By Sally Campbell
The Election is done; we have, we hope a more “grown up” Prime Minister and Cabinet whose horizons are longer than a day, but who cautions us all about the time needed to get the UK back to a less divided society, with realistic goals over periods of time. In a society that has become used to “instant gratification” with a touch and go phone wallet in the hand, overnight deliveries, short term gratification be it on line with Instagram, TikTok, even Arran Moans and Groans, selling the ideas and policies of restraint for a year, to a five-year timeline will be a hard sell. Already some of the national newspapers are telling us it will not work. Good leadership does not make false promises. Ethics and morality will be officially written into MPs’ Standards of Behaviour and Conduct and the Lords’ Rules of Conduct. Good leadership is not about lies and false witness; we have seen too many in the last years from “Get Brexit Done”, “We send the EU £350 million a week – let’s fund our NHS instead”, emblazoned on the side of the Vote Leave campaign’s red bus. And finally, the insult to us all of ““No parties in Number 10 Downing Street in Covid Lockdown”. Good leadership is strategic and longer term as well as looking locally to involve people in their decision making and democracy. The new government meeting Regional Mayors and the devolved First Ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is a positive start towards a more inclusive democratic progress.
We all need to be involved in our local democracy so local cabals or “friends” of those in power are not the sole arbiters of what happens in Scotland, or indeed Arran. The ferry Brodick ferry terminal and ordered ferries are classic examples of the lack of meaningful consultations. Community councils are the most local tier of the statutory representation structure in Scotland and act as an important bridge between communities and local government. They contribute views and opinions and help to express the needs and challenges of the local area, playing a valuable role in local democracy and positive engagement with communities. Scotland has around 1200 active community councils, each of which is run by local people who hopefully care about their place. Local authorities have statutory oversight of community councils and are required to consult community councils about planning applications and licencing matters.
I was glad to read that several Community Councils in Ayrshire are working together. It came about when Stephen McCarron, chair of the Auchinleck community council, brought together nine community councils to discuss a plan to take control of local wind farm money; it was like, he recalled, dealing with “nine kittens in a sack”. Five years later, those kittens have worked together to pull in ground-breaking forms of funding, and are now channelling that money into projects that matter locally. From salaries for jobs, like an activities’ assistant, to a new bowling club roof, the 70 projects funded show how community benefit can be targeted through a new funding model in which locals take control.
We need a more equal society to work for us all. The new Parliament opened with King Charles reading a government speech that laid out a number of extensive new environmental policies and which recognised “the urgency of the global climate challenge and the new job opportunities that can come from leading the development of the technologies of the future”. The centrepiece of the plans is Great British Energy, a new publicly owned company that will invest £8.3 billion in clean energy, in particular offshore wind.
The speech also mentioned a “special measures” bill to crackdown on the water companies, including regulations to make company bosses face criminal liability for breaking water quality laws and also powers for the regulator to ban bonuses if environmental standards are not met. With every wastewater company in England and Wales under investigation for sewage spills, this new bill could be significant. Britain’s privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540mn the previous year, despite rising household bills and a wave of public criticism over sewage outflows. The figures are higher than headline dividends in the year to end March 2022. This spring, the Financial Times revealed that the 16 water companies paid out a total of £78 billion in dividends in the three decades since privatisation to March 2023, building up £64 billion in debt over the same period. Incidentally at the point of privatisation these same companies had no debt!
Climate Change
Ed Miliband, the new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has unveiled plans to fulfil the government’s promise to triple the amount of solar power in the UK by 2030. The new energy secretary has approved three new solar farms in the east of England – previously blocked by Tory ministers – that should produce power equivalent to the total produced by all the panels on roofs and the ground last year. Later in the year, ministers are looking to introduce new building standards to make it easier to install solar panels on new and existing properties. We all need to be aware of energy generation to meet growing needs for power in homes, driven in part by our technology. Disturbing official statistics from Ireland confirm Data Centres accounted for almost a fifth of all electricity used in the Republic of Ireland in 2022. That was as much as was used by all households in the country’s urban areas. Data centres are effectively air conditioned warehouses full of computer servers which are central to the operations of online businesses. They need a large and constant supply of electricity to operate and cool the servers. Companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft have significant data centres in Ireland with more planned. Data centres also support artificial intelligence (AI). Locating data centres near renewables is one way that companies aim to ensure relative sustainability. One reason for Ireland’s proliferating data centre landscape is its cooler climate, meaning that less power is needed to prevent the systems from overheating.
The Guardian on 26 July 2024 reported that Labour will honour a pledge of £11.6bn in overseas aid for the climate crisis; Ed Miliband announced this policy at an unusual meeting last week of Cop presidents past and present as he sought to re-establish the UK at the heart of international climate discussions. What is Cop/COP? It stands for Conference of the Parties and it often refers to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) international meeting focusing on climate. Cop (or COP) is the main decision-making body of the UNFCCC.
