” (p.60)

Firstly, it is untrue that Bus Service Improvement Partnerships (BSIPs) are “required” by the Transport Act: BSIPs are just one of several options now available to local authorities, and they are the one least likely to deliver the changes we need. Despite the excellent Recommendations of the CEWG, and previous commitments made in the Council’s Strategic Plan (Priority 57), the Council appears to be actively choosing the option to “write a blank cheque for private operators, with little say in the service”.

Nowhere in the CEIP is there any indication of the need to regulate and reduce bus fares, when it is obvious that this is what is necessary to “tackle persistent issues of poverty and deprivation in the city” (p.12) and build a “just and more equal city” (p.7), and to encourage those accustomed to driving to give up their cars. Fare reductions on the scale that we need are just not possible through the ‘partnership’ model, as private operators will never voluntarily agree to anything that threatens their shareholders’ profit.

Why should Glasgow’s poorest people be faced with single bus fares of £2.50 on privatised First Glasgow, when fares in Edinburgh are only £1.80 on publicly-owned Lothian Buses, and fares in London are only £1.50 on buses regulated by Transport for London? And when people in Kansas City, Tallinn, Calais, Dunkirk and many other places can travel around their local areas for free?

We fundamentally reject the CEIP’s proposed actions on transport. Instead we demand that the Council works with SPT to deliver the following actions that are the our route map to the free public transport that we need:

Re-regulate the region’s buses using new ‘franchising’ powers – plan the network properly to reach isolated communities and to integrate seamlessly with other transport modes (trains and Subway). Impose an immediate cap on fares.
Set-up a new publicly-owned bus company for Greater Glasgow and start taking over routes one-by-one, or buy-out First Glasgow.
Once costs have been brought under control, we can begin to roll out free fares for all (we currently give more than £300 million in public subsidies to private bus companies annually in Scotland and deregulation and privatisation is a really inefficient way of using this).

Unless the Council actually commits to the “major transformative action” necessary to sort out our incoherent and overpriced public transport network – learning from the best examples from towns and cities around the world – then the ambition to become “one of the most sustainable cities in Europe” (p.6) is just laughable.

We look forward to hearing the outcomes of the consultation and to seeing the Council act to deliver a public transport network which works in the interests of our city’s people and our environment.

Best wishes,

Free Our City

Stoking the Climate Fire

Two recent posts on the People and Nature blog take a look at China’s plans for post Covid recovery and at the new book by US activist Richard Smith – ‘China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse’. The first post picks up on work from Carbon Brief who analyse China’s plans for reviving the economy. Just as after the 2008 crash the emphasis is on high carbon energy and infrastructure project that will put three times as much cash into fossil fuel projects as into renewable energy. These plans are completely incompatible with Xi Jinping’s aims for climate neutrality by 2060. Smith’s book provides the context and shows how China’s role as workshop for the world has resulted in extreme environmental degradation – severely impacting on the health and welfare of the population.

Read both posts on the People and Nature blog.

Save Loch Lomond – open letter

In this post Scot.E3 activist Ann Morgan shares the letter she has written to Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair work and Culture. Add your voices to Ann’s.

Dear Fiona Hyslop,

I have lived in West Dunbartonshire mostly all my life (I am now retired and live in Govan) and retain links with family, friends and community organisations. I have followed and participated in the Save Loch Lomond campaign. The campaign currently highlights the possibility of a planning application by Lomond Banks, subsidiary of Flamingo Land and the extension of the exclusivity agreement, effectively excluding alternative community led proposals for the site and for job creation.

I wish to comment both on the ecological impact on the site and provide examples of sustainable climate jobs.

I do so as a participant in SCOT.E3 (Employment, Energy, Environment) and as a member of Unite the Union (retired members). I am active in a number of local community projects including food -growing and provision and I am keen to share the successes of initiatives with other communities, including the Leamy Foundation /Growing West Dunbartonshire Project. I am not commenting on behalf of these agencies but draw on my research and activism within them to outline objections and alternatives to the proposed developments at the lochside.

The Scottish Government declared a Climate Emergency in April 2019. Emissions reductions targets include reductions of 70% by 2030. This declaration must be followed by action.

Allan McQuade of Scottish Enterprise, in reference to the proposal, talks of sustainability and syas that the fight against climate change as ‘central to everything we do.’

Action must be two-fold, Protective and proactive.

Protection around biodiversity is of paramount importance. The State of Nature Report (a collaboration between conservation and research organisations) reported in 2019.The report contains the best available data on Scotland’s biodiversity. Key findings show 49% of species have decreases in abundance with 11% threatened with extinction. The First Minister in response states that Scotland must lead the way in facing the challenges to biodiversity.

With the above in mind, I request that the cabinet minister considers the impact on biodiversity on the National Park environment. Specifically, on the impact on Drumkinnin Woods within the West Riverside site. This is erroneously referred to as a Brownfield Site. It is part of the National Park. The stated aim of the designated Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park is to conserve and enhance the natural and cultural heritage of the area.

