My weekly column in the daily Plymouth Herald (4.3.25), originally seeking to make links between war and climate but edited to a narrow rant against BP and climate denial. I’ll return to war next week.

Climate Change is real and here now

The latest scientific report on what we call the Gulf Stream, more technically known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system (or AMOC for ease) has reasserted evidence of it slowing down, predicting dire consequences for weather in Europe and the East Coast of the USA and Canada.
The Gulf Stream will turn-off. In the meantime its’ slowing down will produce worsening extremes in our weather. At the same time the Polar Vortex is crashing and the Jet Stream has gone into paroxysm too.
The climate is tipping. We are witnessing extreme floods and fires, seasonal dissonance, continuous temperature records broken, ceaseless increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (the cause of global warming), yet we’re repeatedly told there is nothing to worry about.
Politicians act upon the words of the big oil companies to suggest we can overshoot the limits of stable climate, even if experiencing extremes of weather for a period, because new technologies will be developed that will reduce the emissions again and rebalance the climate.
This is a Big Lie! The limited tax-cash they are diverting into funding false solutions such as carbon-capture and storage and modular nuclear reactors are impossible to produce at the scale necessary or in time to stop climate and economic collapse, even if they can be made to work.
Yet we are told we can safely continue with business as usual: burn more coal and wood, extract more gas and oil, chop down more forests.
Oil and gas make higher profits than any other form of electricity generation or fuel supply, hugely exaggerated by over-pricing and tax-subsidies.
The fossil fuel corporations refuse to risk lower dividends, their shareholders now revolting against any shift away from continued extraction. As part of the class war, the fossil fuel companies are fighting back against climate action, determined to increase their already record profits.
Last week, British Petroleum (BP) announced a £10bn profit in 2024 but is shredding all plans for green energy production or any net-zero emission targets.
BP dropped its “Beyond Petroleum” pledge to cut oil and gas production by 40% by 2030, instead planning a 20% increase in investment in fossil fuel projects, slashing renewables by 70% and breaking its agreements with the UK Government.
Oil and gas corporations receive £billions in tax-subsidies. Banks are investing over $1trillion in new oil and gas extraction, UK-based Barclays even investing a fresh £1.7bn in coal-fired power stations!
Compare this. The UK government spending needed to achieve net zero in the UK by 2050 is only £4.3bn, some 0.2% of our annual Gross Domestic Product, less than all the subsidies currently paid-out to the corporations largely responsible for global heating emissions.
Wind and solar have cut energy costs by two-thirds and the majority of the world is moving away from fossil fuels. Yet right now, the UK and USA is shifting in the opposite direction in defence of oil.
“Drill, drill, drill!”
Climate science identifies that the accelerating changes to the climate will collapse these fossil fuel investments to pieces with as great a force as a world war. Without priority investment in climate adaptations, economies will be devastated by food shortages and disruption to production, the jobs reliant on the fossil economy no longer safe.
For the protection of the majority, trade unionists are clear: climate change is real, happening now and deadly; the cost of emergency transition away from fossil-fuelled production should be paid for by the fossil fuel corporations – not workers jobs, pay and social conditions; and international aid is essential to support climate reparations worldwide. Just stop climate denial!