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Autumn Statement: Greens offer 10-point plan of distinctive tax and spend policies to create a fairer, greener society

Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer has outlined a 10-point plan of distinctive tax and spend policies aimed at delivering a fairer, greener country. She will dismiss the chancellor’s Autumn Statement, saying it will be “another failed opportunity to end the cost-of-living crisis, tackle the climate crisis and restore crumbling public services on which we all rely.”    

Denyer said: 

“Our 10-point plan identifies around £30 billion of additional funds that would be available from simply rebalancing the tax system so that the super-rich pay their fair share and both people and planet benefit.”  

“The extra revenue raised would enable the government to pay NHS staff an inflation-matching pay award, increase access to NHS dentists, increase Universal Credit, abolish the two-child benefit cap, improve bus services and help small businesses take advantage of the opportunities offered by greening the economy. 

“Instead, the chancellor’s Autumn Statement will be another failed opportunity to end the cost-of-living crisis, tackle the climate crisis or restore crumbling public services. It’s clear that as the Tories continue to languish in the polls, Jeremy Hunt has more interest in electoral gimmickry that he has in creating a fairer and greener country.”  

The Green Party’s 10-point plan would:   

  • Restore the public health budget by increasing spending by £1.4 billion  
  • Immediately increase NHS spending by £8 billion, to ensure NHS staff can be paid an inflation matching pay award
  • Meet the Government’s current plan to increase access to NHS dentists by increasing spending 50 per cent – £1.5 billion – of the total NHS dentistry budget
  • End the rise in homelessness caused by the cap on Local Housing Allowances at a cost of £700 million
  • Increase Universal Credit by £40 per week at a cost of £9bn  
  • Abolish the two-child benefit cap to reduce poverty for some of the most vulnerable children in the country by increasing the welfare budget by £1.3 billion
  • Provide the necessary powers and funding to rural local authorities to take back control of bus services so they can increase routes and service frequencies at a cost of £3bn
  • Turn ISAs green by linking their tax exemptions to investments in green bonds 
  • Invest an additional £3billion in Green Transition Grants for small businesses to help them prepare for and take advantage of the opportunities offered by greening the economy 
  • Rebalance the tax system to raise an extra £30 billion through changes to Capital Gains Tax, National Insurance and the abolition of “non dom status” which would pay for the proposed measures 

Championing the Green’s alternative Autumn Statement, Carla Denyer said: 

“These fairer, greener alternatives give just a flavour of what could be done if we had a Government willing to tackle the long-term crises we face. They would start to remove the fundamental injustice that means that wealthier people who own more assets often see a lower effective tax rate than less well-off people. 

“Everyone deserves easy access to a dentist, improved public health, properly paid and supported doctors and nurses working with decent facilities, reduced poverty and homelessness, and accessible public transport.  

“There is enough money in the economy to make our country fairer and greener. What is lacking is the political will to change priorities. And Starmer’s official opposition seems no more ready to offer this than the Government is. That is why we so desperately need more Greens in Parliament to make the case for the common-sense changes that can deliver a fairer greener country.” 

Continue ReadingAutumn Statement: Greens offer 10-point plan of distinctive tax and spend policies to create a fairer, greener society

PM Sunak defends ‘severe’ Just Stop Oil sentences

Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker protest and close the M25 Dartford Bridge.
Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker protest and close the M25 Dartford Bridge.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6pxn4z1rqno

At a glance

  • The PM has defended sentences handed to two Just Stop Oil activists
  • The United Nations had warned the long sentences could stifle protest
  • The protesters caused gridlock after climbing the Dartford Crossing bridge

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has defended sentences handed to two Just Stop Oil climate campaigners following criticism from the United Nations.

Morgan Trowland, 40, was jailed for three years and Marcus Decker, 34, for two years for causing a public nuisance after scaling the Dartford Crossing Bridge.

The UN had warned the government in a letter that the “severe” sentences could stifle protest.

Mr Sunak said in response in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that those who break the law should feel the full force of it.