The proposed development is at odds with the Scottish Government and National Park aims. The ecological impact would

Endanger wildlife-insects, birds, trees and water species. Woodlands and rivers are especially vulnerable.
The impacts arise from noise, light, traffic emissions and increased pollution.
The above are exacerbated when there is a high concentration of visitors in the one area. Sustainable Tourism encourages movement, public transport use with rover tickets and electric people carrier hire. Single car use and enabling by large car parking space must be disincentivised.

The FM also describes in the annual Programme for Government that it is a key aim of the Scottish Government to empower communities. The retention of the exclusivity agreement contradicts this aim. Under the Nature Conservation (Scotland)Act 2004 public bodies in Scotland have a duty to further conservation in biodiversity.

My involvement with Scot.E3 has given me insight into the potential for Climate Jobs (see 1 million Jobs pamphlet). Specific to Scotland a just transition could include advancing regional specific renewables energy, district heating and a programme of retro fitting and new build housing and public building with apprenticeship skills in insulation, joinery, roofing, glazing and heating, linking with schools and further education. My perspective, shared with environmental groups, is that this type of job creation is both more sustainable and career focused than many jobs in the hospitality sector, often minimum waged or even zero hours contracts and seasonal. That said, there are ways to encourage sustainable and responsible tourism with quality training for those seeking careers in the tourism. It is of concern that the original proposal carried none of these assurances. Any development with employment opportunities must adhere to the principles outlined in the Fair Work Convention.

Finally, the experience of the pandemic has greatly impacted on local and global tourism. There are scientists, ecologists, biologists, economists and epidemiologists (David Attenborough included) who are warning of future pandemics, with potential of more virulent strains. The current variant is concerning with increased contagion /transmission.

Rob Wallace, evolutionary biologist, charts the link between habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and the increase in zoonotic transmission of infection. Again, this points to the important of biodiversity protection. Tourism is of course both impacted by and causal in transmission. Therefore, a rethink on safety in travel and transit will be required for tourist dependent development. Linked with emission reduction this presents as an opportunity to put environmental protection as Allan McQuade asserts, central in Scottish Enterprise approval.

The fragility of tourism as well as its importance to the Scottish Economy is recognised. Within this perspective, social justice with environmental integrity is required.

Yours sincerely

Annie Morgan

Why have the oil industry and the North Sea been ‘disappeared’ from the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan?

Ex North Sea oil worker Neil Rothnie asks why the Scottish Government’s updated climate plan is so quiet on North Sea oil and gas. This piece was published as a letter in the Herald newspaper on 30th December 2020

SCOTTISH Climate Change Secretary Roseanna Cunningham, has been giving her opinion on the Government’s updated Climate Change Plan. But nowhere in her Herald on Sunday article (“‘COP26 is a chance for us all to play our part in debate’”, December 20), or even in the plan itself, do we get a glimpse of the reality of climate change.

Climate change is increasingly experienced by people across the globe as extreme weather events that are already destroying lives. It’s experienced by the natural world as rising temperatures, the melting of ice and the destruction of habitats and the threat of species extinctions.

There’s no sense of this in the report. The term “climate change” is scattered throughout it like punctuation marks, and carries about as much meaning as a comma.

There is scientific consensus about climate change. It’s caused by burning fossil fuels which give rise to greenhouse gases (carbon emissions) that cause the atmosphere to heat, and progressively destabilise global climates.

The oil industry, and the North Sea where 75 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions originate, have been “disappeared” from the Government’s plan. It’s one area where the UK and Scottish governments are completely in step. Their plan for the North Sea is “Maximising Economic Recovery”. And if that isn’t clear enough, just think, “business as usual”.

Maybe you thought that a climate change plan might concentrate on how we might replace fossil fuel production with renewable energy production in a planned way, that protects the workers, their families and communities by helping them transition to work in a sustainable industry.

But no. Oil and gas must stay, and stay in the hands of the giant corporations, and suffer the vagaries of a basket case of an oil market that gives us periodic price collapses and catapults thousands of workers onto the dole. Twelve thousand have gone so far this time. Another 18,000 or so expected to go soon.

Now it seems, our new future best friends are to be “hydrogen” and “carbon capture”. We’re to continue sucking the hydrocarbons from under the North Sea, then spend a fortune taking the carbon out, leaving hydrogen. Then we’ll pump the carbon back under the North Sea. Is this feasible at scale? Globally?

A third of North Sea gas comes ashore at St Fergus where by 2024 we “could” be able to remove 340,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year – a measly one 800th of the 280 million tons of greenhouse gasses that were produced by burning North Sea oil and gas last year.

Is Ms Cunningham going to be standing alongside UK Minister Alok Sharma to welcome the COP26 circus to Glasgow this coming year? If so, what leadership is she going to be showing Saudi, Russian, US and Nigerian delegates? Should they follow our lead and maximise economic recovery of their own oil and gas resources? And hope to decarbonise it and pump the carbon back underground?

The updated Climate Change Plan does not look like the Government has the measure of carbon emissions or the oil and gas industry. They all need public scrutiny.