We are deeply saddened at the death of our friend and great climate campaigner and socialist, Ken Montague, who passed away last Friday.
Below are tributes from Suzanne Jeffery and Jonathan Neale.
Ken was secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change trade union group and a member of CACC steering group for many years. During that time Ken played an invaluable role in developing the work of the trade union group and especially the One Million Climate jobs report and campaign.
Ken's work was unseen and often unsung but without it much of what the CACC trade union group have done in the last few years would not have happened. Ken's work allowed the trade union group to campaign increasingly effectively within the wider trade union movement, to develop a deeper understanding of the climate crisis, its relevance to the struggle of working people and to counter the false narrative that jobs and the environment are mutually exclusive.
The charges for contempt of court have been dropped in a major victory for the anti-fracking movement and the right to peaceful protest
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Tina Rothery, Lancashire Nana and anti-fracking campaigner, is being aggressively pursued for legal costs of over £55,000 and the likelihood of a possible two-week prison sentence, thanks to the actions of fracking company, Cuadrilla. Her supporters, including well-known figures such as Emma Thompson, Vivienne Westwood and trade union leaders, as well as NGOs and campaign groups, have today called on Francis Egan, CEO of Cuadrilla, to drop the case as completely unjustified. Hundreds are expected to gather outside Preston court on Friday when her case is heard, under the banner #IamTinaToo.
Paul Ridge of Bindmans solicitors said: “I have never seen a company behave as aggressively and for such a sustained period towards a single protestor on the matter of costs as in this case by Cuadrilla.”
Having waited for months for the government to publish a statutory report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) on the impact of fracking on the UK's legally binding climate targets, campaigners suspected that it was not favourable to the government's "all-out for shale" policy. Some of the more cynical among us may have expected it on 6th July, on the day of the even-more-long-awaited Chilcot report into the Iraq war. In fact the report was finally released on the morning of 7th July.
The financial threat to Tata Steel’s British operations has put 40,000 jobs on the line. Yet these jobs and this industry should be central to the creation of a sustainable economy.
As the World Steel Association has pointed out:
“Every part of a wind turbine depends on iron and steel... steel holds the blades in place as they turn, using a cast iron or forged steel rotor hub... Steel’s strength makes it ideal for the nacelle’s frame, housing and machinery... About 90% of all wind turbine towers are tubular steel towers.”
Ken Montague, Secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group said today
In 2015 Britain has seen repeated flooding causing large-scale damage. Tens of thousands of people have had to evacuate their homes, suffered days without power and seen their homes and businesses destroyed as storms repeatedly hit the country. In the latest bout of flooding, thousands of people in Manchester, Leeds and York have been hit, sometimes with the worst floods ever, as rivers broke banks.
In Salford, Greater Manchester, the local news magazine, The Salford Starreported that residents had had almost no notice of the floods. People complained that flood gates failed to work after they hadn’t been properly re-fitted following repair work on the estates.
David Cameron has expressed sympathy with victims, and celebrated the work of the emergency workers. But his government’s policies have made the situation far worse. Back in 2011, the then Tory-Liberal coalition government announced an 8 percent cut (£540 million) in spending on flood defences. Government policies that favour the fossil fuel industry, such as fracking, will only increase emissions leading to further climate change and more frequent floods.
Trade unions that represent workers in the emergency services have repeatedly warned of the impacts of austerity measures on their ability to deal with flooding and other severe weather.
The climate deal agreed by world leaders in Paris this week is being heralded as a historic deal which has set the world on track to avoid catastrophic climate change.
This is by no means what has happened.
What is true is that world leaders have been under pressure from a growing global climate movement and community of scientists who have successfully raised awareness of both the issue and the need for serious and urgent action.
To some extent whatever positives there are in the agreement are a reflection of this pressure. The headline grabbing desire "to pursue efforts to limit temperature rises to below 1.5 degrees" reflects the campaigning of many in the poorest parts of the world that have rightly argued that 2 degrees warming seals their fate. For many years their campaigning slogan has been 1.5 to stay alive!
It's important that we recognise the impact of protest and pressure on the talks. However there will be and should be no complacency from the movement in the wake of the Paris agreement.
The deal is historic only in so far as it underlines what the movement has been arguing for years. That there is an urgent and real threat to the climate which will have catastrophic consequences.
But that threat still remains because the Paris talks have done absolutely nothing to prevent it or begin to tackle it.
On Saturday 20th June 250,000 people marched together to protest against the impact that ''austerity' - government cuts now and planned for the future are having on people's lives, particularly the most vulnerable.
Activists from the Campaign against Climate Change, Friends of the Earth, Reclaim the Power and others came together in a 'climate bloc' because our chances of avoiding catastrophic climate change are also threatened by these short-sighted policies.
We have to invest in infrastructure across the UK that will give us a cleaner, safer, fairer future: renewable energy, public transport, warm homes for all. In doing this, much-needed jobs can be created. But instead, we are promised five years of cuts: cuts to the home insulation budget, cuts to bus services, cuts to cycling investment, and cuts to onshore wind subsidies, a vital form of clean energy. We can't afford to wait five years: scientists are telling us that urgent action is needed now to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Government must rethink its frantic cost-cutting for the sake of future generations.
Obama of the United States and Xi of China have signed a bilateral climate agreement.
Much of the American and British media, and many Democrats in America, have hailed the deal as a key step forward. Many American Republicans have attacked it as going much too far.
Anything the Republicans attack has to be good. Right? No. In fact it is an appalling deal.
Let's look at the numbers.
The US has agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. But 2005 was the highest year ever for US emissions. They have already declined 10% in 8 years. Obama is promising that they will decline another 18% in 15 years.
