Keith Starmer’s alternative Labour Party speech
Friends of the Earth states UK’s support for carbon capture and storage a false solution supporting fossil fuel industries
Responding to reports that the government will announce plans to invest £22bn over 25 years in carbon capture and storage projects on Friday, Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, said: “Whilst millions of people are facing a winter of freezing in their heat-leaking homes, oil and gas executives will be celebrating. Rather than properly fund a home insulation scheme for those unable to afford it, this announcement essentially uses taxpayer money to subsidise the continued lifespan of the fossil fuel industry.
“The government needs a coherent industrial strategy to secure genuine green jobs and switch to clean energy. It must reject the false solutions peddled by the fossil fuel industry and use the forthcoming budget and spending review to spell out how it will address the UK’s under-investment in making homes affordably warm and energy efficient.”
- Relying on Carbon Capture and Storage Could Unleash ‘Carbon Bomb’
- Climate scientists call on Labour to pause £1bn plans for carbon capture
- Statement on Carbon Capture
- World cannot meet climate targets relying on carbon capture and storage
- Carbon Capture’s Publicly Funded Failure
- Watchdog Group Launches Counter Attack on ‘Dangerous Carbon Capture Hype’
- Is Carbon Capture Just Climate Delusion?
New analysis commissioned by Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe reveals a sharp rise in private jet flights to European holiday hotspots last year, with a significant increase during peak vacation periods compared to off-season travel.
Check here for a Greenpeace factsheet on the research, with country-level data.
At European holiday destinations, private jet arrivals surged by 250% in July compared to January, indicating that most of these flights were for leisure purposes. Over 117,000 flights to 45 luxury destinations were recorded throughout 2023, resulting in more than 520,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Notably, Nice, Geneva and Palma de Mallorca emerged as the top three destinations for private jet traffic.
Clara Thompson, transport campaigner for Greenpeace Germany said: “While ordinary people face the devastating impacts of the climate crisis – extreme floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires – the ultra-wealthy continue to hop aboard their private jets under the guise of business travel, but often for leisure trips to Europe’s most luxurious holiday spots. These private flights account for a disproportionate share of aviation emissions, accelerating the climate emergency. This extravagant luxury not only worsens environmental harm but also deepens inequality, leaving the majority to suffer the consequences of climate disasters and daily hardships.”
The research, conducted by the T3 Transportation Think Tank, focuses on destinations heavily promoted by luxury tour operators and private jet companies. The majority of private jet flights occurred in the Mediterranean during summer and shifted to the Alpine region in the colder months. The data reveals a significant seasonal spike, highlighting increased use for leisure and holiday purposes.
Furthermore, 93.2% of these flights were within Europe, with 11.9% covering short distances of up to 250 km – journeys that could have easily been made using more sustainable options like trains or ferries. A single private jet flight to these destinations emits almost as much carbon as the average European citizen’s annual energy-related emissions (4.46 vs. 5.37 tonnes of CO2), underscoring how the ultra-wealthy disproportionately contribute to the climate crisis.
Greenpeace is calling for an immediate ban on private jets, and for governments to consider a wealth tax for billionaires in Europe to fund public goods such as affordable housing and public transport.
Conservatives Have Taken £7.2 Million from Climate Denial Group Funders and Directors
Original article by Andrew Kersley republished from DeSmog.
Funders and directors of the UK’s leading climate science denial group have donated more than £7 million to the Conservative Party over the past two decades, DeSmog can reveal.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) was founded by Margaret Thatcher’s former Chancellor Nigel Lawson in 2009 in order to combat what it describes as “extremely damaging and harmful policies” designed to mitigate climate change.
Its current director Benny Peiser has claimed it is “extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis” and the group suggested in a 2015 report that carbon dioxide pollution is “a benefit to the planet”.
In reality, the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.
The GWPF doesn’t publish a full list of its donors, but several have been outed over the years, while its directors – which include former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott and Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson – are publicly declared.
Electoral Commission records show that these individuals have donated more than £7.4 million to right-wing political parties in just over two decades, including £7.2 million to the Conservatives, and £230,000 to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Almost half a million pounds of those donations were made in the last year.
The single biggest donor on the list was asset manager billionaire Lord Michael Hintze, who has donated over £5.2 million to the Conservative Party since 2002, including £257,400 in the last year.
Lord Hintze was revealed as one of the GWPF’s financial backers in 2012 by The Guardian, while DeSmog revealed in early September that he is one of the main donors in the ongoing Conservative leadership race, donating £10,000 each to James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, and Priti Patel.
Lord Hintze has previously said he believes “there is climate change” caused “in part due to human activity” but that he wants to ensure “all sides” are heard on climate change “to reach the right conclusion for society as a whole”.
More than 99.9 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans.
Lord Hintze isn’t the only figure linked to the GWPF currently bankrolling the Conservative Party leadership contest.
One of the race’s frontrunners – Kemi Badenoch – received £10,000 from Neil Record, the chair of Net Zero Watch, which is the campaigning arm of the GWPF. In total, Record has donated over £510,000 to the Conservative Party and its MPs since 2008, and has also given money to the GWPF.
As recently as July, Record wrote a column for The Telegraph claiming it was “debatable in detail” if fossil fuels cause dangerous levels of global warming. Net Zero Watch has called for “rapid” new North Sea oil and gas exploration, and for wind and solar power to be “wound down completely”.
Authors working for the IPCC have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
During the leadership contest, Badenoch has questioned the decision made in 2019 by Theresa May’s Conservative government to introduce the UK’s 2050 net zero target.
