By Alex Rutherford
Labour’s electoral strategy with regards to environmental policy was clearly to get their betrayals in early. They ditched the £28 billion a year pledge for green investment, replacing it with a quarter of that amount and tying it to private public partnerships. They promised not to rescind any of the 100 new oil and gas licenses. They threatened to overrule ecological objections to building on the Green Belt.
At the time Workers Power predicted that they would throw more green ballast overboard if the economy dipped and, lo and behold, they have.
Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields are set to open, with according to The Scotsman will open the door to 13 more new North Sea sites. The Department for Environment Farming and Rural Affairs ruled out nationalising the water companies, which continue to dump raw sewage. But most damning has been their U-turn on airport expansion.
Labour has given the green light to expand Heathrow, Gatwick, City of London, Stansted, Luton, West Midlands and Doncaster airports. Chancellor Rachel Reeves infamously defended government support for a third runway at Heathrow with her comment that, ‘Growth trumps everything.’
Equally damning was Starmer’s attack on environmental activists as ‘naysayers.’ The erstwhile human rights lawyer also stood by as record prison sentences were being handed to climate protesters, with around 40 more being incarcerated.
The proposed expansion of Heathrow exemplifies Labour’s approach. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has criticised the decision due to the ‘impact it will have on noise, air pollution and meeting our climate change targets’. The expansion will destroy Harmondsworth Moor, a local wildlife park; parts of four rivers will be paved over, and a fifth will be diverted through a landfill site. The Airports Commission estimates that a third runway would increase CO2 emissions by 4.4 million tons, equivalent to 1.1% of the UK’s 2023 carbon emissions.
SAF and nonsense
Labour has justified the expansion by saying that, in the future, airplanes will use Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), which has comparable properties to jet fuel with a lower carbon footprint. SAF is made from waste materials, like agricultural residues, wastewater sludge and wood mill waste, as well as dedicated energy crops. Its proponents claim that it will provide ‘economic opportunities to farming communities, improve the environment and even boost aircraft performance,’ and SAF is compatible with most existing engines.
But SAF cannot undo the damage the aviation industry causes to the environment. Rather, retrofitting planes to use SAF only extends the use of damaging machines for longer. While better than fossil fuels, SAF still burns and releases carbon. Indeed fixation on SAF distracts attention and funding from technologies that are truly sustainable.
Furthermore, the current level of supply lags behind demand, providing only 2% of all aircraft fuel. Costing 2-7 times more, you can see why the bosses are reluctant to switch. For them, profit trumps everything!
In fact talk around SAF a load of hot air. It mirrors the £22bn investment in carbon capture and storage, championed by Labour as a solution to fossil fuels, which has been criticised by Greenpeace as another attempt to ‘extend the life of planet-heating oil and gas production’.
To protect the environment, Labour needs to restructure our energy and transport systems to massively reduce the use of fossil fuels. This means above all expropriating the big polluters and using their assets and infrastructure to plan our way out of spiralling climate change.
Instead of sacrificing environmental pledges at the altar of capitalist profit, we need a mass environmental movement, based on the industrial and social power of the working class, to force Labour into action and go on to struggle for a socialist society based on the needs of people and planet, not the greed of the boardrooms.
