A Just Transition?

Ellie Keen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:38:17 +0000

In the past few months, outbreaks of industrial unrest and protest have been occurring throughout Europe in the industries most affected by the rising price of oil. Starting with Grangemouth refinery, Unite workers in went on strike over reduction in pension rights. Workers in haulage companies delivering to petrol forecourts followed in a dispute over pay. More recently we have seen the protests of the haulage companies themselves demanding special reductions in tax on fuel – by the time this article goes to press, we will know whether Gordon Brown has held his nerve on that. In France, railway workers and fishermen have been involved in industrial action and in Spain public transport workers have likewise struck over the impact of the rising price of fuel. Meanwhile, oil companies continue to make record profits. These are signs of things to come. At the end of June, the list of oil companies invited to tender for lucrative contracts in Iraq was published. On the same day, the price of oil increased to $140 a barrel, the highest ever recorded. Each month for the past six months, the price of oil has been the highest on record. As we approach peak oil, when supply cannot meet demand, the price of oil is spiralling upwards, and the distribution of the costs and benefits of this are profoundly unequal and increasingly contested. Ten years ago, the economist James O’Connor described how states treat oil as not just a commodity but as an extension of state security, backed by military apparatus.

These are elements of the supply side of the oil industry. If we look at the waste stream, the carbon dioxide emissions which are accumulating in the atmosphere and disrupting the climate, we are seeing increasing frequencies in the occurrence of cyclones, hurricanes, floods, although the debate often takes an apparently more arcane, esoteric form. Is it possible for the climate to withstand a carbon dioxide concentration of 450 parts per million, or will it be necessary to reduce to 350 ppm or less? Just how disrupted will the climate be with each 0.1 degree Celsius and at what point do the changes become irreversible? Essential though these debates are – and each scientific report which hits the public domain points towards more worrying scenarios – it should not be forgotten that two thirds of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere originates from the G7 countries, with currently 13 per cent of the world’s population. There is no doubt that there is a crisis, and that the rich countries need to cut oil consumption almost to nothing.

Currently, the principal mechanism for cutting carbon dioxide emissions is carbon trading, which essentially entails enclosure of the last remaining commons – the carbon absorption capacity of the atmosphere – by allocating property rights to those who are already destroying it. This is none other than a neoliberal extension of commodification of the atmosphere, whilst shifting costs onto the poorest who are dispossessed by ‘green development projects’. Ideological justification is provided by individualising responsibility as a form of consumer choice. Climate disaster is happening because western consumers made the wrong choices! Whatever happens to the climate, the interests of global capital cannot be jeopardised.

How are we going to get out of this mess? In short, we don’t know, but the solution must be radical, it must be socially just and it must challenge the interests of big business. We can transform this oil-drenched economy and overturn poverty and have decent jobs. Potential solutions are emerging in debates across the left, but a solution must emerge from social processes more than ideas. As we stand in Scotland, the only party in Parliament which is opposed to the interests of big business is the Green Party whose support comes, more or less, from the professional middle classes who support the NGOs and the ‘new’ social movements of which they are part. The most directly affected working class movements are challenging the oil companies, but in terms that ignore the climate crisis that we are facing. The other left parties are recognising the ecological challenge, and despite their current relative weakness, remain active in community and working class struggles. We need the collective knowledge of all political movements critical of or operating out with the neoliberal framework of economic growth, all groups whose interests are being actively damaged, in Parliament, in communities, in the social movements and in the trade unions. Only by working towards some kind of bloc will we shift the hegemony sufficiently to implement change. We need such a broad alliance like never before if we are to work out a just transition to a sustainable solution.

Justin Kenrick, in SLR earlier this year, argued for a transitional alliance to tackle climate change. This has been interpreted in different ways and stimulated an important debate, generating significant connections across the left as well as raising fears. As a result of these debates, a conference is being organised by activists from across the left and green movements to explore how we can move forward. None of the parties which might form a government in the foreseeable future will implement a radical changes needed on their own, and to imagine that they can be persuaded otherwise before the damage is done is unfortunately a false dream. The damage is already well underway, and it’s time for a new dream.

Conference: transition to tackle climate change, Edinburgh, 18th – 19th October 2008

Eurig Scandrett is a member of the Scottish Green Party and Democratic Left Scotland

Eurig Scandrett | ukwatch.net

A Just Transition?