Shahrar Ali answers Climate leadership questions from members – 31 Aug 2021
Also available as pdf here.
1. How do you ensure the importance of the climate emergency stays at the top of agenda whilst bringing in new voters?
There’s a virtuous circle here between our prioritisation of the climate emergency and membership recruitment. Firstly, climate justice requires justice for all and my role would be to bring out the interconnectedness between our climate mitigation policies and win-wins for ordinary people looking for secure, meaningful work in green technology; or being able to focus on important things in life like knowing their basic needs will be met through a Citizens’ income. Membership, and party activism, is just one measure of our success in getting our message across.
2. How do you plan to effectively engage non Greens in this country who say "we are doing enough as we are only responsible for 1% of world carbon emissions"?
This sounds like lying with statistics, as it fails to take into account our per capita carbon consumption, much of which is not accurately accounted for due to exporting of the production activity to faraway lands. Our per capita emissions, whilst not top of the league table, are still grossly unsustainable and we can’t beg off on our own responsibilities by thinking we are not the worst offender.
3. Do you agree that addressing climate change is our number one priority and that we owe it to future generations to focus on that?
Yes, we owe it to future generations, and we owe it to ourselves this generation and for our children today and their children tomorrow. There’s a great book by Rupert Read which explores the imperative to care for our children and he tries to develop a motivational requirement upon us all to invest as much in the plight of generations who aren’t around yet as those who currently are, and that we have this strong interest in the well-being of everyone. You can read my review of the book here https://greenworld.org.uk/article/book-review-parents-future
4. Should the GPEW focus its efforts on highlighting the global ecological collapse of which climate change is one element, or should the focus be solely upon climate change?
We need to tell the truth about both, not least because the interconnectedness of our own species survival is so inextricably bound up with the health of other species, plant and animal, we share this beautiful planet with. Species loss today is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.
5. With tipping points being reached in 2040 under all scenarios, do you think your candidature will put due focus on the climate emergency, and how will you make sure that other issues, important as they may be, will not distract from human and planetary survival issues in the face of developments such as the imminent collapse of the Gulf Stream?
The climate emergency has been my priority for as long as I’ve been active in the party, for the last 19 years. I have authored books in which climate takes centre stage; you will find in my 2010 and 2015 Why Vote Green books. As policy coordinator for London, I argued for a redraft of the national party template for the general election communication to voters to incorporate much more climate text. I do share the frustration of many in the party that climate campaigns appear to be playing second fiddle to other priorities. As one among equals on GPEx I would use my voice to attempt to redress this imbalance. I have been a founding member of GreensCAN, which aims to develop a support network for environmental action https://www.greens-can.earth/copy-of-about.
6. We have so little time to make vast changes re alleviating climate / eco breakdown. How do we make this time count? What are the candidates’ priorities for achieving change?
This is going to be a longer answer! We must overcome political cowardice. Outside the global Green parties few politicians have been willing to shout, “Fire!” But as Greta says, the building is on fire. Of course, shouting fire isn't enough. To avoid catastrophe we have to transform our energy, transport and farming systems. That's going to be hard and even with a just transition to a more sustainable way of life it will be uncomfortable for some. But we have to do it.
The first climate priority for a Green government would be 'stop digging'. We have to stop making the climate problem worse so:
· No airport expansion
· No new roads
· End fossil fuel subsidies
· No gas boilers in new homes
· All meetings between government and industry or Trade Unions (other than security matters) to be announced and minuted.
Second - begin to build the low-carbon alternative - this is at least a ten-year programme:
· Introduce carbon tax
· In parallel, supplement taxation with Personal Carbon Allowances (the latter is a policy proposal coming from me to Autumn conference)
· Expand wind power and energy development and the grid
· Announce dates from which fossil-fuelled vehicles can't be used on UK roads (probably different dates for cars, vans, buses, HGVs, tractors, etc.)
· Start major training programme for retrofit workers
· Start national housing retrofit programme
· Make Passivhaus the default standard for new buildings
· Accelerate the development of active travel infrastructure (e.g. cycle lanes, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, after full consultation on design with disability user groups)
· Set target for making company accounts comply with Sustainable Cost Accounting - largest first
· Expand R&D on low-carbon technologies
Third - start national and regional discussion of Just Transition measures with local authorities, employers’ organisations, trade unions and community groups. Develop a Just Transition support budget.
Fourth – start a phased programme of industrial decarbonisation – probably start by expanding steel recycling and closing blast furnaces.
The bottom line is that every sector will have to change. There are 50 – maybe 500 – actions needed in a comprehensive, co-ordinated systemic approach. This is just a sketch for a vast change across government, politics, economics and society. I would be advocating for and asking Greens to set up citizens' assemblies to help to support the sea-change in thinking and behaviour required. We need to change what is politically possible if we are do what is scientifically necessary.
