My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (2.9.25), reflecting on the floods – of rain rather than flags! But the two are linked, the flag-waving ultra-nationalists and racists denying climate change to a person. There are polarised divisions, not to be undone by keeping quiet or being nice! We’re fighting for our children and their children … climate change is an existential threat.

Unedited below:

Those affected by floods in Plymouth through the last week have been shown sincere empathy by our entire community. Waking to leaking ceilings or sudden torrents of water pouring through our homes is a traumatic shock as well as a long-lasting costly clear-up and remedial project.
Most if not all of us seeing the media coverage have the immediate intellectual acknowledgement of climate change. We all know it now. Extremes of weather are routinely breaking records, whether temperature peaks or torrential downpours, the erratic conditions now responsible for more moorland fires, farmland droughts, basement floods, transport disruption, and uncertainty about the future.
The damage to our once-stable climate is accelerating, the various impacts of human-released carbon gases trapping heat in the atmosphere, feeding on itself and amplifying the power of nature’s dynamic forces. For more than 50 years the impact of carbon-emissions has been known and tracked and yet still the system of production adds more carbon dioxide to heat-up the world.
For those of us mopping-out our living spaces, the voice of Kemi Badenoch, leader of the beleaguered and discredited Tory Party, calling for the extraction of more, nay “all”, oil and gas from the North Sea has to feel like a direct snub to our plight, but also a call-to-arms. You see, the last Tory government accepted that there is a Climate Crisis and we have to cut emissions.
The sudden perverse rise of the conspiracy-touting far-Right in Britain has shifted the climate debate away from observable as well as scientific facts towards a fresh denial of any problem whatsoever. Not only Badenoch but Starmer is jumping to the tune of Farage and ending the drive to net-Zero by 2050 (or ever), a target of emissions reductions very attainable but wholly inadequate in itself.
It is an ideological offensive against any and all calls for curbs on unbridled, unfettered free-market corporate drive for profits. Badenoch is championing the oil and gas companies, even damning any of the false-hope new technologies like carbon-capture-and-storage currently being funded.
The claims are false – gas prices have caused the high energy prices in the UK, and more reliance on gas will not reduce our domestic bills – they’ll increase. More North Sea oil won’t help tax revenue either, oil is privatised and the corporations receive tax-breaks and subsidies and those companies export most of what they find.
Badenoch’s claims are characteristic of the corrupt lobbying for the interests of the big corporations at the expense of the beleaguered working class.
We campaigned with Insulate Britain, calling for government action on refurbishment of no less than 14 million homes in England and Wales needing urgent upgrades to protect us from the extreme weather. We were vilified in the Press, and the governments of both parties have refused to consider our evidence and experiences. Indeed, some of us were imprisoned for daring to call-out their intransigence.
Climate activists continue to be persecuted and criminalised for trying to expose the depth of the immediate and worsening catastrophe. Just look at the weakening of the so-called Gulf Stream and the very real impact on our entire ecosystem in the very near future. You want to protect our children? We have to stop emissions now! Just Stop Oil!
Climate change is a working class issue. Governments and Corporations are doing nothing to help or support the adaptations needed. Trade unions have always fought for workers rights and for the changes needed to make society better for us. We have solutions to the climate emergency. Trade unionists in the 1970’s designed and engineered the first wind turbines, heat pumps and electric public vehicles as part of the “Lucas Plan” never invested in by the Corporations finding profits much larger in the production of weapons of war.
Renewable energy production does not generate the massive size of short-term profits for the super-rich – and that’s the challenge! State investment with significant tax claw-backs from the fossil fuel industries must fund a National Climate Service that can create the millions of climate jobs needed to adapt our social infrastructure.
Plymouth Trades Union Council is working with the Plymouth Hub for Climate Justice to build the climate movement as a force to shift government and corporate policy back to Green. Climate Jobs in their millions, protection for homes and communities, integrated and accessible public transport.
The urgency is palpable. This Autumn we launch the trade union year of climate action, with a key moment of global solidarity in November when world leaders meet for the UN climate negotiations in Brazil – the COP 30. Join our protest and Climate Summit on November 25th at the Sherwell Centre.
The right-wing politicians, whether Labour, Tory and Reform UK speak only for the profits of the oil and gas industries. Only about their profits. Farage wants to scrap the already paltry regulations that protect workers and householders. Badenoch wants more emissions. Starmer has little in the way of plans for energy transition, and wants the end of green incentives for employment transition. This lot don’t listen to workers and aren’t going to help us.

We have an autumn programme of actions and events. Join us: https://plymouthhub4climate.org