“It’s entirely right that selfish protestors intent on causing misery to the hard-working majority face tough sentences,” he said.

“It’s what the public expects and it’s what we’ve delivered.”

…

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6pxn4z1rqno

One of the many occasions climate change denier and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet.
One of the many occasions climate change denier and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a private jet.

What an asshole Rishi Sunak is calling Just Stop Oil protesters selfish. So they’re protesting for the benefit of the planet and all it’s inhabitants human or animal, risking prison sentences and criminal records. C’mon Sunak you assole, you had better explain how exactly that is selfish?

Isn’t it people like Sunak and fossil fuel investors that destroy our planet, nature and everybody’s future for profit who are the real selfish bastards? The oil industry has known since the 60s that their actions were destroying the planet and they did it regardless for profit. Isn’t that selfish? Of course, these are the selfish bastards.

Sunak when he was Chancellor introduced huge fossil fuel subsidies that are intended to extract every last drop of oil from the North Sea despite knowing full well that that the World is likely to hit 3 degrees C warming as a result. This will lead to more and more extreme climate events as if we didn’t have enough already. It’s uncertain that humans or the planet can take 3 degrees increase due to fossil fuels and this total cnut has the audacity to call those campaigning against this selfish …

Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil's You May Find Yourself... art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Continue ReadingPM Sunak defends ‘severe’ Just Stop Oil sentences

Coalition of campaigners demand Chancellor tax super-rich to tackle climate crisis

Extinction Rebellion protest, banner reads NO MORE PLANET WRECKING FOSSIL FUELS DEMAND RENEWABLE ENERGY
Extinction Rebellion protest, banner reads NO MORE PLANET WRECKING FOSSIL FUELS DEMAND RENEWABLE ENERGY

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/11/coalition-of-campaigners-demand-chancellor-tax-super-rich-to-tackle-climate-crisis/

“Instead of tackling this injustice, the Chancellor chooses to balance the books on the backs of ordinary people rather than taxing people like us who can afford it.”

Raise taxes on big polluters and the super-rich to tackle the climate crisis, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been told by a new coalition of leading charities and campaigners.

Ahead of the Autumn Statement on Wednesday, 19 organisations have written an open letter to the Chancellor calling for a fairer tax system to address ‘rampant’ inequality and to redirect wealth to fund climate action.

There is ‘no lack of money’ to tackle the cost of living and climate crisis, only a government that requires ‘common sense’ to make those responsible for the most carbon emissions pay more, the coalition has argued.

Greenpeace, Christian Aid, Patriotic Millionaires, Global Justice Now, Common Wealth and Friends of the Earth are among the 19 signatures which have highlighted that an estimated £22 billion could be raised by a 1-2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million.

And it seems the public agree, as a recent poll by Survation showed 82% of people in Great Britain supported a wealth tax on the richest 1% to fund climate change action.

It comes as The Guardian’s latest investigation has revealed how the ‘polluter elite’ richest 1% account for more carbon emissions that a whopping 66% of the poorest, highlighting extreme inequality when it comes to responsibility for climate damage.

Carbon emissions from the luxurious lifestyles of the super-rich mean only 12 of the richest people produce more emissions than two million homes a year, while Oxfam has said a 60% tax on the incomes of the wealthiest 1% would cut the equivalent of the 2019 carbon emission of the UK.

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/11/coalition-of-campaigners-demand-chancellor-tax-super-rich-to-tackle-climate-crisis/

Continue ReadingCoalition of campaigners demand Chancellor tax super-rich to tackle climate crisis

‘Nowhere Safe in Gaza’ as Evidence of Israeli War Crimes Mounts

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Injured Palestinians, including children, are taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment after Israeli airstrikes hit the school at Al Bureij Refugee Camp in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on November 20, 2023. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Amnesty International accused Israel of committing war crimes with two recent bombings of a church and a home in a refugee camp.

Palestinians in Gaza and human rights advocates on Monday pleaded with the international community to see the ongoing killing of thousands of people in the blockaded enclave for what it is—a massacre in which Israel has shown “a chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians,” according to Amnesty International, and has committed numerous war crimes as it bombards civilian targets.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on October 19 and October 20, calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the bombings as possible war crimes.