7. Do you agree that the Green Party might achieve more on climate / ecosystem crisis by placing more weight on these issues than on social justice issues?
I don’t accept that climate collapse can be properly addressed without discussing social justice, too, whether as a means or an end in itself. However, I do accept that we can afford to communicate more directly about the impact of our climate trajectory and that we can broaden out the scale of harms to include unborn future generations and the multitude of others species we share this planet with, none of which is traditionally included in considerations about social justice. Ecocide, for example, is an attempt to confer value upon non-human species, too.
8. Will you put the Climate and Ecological Emergencies at the absolute forefront of everything you do as leader as all matters of social and economic justice are connected to environmental justice?
Yes.
9. What will you do to address the regional inequality that exists between England and Wales in government spending on the decarbonisation measures necessary to tackle the climate crisis?
It’s vitally important for us to protect the most vulnerable and marginalised in society through any widespread social and economic change proposed, especially when the change is systemic. Economic and social deprivation in Wales or Cornwall, for example, would be tackled first through a citizen’s income. Thereafter, we must pursue just transition so that pockets of poverty are not exacerbated but lifted up; and this is entirely possible if we were to pursue a principle of carbon tax or budget that enabled our per capita carbon emissions to be capped at the same level for all.
I believe we should supplement carbon taxes with Personal Carbon Allowances – a system of carbon currency accounting at source, where each of us would be given an annual carbon budget to spend against. We need a radical shift in how we budget in order to bring CO2 within safe limits, today not tomorrow. This system would also be egalitarian at stroke, as the rich would have the same budget as the poorest in society.
The rich West would also have to bring their overconsumption down more sharply than those in less developed countries. This is fair as it is those least responsible for climate change who are often made to suffer most at the sharp end of rising sea levels or drought, yet least able to afford the remedial action to contend with it. This is the double injustice of the climate emergency. The devastation reeked upon Western Europe, closer to home as it was, should be a wake up call to us all.
10. Will you promise to prioritise stopping the building of coal mines, encourage wind farms and shout loudly about global warming?
I do and will continue to do all these things:
· Coal is the worst fossil fuel but we burn very little for electricity. We should stop using it now.
· The coal mine planned for Cumbria will produce coal for blast furnaces. Since it is party policy to phase out blast furnaces in favour of recycling steel in electric arc furnaces I would oppose any new coal mine.
· Wind is the future of the UK's energy system. A recent study by Imperial College has confirmed our view that we need to build on and offshore wind turbines much faster than the government plans.
· I'm on record - the climate emergency is the greatest current threat to humanity. It is already central to green politics - within a decade it will be central to all political debate. That may not be soon enough.
The leader of the Green Party is not part of the government so has no power. That's why we need a Green government!
11. Should we be telling the public that billions of people are likely to starve to death as a result of imminent exponential global heating?
That's very much a worst case but the best cases are very bad. Already we see drought in the horn of Africa, famine in Madagascar, flooding in Germany. Temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise beyond the date we get emissions to zero.
We've managed a global mobilisation - incomplete but real - to resist Covid19 whose death toll has been less than we fear from climate change. It should not need a billion future deaths to prompt action and I don't think it does. There's already wide support for action - we need to turn this into support for specific actions.
12. Do you consider current environmental concerns and climate change to be a result of overpopulation globally and nationally, and if so what approach would you take to strategy and policy in this specific area of concern?
Population is clearly a factor in the global climate and environmental emergency but it's not the most important factor. The most important factors are:
Rising prosperity - first in the West and more recently in China. This prosperity would not have been possible without coal, oil and natural gas.
Political cowardice. Outside the global Green parties few politicians have been willing to shout Fire! But as Greta says the building IS on fire. Of course shouting fire isn't enough. To avoid catastrophe we have to transform our energy, transport and farming systems. That's going to be hard and even with a Just Transition it will be uncomfortable for some. But we have to do it.
But you asked about population so I'll answer. The most effective policies are improving girls’ education and providing easier access to contraception and abortion. Happily these are policies we want anyway. They give girls more choices and effective means to make those choices happen. And just for the avoidance of doubt let me say that these policies are needed here in the developed world generally - as that's where the emissions are greatest.
13. Do you really believe we can turn back the tide of global warming?
Yes. We can. We know what to do - end fossil fuels subsidies, introduce a carbon tax, fly less - what the UK needs to do now is in the 2019 manifesto.
Every country is different but every country needs a transformational plan. Will they all do it? Well the Global Greens is the largest political party on earth but there are strong forces against us.
But unless we try we cannot win. The prize is great: nothing less than avoidance of universal death.