When asked previously about his GWPF donations, Record said: “I personally regard the continuing contribution of the GWPF to the climate change debate as very positive in assisting balance and rationality in this contentious area.”
The Tories have also received £620,000 since 2001 from Lord Jon Moynihan, another GWPF donor. As revealed by Democracy for Sale, Conservative peer Lord Moynihan donated £25,000 to the GWPF between 2018 to 2023. The peer also has fossil fuel interests, holding shares in oil and gas majors BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies each worth more than £100,000.
Between the 2019 general election and the start of the 2024 campaign, the Conservatives received £8.4 million from fossil fuel interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers.
Prior to its defeat at the 2024 election, the Conservative Party made a series of U-turns on its own net zero policies, attacked Labour’s green spending plans, and doubled down on its support for new fossil fuel projects, approving more than 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences.
The party gathers in Birmingham this weekend for its annual conference, which will act as a post mortem for the party’s worst general election defeat in its history on 4 July.
“There is no doubt that public mistrust of politics is fuelled by parties accepting major donations from big companies like those whose lobbying efforts make it clear they want to frustrate the urgent need to tackle the climate crisis,” Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski told DeSmog.
“It’s time to implement strict rules on funding political parties, including a cap on how much any individual or business can donate.
“Elections should be won by the people with the best ideas, not the parties influenced by the biggest donors.”
Reform UK
The Conservative Party has not been the only right-wing party to benefit from funding from those with ties to the GWPF.
Terence Mordaunt has been a prolific political donor to right-wing parties – giving £412,000 to the Conservatives and £230,000 to Reform since January 2023.
He was the chair of the GWPF between 2019 and 2021, sitting on its board until August this year, and told the investigative news site openDemocracy in 2019 that “no one has proved yet that CO2 is the culprit (of climate change). It may not be.”
The GWPF’s replacement for Mordaunt as chair, Jerome Booth, has also donated £50,000 to the Tories between 2007 and 2013.
Reform, which campaigns to scrap the UK’s net zero targets, has extensive ties to climate science deniers and those with financial interests in oil and gas.
Between the 2019 general election and the start of the 2024 campaign, the party received £2.3 million from fossil fuel interests, major polluters, and those who cast doubt on the climate crisis.
On 13 September, party leader Nigel Farage headlined a fundraiser in Chicago, Illinois, for the Heartland Institute – a group that has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change – and urged the U.S. to “drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels.
The IPCC has warned that “keeping warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels requires deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions across all sectors”, led by the energy industry. The group has also stated that “climate change impacts will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
All of the donors named in this piece, the Reform Party, Conservative Party and the GWPF were contacted for comment, but none replied.
Original article by Andrew Kersley republished from DeSmog.
Solidarity protests erupt across Tamil Nadu as Samsung workers’ strike enters fourth week
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Major left parties have called for a joint protest against the state government’s failure to recognize the SIWU and management’s anti-workers attitude on October 5.
Hundreds of workers at the Samsung electronics factory in India’s Tamil Nadu state staged roadblocks and a sit-in on Monday, September 30 as their strike entered its fourth week. Thousands of cadres of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from across Tamil Nadu also joined the call of the Samsung workers and risked arrest and police repression.
According to the news reports, over 900 striking workers were detained by the police in the Kanchipuram district. The police also detained the state president of the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), A Soundararajan. They were released later that evening.
Over 1,300 workers of Samsung electronics factory in Sriperumbudur, part of the Kanchipuram district near Chennai have been on strike since September 9 under the leadership of newly formed Samsung India Workers’ Union (SIWU) demanding recognition of their union, a salary increase, an end of discrimination, and better working conditions at the factory.
Samsung has only two factories in India. Its Chennai factory has been operating since 2007 without any union. The SIWU was formed in July 2023. According to its president E Muthukumar, over 90% of workers at the Chennai factory have already joined the union.
The call for roadblocks was given following the failure of five rounds of talks between the management and the SIWU under the mediation of the Tamil Nadu Ministry of Labor. The last talks on September 24 were held by the state government after it faced strong reactions from the unions and left parties following the police action on the striking workers earlier.
The state government intervened after the management refused to have direct talks with the SIWU calling it illegitimate. The management has maintained that it does not recognize the newly formed union and instead constituted a “workers committee” and arbitrarily appointed workers to it. The management has even lodged objections to SIWU’s registration claiming its use of the company’s name is illegal.
Monday’s sit-ins and roadblocks also targeted the state government’s delaying the registration of the union in violation of legal procedures and using its security forces to unleash repression on striking workers.
SIWU is affiliated to CITU, one of India’s largest trade unions, affiliated to the left party CPI(M). As per labor law, the registration application must be processed within 45 days of filling of such an application. The SIWU claims it has been more than three months since it filed for registration.
When SIWU tried to call a rally in support of its demands on September 16 the police attacked the workers and arrested its leadership even trying to dismantle the protest site erected almost a kilometer away from the factory.
State units of all left parties in Tamilnadu, including the Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI (M) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation on Wednesday launched the call for a statewide protest on Saturday, October 5 in support of the SIWU workers. They issued a joint statement asking the state government to immediately recognize SIWU. They blamed that the strike is continuing because of the “anti-worker attitude” of the management of Samsung electronics.
Kannan, a state committee member of CITU, told Peoples Dispatch that the management is adamant but the workers are ready to fight till their demands are met.
Kannan also informed that workers are observing a day of hunger strike on October 2 on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi to press the point that they will continue to protest peacefully in support of their demands.
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.