Amnesty investigators visited the sites of the bombings, Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City and a home in al-Nuseirat refugee camp near Deir al-Balah, and interviewed 14 people, including nine survivors of the attacks and two other witnesses. The group’s Crisis Evidence Lab also analayzed satellite imagery and and audiovisual material.

The two bombings, which killed a total of 46 civilians, including 20 children, “were indiscriminate attacks or direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects, which must be investigated as war crimes,” said Amnesty.

“These deadly, unlawful attacks are part of a documented pattern of disregard for Palestinian civilians and demonstrate the devastating impact of the Israeli military’s unprecedented onslaught has left nowhere safe in Gaza, regardless of where civilians live or seek shelter,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, director of global research, advocacy, and policy for the U.K.-based group. “We urge the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to take immediate concrete action to expedite the investigation into war crimes and other crimes under international law opened in 2021.”

The group noted that on October 19, when the historic church was struck, the Israeli government released a statement saying that “IDF fighter jets struck the command and control center belonging to a Hamas terrorist involved in the launching of rockets and mortars toward Israel.”

But the IDF later deleted a video it had posted of the strike on Saint Porphyrius, and has provided no information to substantiate the claim that the church was a “command and control center.”

Before the strike, in the first days of Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza, church officials had publicly said hundreds of civilians were taking shelter at Saint Porphyrius.

“Their presence would therefore have been known to the Israeli military,” said Amnesty. “The Israeli military’s decision to go ahead with a strike on a known church compound and site for displaced civilians was reckless and therefore amounts to a war crime, even if there was a belief that there was a military objective nearby.”

One of the families sheltering in the church was that of Ramez al-Sury, whose three children—aged 14, 12, and 11—were killed in the attack.

“We left our homes and came to stay at the church because we thought we would be protected here. We have nowhere else to go. The church was full of peaceful people, only peaceful people,” al-Sury told Amnesty. “There is nowhere safe in Gaza during this war. Bombardments everywhere, day and night. Every day, more and more civilians are killed. We pray for peace, but our hearts are broken.”

The day after al-Sury’s children were killed, Hani al-Aydi was sitting at home with family members at al-Nuseirat refugee camp, which is within the area the Israeli military had ordered Palestinians to evacuate to from the north.

Despite telling people the area was safe, the IDF launched a strike that destroyed the al-Aydi family home, which the military had no reason to suspect was a Hamas target, according to Amnesty.

“All of those present in the al-Aydi house that was hit directly and in the two nearby homes were civilians,” said Amnesty. “Two members of the al-Aydi family had permits to work in Israel, which requires rigorous security checks by Israeli authorities, for those obtaining the permit and their extended family.

Al-Aydi told the group that “everything collapsed on our head” suddenly when Israel bombed the house, killing 28 people including 12 children.

“All my brothers died, my nephews, my nieces,” said al-Aydi. “My mother died, my sisters died, our home is gone… There is nothing here, and now we are left with nothing and are displaced. I don’t know how much worse things will get. Could it get any worse?”

Amnesty noted that even if it had found in its investigation that there were plausible military targets in the vicinity of the two sites—which it did not—”these strikes failed to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects. The evidence collected by Amnesty International also indicates that the Israeli military failed to take feasible precautions to minimize damage to civilians and civilian property, including by not providing any warning—at minimum to anyone living in the locations that were hit—before launching the attacks.”

The Geneva Conventions require parties in a conflict to take measures to protect the lives of civilians and prohibit collective punishment of a population for acts committed by a particular group.

“The harrowing accounts from survivors and relatives of victims describing the devastating human toll of these bombardments offer a snapshot of the mass civilian suffering being inflicted daily across Gaza by the Israeli military’s relentless attacks, underscoring the urgent need for an immediate cease-fire,” said Guevara-Rosas.

Amnesty made the request of the ICC as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 13,300 people in just over six weeks. At least 5,500 children have been killed.