As the Labour government prepares for this year’s climate-emergency summit in November, Miliband hosted Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan government minister who will lead Cop29, and Ana Toni, the top official on the climate for Brazil, which will host Cop30 in the Amazonian city of Belem in 2025. The meeting was called to discuss what steps are needed to make a success of the next two UN climate Cops. Unusually, Alok Sharma, the former Tory cabinet minister who presided over the widely praised Cop26 summit held in 2021 in Glasgow, was also present.
Miliband said: “We are almost at the halfway point in this critical decade to halt climate change, and the case for urgent and unified global action is greater than ever. We must lead by example with action starting at home – which is what we are doing through our bold 2030 clean power mission, our commitment not to issue new oil, gas or coal licences, and our £11.6bn commitment to international climate finance, sending a powerful signal to the world that we are serious about the leadership role the UK can play in driving global climate action.”
Harjeet Singh, the global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative, said: “This confirmation is a welcome step forward. As one of the largest historical polluters, the UK bears significant responsibility to contribute its fair share in supporting developing nations.” Babayev, who faces the task of chivvying developed countries into upping their climate finance commitments from billions to trillions, welcomed the pledge. “We thank the UK for its commitment to demonstrate leadership this year – as the host of Cop26, the UK understands well the critical importance of Cop29 for global climate action.” Toni also called on the UK to set out a strengthened target on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. “As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, fuelled by coal, the UK’s commitment to systems transformation towards clean energy and green finance is both symbolic and crucial,” she said.
The two future Cop presidents met Miliband at Lancaster House in London and separately met King Charles, who held a reception for businesses and climate advocates at Clarence House. The King attended the Cop28 summit in Dubai last year, but was prevented from attending the previous conference by Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. It is not yet known whether he will attend Cop29, though he is likely to be invited to Cop30.
This is all positive news. Yet we individually must not be complacent and be willing to play our part in reducing our own carbon footprints and push to encourage Arran to support green energy initiatives. This summer has been unseasonably cool in the UK, and more like October here on Arran, but simultaneous heatwaves in Europe, the US, Canada, China and Russia have ensured the planet has broken global temperature records twice in the past week. A week ago was Earth’s hottest day in history, with an average worldwide temperature of 17.09C, according to the European climate service. The previous record, 17.08C, was set last July. But then the following day was hotter still, clocking 17.15C. Scientists are clear that the surging temperatures are being driven by man-made climate change, largely due to burning fossil fuels, and warn that this is unlikely to remain Earth’s hottest day.
“While fluctuations are to be expected, as the climate continues to warm, we are likely to keep seeing records being broken, and each new record is taking us further into uncharted territory,” said Prof Rebecca Emerton, a climate scientist at Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told the BBC. The UK’s weather is becoming hotter and wetter a new Met Office analysis has found, with the number of 30C-plus temperature days trebling in recent decades. Sadly, rich countries continue to lead an oil bonanza despite being well placed to lead a transition to cleaner fuels, a new analysis has found. The International Institute for Sustainable Development crunched industry data to predict that projects authorised this year will unleash 12bn tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere – the highest level since 2018. Campaigners accused wealthy nations of “staggering” hypocrisy for posing as climate leaders while ramping up production. “The logical first step in a ‘transition away’ from oil and gas is to stop opening new fields,” IISD adviser Olivier Bois von Kursk pointed out to the Guardian.
The Oceans and Climate Change
Last month in www.voiceforarran.com I wrote “Survival of our Oceans” and here is a short update on happenings in the last month, with thanks to Greenpeace. As temperatures rise around the world, the sea, interconnected as it is, also warms, with many consequences for ecosystems. More evaporation, storms, tidal surges, flooding and lost infrastructure will result.
Even as the Greenpeace ships visited potential global ocean marine protection sites, see last month’s article in www.voiceforarran.com, elsewhere international meetings are discussing Deep Sea Mining. Presently, a series of vitally important meetings are taking place in Kingston, Jamaica, that could determine the fate of our oceans for years to come. The organisation responsible for regulating deep sea mining on the high seas – the International Seabed Authority (ISA) –, is debating if companies should be allowed to mine metallic nodules at deep sea locations. In attendance are delegates from various nations (including the UK), as well as representatives from mining companies, which are pushing hard to commence development.
