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Governments are retreating on climate action. Labour must not

Another timely piece from Sam Mason explains why you should join the Labour CND webinar on 13 May on how to fight the dangerous push to nuclear power.

Not only was 2023 confirmed as the hottest on record, it was also a record year for energy-related CO2 emissions. What UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres has called “a mere preview of the catastrophic future that awaits if we don’t act now” is the reality for those in East Africa or South Asia in the grip of devastating floods and heatwaves.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) data clearly shows we are not acting fast enough, and we are now close to breaching the 1.5 degrees of warming threshold enshrined in the 2015 Paris agreement.

Despite knowing that we have to end the production and use of fossil fuels, our governments are retreating on commitments.  There perhaps can be no more cynical undermining of the need to transition to renewable energy than the news that Rishi Sunak is intending to issue oil and gas exploration licences at sites intended for offshore wind.

But the other alternative to fossil fuels enjoying a renaissance as a ‘renewable’ fuel is nuclear power, renamed in the so-call taxonomy of green energy as environmentally sustainable. This is to support an ambitious programme of nuclear power expansion outlined in the Government’s Civil Nuclear Road map to 2050 which aims to reach 25% of our energy needs through nuclear power production – the biggest programme in 70 years. This is also part of an initiative announced at the COP28 in Dubai to triple nuclear energy globally by 2050.

So, what is driving this new dash for nuclear? That’s a good question, given how long it takes to build nuclear power plants and their environmental impacts – not least those linked to uranium extraction, storage, and decommissioning issues, to name a few.  Is it really just to “fill-in” for the days when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine?

It’s over seventy years since the Attlee government passed the Atomic Energy Act, setting in train Britain’s nuclear programme following the end of wartime collaboration with the US, in the form of the Manhattan Project. The UK nuclear weapons programme was the forerunner to Britain’s development of nuclear power, which began in 1953, with the first commercial reactor later coming online at Calder Hall in 1956. A Magnox reactor, it combined power generation with plutonium production for military purposes. 

Since the heyday of nuclear power in the UK in the 1970s and 80s, the UK’s nuclear power industry has been in decline. Indeed, during Labour’s last period of office, the Party moved away from supporting new nuclear on the basis of the cost and environmental impacts. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) established in 2000 by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did not support a new programme. Their 2006 position paper, entitled ‘The Role of Nuclear Power in a Low Carbon Economy’, voiced all the concerns we continue to have today, such as technology lock-in; distraction from investment in renewables and energy efficiency measures; costs; intergenerational legacy; waste; safety; increased risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Unlike the IEA, we do not agree there can there be a “vision of a nuclear for peace and prosperity” that supports the action we need on climate change.

In October last year, we set out our arguments against nuclear power in a new pamphlet: ‘Labour, Climate Change, and Nuclear power – Not Cheap, Not Safe, Not Peaceful’.  It covers the history of Labour’s support for nuclear power and why the labour movement needs to oppose this technology – whether old or new nuclear.

On Monday 13th May, we will be hosting a webinar to look at the points made in the pamphlet and explore the renewed drive to more nuclear power. It will lead off with an overview of Labour CND’s pamphlet and follow with contributions from Linda Clarke who will look at the construction side of the industry, and Dr Phil Johnstone who will discuss the links between civilian and defence nuclear projects.

Given the shrinking window for action on climate, Labour CND believes the debate over nuclear and its role in tackling climate change and energy security is no longer a debate Labour – or Britain – can afford to keep having.

Please join us at the webinar to help build confidence in our arguments fighting this dangerous push to a nuclear future. Register now

* This article first appeared in Labour Outlook, 6 May 2024

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To address climate change, we need peace

In her latest blog, Samantha Mason addresses issues from the King’s speech on the opening of parliament.

ATTENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE HAS UNDERSTANDABLY
taken a back seat as we’ve watched the horror of events unfolding in Gaza and mobilised around the call for a ceasefire and peace.  However, as climate campaigners have pointed out, including in a letter to Ed Miliband, fighting for the “cause of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people” is not separate from the colonial violence and dispossession which is also at the heart of the climate crisis.

There’s no bigger action for climate change
than achieving peace for Gaza

The impacts of climate change continue apace as 2023 is likely to be declared the warmest on record. The UN Secretary General’s call for the world to end the madness of the fossil fuel age which is driving don’t seem to have reached the ears of the UK government who is forging ahead with the issuing of new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.

The  oil and gas bill announced in the King’s Speech follows Rishi Sunak’s statement in September pledging a “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach to reaching net zero“. This also included the removal of energy efficiency standards for private landlords, condemning renters to totally avoidable high energy bills – a point well made by the UK Green Building Council and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Of course, this is all part of the new ‘Uxbridge’ narrative of the government being ‘on the side of car drivers’ pushing-back on a number of measures including targets to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars. Unfortunately, the science of climate change doesn’t care about political posturing and the only reality here is that we cannot put off until tomorrow what we should be doing today.

Any new oil and gas in the North Sea won’t benefit
UK energy consumers because we don’t own it

Likewise, financial and health burdens will also certainly not be ‘eased’ for people as a result. Any new oil and gas produced in the North Sea will not be to the benefit of UK energy consumers as we don’t own it. It is therefore false to say it will help bring down bills – a point the new Secretary of State for DESNZ Clair Coutinho has finally conceded.

There are undoubtedly costs in transitioning to a decarbonised economy and these should not be falling on workers in terms of jobs, pay and other terms and conditions, or hard-pressed communities. These costs should be ‘proportionately’ distributed and socialised by ending the greed of fossil fuel corporation profits and bringing all energy assets back into public ownership. Not least when we see the renewables sector trying to fashion itself on a fossil fuel ‘for profit’ business model.

A crisis in the offshore wind industry, not just impacting the UK but in Europe and the US as well, has seen the main offshore wind farm developers pulling back from bidding in government auctions.  Big players such as Ørsted and Vattenfall have also pulled out of projects due to issues of “profitability” as inflation and higher interest rates have increased costs.

And the idea that nuclear power will be an answer to the energy and climate crisis is also starting to wobble (unsurprisingly) on financial grounds.  The ‘poster child’ for small modular reactors (SMRs), NuScale in the US, has ended a major project on basis of costs defeating one of the primary arguments for SMRs that they can be built more quickly and cheaply.  Indeed, many technological fixes being proposed for tackling climate change such as Carbon Capture and Storage and Direct Airsource Capture are proving to be the false solutions many climate campaigners have always argued.

The idea that nuclear power is an answer to
climate change is starting to wobble

It is clear that climate change will be one of the battle grounds in the next general election and this should not be allowed to turn into binary choices of cars over clean air or arbitrary fiscal rules. Right now, we need a coherent long-term plan that aligns reducing greenhouse gas emissions with addressing the energy, health, and cost of living crises all of which are inter-connected. Similarly, the plan needs to recognise the need for global cooperation and climate justice. This should be seen as an opportunity for the Labour Party to provide a real alternative to Tory climate and environmental policies that will continue to cause long-term harm to us all.

At the end of November, the global climate talks – COP28 – will take place in Dubai. There is little faith in these talking shops that fail to address the fossil fuels in the room and on 9 December there will be a Global Day of Action with mass demonstrations planned across the globe. In the UK these are being coordinated by the Climate Justice Coalition.  

People everywhere have risen up for Gaza and it’s possible, sadly, we may yet be coordinating joint actions that day.  Whether this is the case or not, one thing is clear, there is no bigger action for climate change than achieving peace for Gaza, or other areas of the world suffering conflicts, and it must remain an integral part of our climate demands.