Al-Mezan, a Gaza-based human rights group, also addressed the ICC on Monday, calling on the body to issue warrants for Israeli officials responsible for crimes against Palestinian children.

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Nowhere Safe in Gaza’ as Evidence of Israeli War Crimes Mounts

‘Emissions Canyon’: World on Track for 2.9°C of Warming

Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Keeping the 1.5°C temperature goal alive “requires tearing out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.

Nations’ current unconditional climate action plans under the Paris agreement would put the world on track for 2.9°C of warming by 2100, the United Nations Environment Program warned Monday.

The UNEP’s 2023 Emissions Gap Report, released ahead of next week’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates, finds that policymakers must slash greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by 2030 to limit warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels and 42% to halt warming at 1.5°C.

“The report shows that the emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement. “A canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records. All of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity.”

The annual Emissions Gap Report calculates the difference between climate-warming emissions under current policies and what needs to be achieved to limit global heating to “well below” 2°C and ideally 1.5°C. This year’s report highlighted 2023’s string of broken temperature records and extreme weather events: Scientists predict it’s on track to be the hottest year in 125,000 years.

At the same time, global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.2% between 2021 and 2022, hitting a record 57.4 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) last year.

“Humanity is breaking all the wrong records when it comes to climate change,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said in the report foreword.

“The 2023 edition of the Emissions Gap Report tells us that the world must change track, or we will be saying the same thing next year—and the year after, and the year after, like a broken record,” Andersen added.

Even the report’s full title expressed a sense of exasperation: Emissions Gap Report 2023: Broken Record—Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again).

The report looked at both existing and promised policies, including countries’ Paris action pledges, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). It did find that national actions since the Paris agreement was negotiated in 2015 have made a difference. At the time, greenhouse gas emissions were projected to rise by 16% by 2030 and now they are on track to rise by 3% by the end of the decade.

But that progress is not nearly enough to avoid ever more extreme climate impacts. Currently implemented policies put the world on track for 3°C of warming by 2100, unconditional NDCs for 2.9°C, conditional NDCs for 2.5°C, and conditional NDCs combined with net-zero pledges give temperatures a 66% chance of topping out at 2°C. Under the last, most optimistic scenario, the world is left with a 14% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C. However, net-zero pledges are not currently seen as reliable, since no Group of 20 country is on pace to reduce its emissions in line with this goal.

The report found that nations must cut their emissions by 14 GtCO2e by 2030 to reach 2°C and 22 GtCO2e to reach 1.5°C. The way this can be done is by phasing out fossil fuels as soon as possible.

“The only way to curtail this spiraling crisis is through wholesale changes to the global energy system that will sharply drive down all heat-trapping emissions.”

“We know it is still possible to make the 1.5°C limit a reality. And we know how to get there—we have roadmaps from the International Energy Agency and the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change],” Guterres said. “It requires tearing out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. And it demands a just, equitable renewables transition.”

The report comes as nations prepare to gather on November 30 for COP28, which will include the first global stocktake of their progress toward meeting the goals of the Paris agreement. This will lead to a new round of NDCs through 2035.

“Ambition in these NDCs must bring greenhouse gas emissions in 2035 to levels consistent with the 2°C and 1.5°C pathways. Stronger implementation in this decade will help to make this possible,” Andersen said in the foreword.

“The world needs to lift the needle out of the groove of insufficient ambition and action, and start setting new records on cutting emissions, green and just transitions, and climate finance—starting now,” Andersen added.

In response to the report, Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and a lead economist in the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, also called for ambition at the upcoming climate talks.

“The only way to curtail this spiraling crisis is through wholesale changes to the global energy system that will sharply drive down all heat-trapping emissions,” Cleetus said. “At COP28, nations must heed these scientific truths by agreeing to a fast and fair phaseout of fossil fuels, ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency, and significantly expanding climate finance commitments from wealthier countries for an equitable clean energy transition.”

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Emissions Canyon’: World on Track for 2.9°C of Warming