Deep sea mining is an industry on the cusp of being given the go-ahead. Mining companies want to lower tank-like machines up to four kilometres down to the ocean floor, to scrape up tennis ball-sized rocky nodules that contain minerals like copper, nickel and cobalt. These “polymetallic” nodules take millions of years to grow, are home for infants of species like ghost octopuses, and according to a recent study, appear to be producing oxygen in total darkness by a newly discovered process of electrolysis, making them a vital part of the marine environment. This electrolysis story is a vital story and an example of how little we know about this environment and its contribution to our survival as the human race on this planet. Oxygen, the very heart of life and indeed chemical oxidation that is seen in action around black smokers etc is the key to a biodiversity that we hardly know anything about. It has been realized the nodules are “a battery in a rock.” The naturally occurring rock-batteries force scientists to broaden the theories of life’s evolutionary trajectory. Scientists had assumed that complex life evolved after photosynthesizing cyanobacteria cooked up enough oxygen on early Earth. Perhaps life could have levelled up in pockets, feeding off oxygen in unlikely places (Shi En Kim 2024).
We know more about the surface of the Moon than the bottom of the oceans. In fact, almost every time research vessels explore the deep sea, they discover multiple new lifeforms. The mining machines will destroy all in their wake, as well as create sediment plumes and noise pollution that could travel for miles. This risks masking calls between whales and their young and disrupting mating partners. This is not about a tiny patch of seabed that companies want to mine. It is a vast area of the Pacific called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone that has been divided into 17 mining claims, spanning approximately 1 million square kilometres – an area the size of the UK, France and Italy combined.
‘The science is clear – there cannot be deep sea mining without harming pristine but as yet ill-defined habitats and the only solution is a moratorium. The more we know about deep sea mining, the harder it is to justify it. Governments at the ISA must not dance to the tune of the industry and approve rushed regulations for the benefit of a few over the interests of Pacific communities and the opinion of scientists’, said Greenpeace International Stop Deep Sea Mining campaigner Louisa Casson, who is attending the meeting.“ During the Council meeting, ISA Member States including the UK will continue negotiations on draft regulations for a Mining Code, picking up where States left off in March, amid growing divergent viewpoints between delegations.
Sally’s take on negotiations on marine space around the world.
Inevitably as someone involved in marine ecosystems since the 1960s, I have seen the decimation of both inshore and off shore waters for maximum short-term profit in the shortest of time for the benefit of the few, often multinationals and wealthy business owners rather than coastal communities, without the same power or democracy. We are discovering more every month about the frailty of ecosystem in the path of short-term harvests. We only have to look at Salmon Aquaculture businesses in Scotland as an example where there appears to be collusion between the supposedly democratic organisations in government, and MSPs, to push for more funding and more farms, even when there is strong local resistance to expansion in their area; scientists who increasingly understand the science of disease, ecosystems; water scientists and engineers who know about dispersion of foul waste beneath the cages; and divers witnessing longer term effects on sea beds, and recovery times. Their collective knowledge and experience count for nothing when power and collusion is elsewhere. But still, we will all continue researching our ecosystems in our seas.
To prevent further climate disaster depends on all of us standing up to be counted where necessary. Just this week the antiwhaling environmentalist Paul Watson, Sea Shepard Founder, has been detained in Greenland after he attempted to intercept the newly built Japanese factory whaling ship Kangei Maru in the North Pacific. This new vessel has a range of 8,000 miles fuelling suspicion that five years after Japan ‘abandoned’ scientific hunts in the Southern Ocean, it is preparing to slaughter these mammals far from Japan’s shores. Arrested in Nuuk he was in court before any decision on whether he should be deported to Japan.
Civic liberties are under threat, in the UK too, and my hope is that the new UK government will soon rescind the law recently passed by the Conservative government. A right to protest, or support causes is a fundamental right in the UK.
Those ideas to stop protests and support for causes, resonate with a recent book by Anne Applebaum (2024) Autocracy, Inc. The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Penguin Random House. All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. Somewhat like Trump, Putin, the recent election of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro who has won a third term, the country’s electoral authority has said – despite several exit polls which had pointed to a decisive opposition win. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies, even one run by Maduro or Putin are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another—and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.
Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, this group does not operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of companies: Autocracy, Inc. Their relations are not based on values, but are rather transactional, which is why they operate so easily across ideological, geographical, and cultural lines. In truth, they are in full agreement about only one thing: Their dislike of us, the inhabitants of the democratic world, and their desire to see both our political systems and our values undermined. That shared understanding of the world—where it comes from, why it lasts, how it works, how the democratic world has unwittingly helped to consolidate it, and how we can help bring it down—is the subject of this book.
Democracy is a valuable support network to come together, create inclusion with many opinions around the table. Collaboration and debate are what supports our country’s sense of being able to face adversity and build a stronger society together, where communities work together for the good of the whole society and the world in which we live. I just hope the new UK government can succeed in the face of a troubled world, climate and ecosystems crises like never before. We can all play our part to succeed.
References:
Applebaum, Anne (2024) Autocracy, Inc. The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Penguin Random House.
Shi En kim (July 2024) Scientists Discover ‘Dark Oxygen’ on the Ocean Floor Generated – surprisingly- by Lumps of Metal. www.smithsonianmag.com
Sally Campbell July 2024
Featured image by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com