The government must use its first Budget to reassure UK citizens it will do enough to ensure the UK plays its part in limiting the global rise in temperature to less than 2 degrees. However reports suggest that unprotected government departments that lead on green business and the UK’s response to…Read more…
Manufacturing’s lost decade – time to boost green infrastructure
Latest official figures show UK manufacturing output is five per cent below its pre-recession peak. As The Telegraph said today, “Britain is on course for ‘lost decade’ of manufacturing after output disappoints.” The TUC estimates that in the three months to May 2015, production and…Read more…
Government: don’t let austerity get in the way of climate targets
Like an ominous poetic prelude to the UK’s hottest day of the year, yesterday the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) released its annual Progress Report on preparing for climate change and cutting the UK’s carbon emissions. If the 35°c heat felt in London today makes the ministers in the Department…Read more…
Hatfield mine to close: Imported coal will fuel the Northern Powerhouse
Employee-owned Hatfield Colliery, Yorkshire, has ceased production of coal 12 months earlier than planned. BIS Minister Anna Soubry reportedly refused a last minute request by local MP Ed Miliband and the mine’s chair, John Grogan, to provide a £12m loan to the mine to stay open for a further year….Read more…
Government delivers triple blow to green economy… in just one week
The new government has been in office for just 6 weeks and in the last 7 days has already set alarm bells ringing on the UK’s energy policy. The Conservatives have followed through on their promise to withdraw state subsidies for on-shore wind farms, though a year early – and whilst Energy…Read more…
Green Investment Bank share sale may deter green investments
The Green Investment Bank (GIB), which launched its annual report today, has helped drive investment in low carbon energy projects. It is the UK’s most active investor in the green economy. But today the government has announced it will sell a majority stake in the bank to help fund austerity…Read more…
Amber axes most cost effective wind projects
The government has effectively cancelled 250 onshore wind projects already in development by cutting the subsidies which would aid their completion. Today’s decision is likely to mean that 2,500 turbines which were due to be built are scrapped. The Energy Secretary argued that consumer bills would…Read more…
All Gas and Knighthoods
ANTI-FRACKING protest on Lancashire’s Fylde coast. Offshore fracking may have caused minor earthquake. GMB union called conference in Blackpool to reassure people about benefits of…Read more…
National Delegate Conference Glasgow 18 and 19 June 2015
Keep up with the daily events at our National Delegate Conference by reading the reports of our Branch Secretary and delegate Justin Ashton. You are invited to email him to let him know what you think of the report. All … Continue reading →Read more…
Scotland’s world leading climate legislation needs world leading action
This is a crucial year for the planet as world leaders meet in Paris in December to thrash out a new international agreement on climate change. As Lord Stern, and others, warned last month, pledges…Read more…
MEPs urge Congress to allow climate action in trade deals
Today, the US House of Representatives is debating whether to allow President Obama authority to negotiate trade deals for the next 6 years without significant Congressional scrutiny. In what is normally referred to as the ‘fast track’ procedure, the House will be asked to agree a…Read more…
“Government should put us on track for a low-carbon world.”
Business Green is running an online poll showing that 84 per cent of respondents believe that the low carbon economy “will not prosper under a Conservative government.” Such anxieties may help explain why, so early in this administration, 80 businesses have paid for a full page letter in the FT….Read more…
Bonn blog #2: UK performance at UN climate talks and the future of just transition
I’ve been at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Bonn this week, where 195 countries are negotiating the international climate treaty that will be debated at COP21 climate talks in Paris in December. This blog describes my initial thoughts on the process, as someone…Read more…
Bonn blog #1: UN hooks Just Transition at #SB42
In Bonn this week, where the UN is labouring through an 86-page draft climate treaty, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has welcomed the return of three clear commitments in the draft text to just transition and decent work. Labour’s three “hooks” re-appeared in the UN draft treaty as…Read more…
May Scotland in UNISON now online
Election special, Health conference reports, Glasgow strikers and reports from UNISON at the STUC on TTIP, local government, pay, union rights, poverty, environment, child care, BME workers, ethical care charter, flexible working, pay and much more. Take your copy into your workplace and share it or see it online at at http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/siu/index.html and on issuu at http://Read more…
Civil society groups demand ethical public procurement
UNISON Scotland is involved in launching the new #10Asks on procurement today. Here’s the press release:<!–[endif]–>
Civil society groups demand ethical public procurement
New public procurement rules in Scotland should help tackle
tax dodging, blacklisting and climate change, according to a coalition of civil
society coalitions.
International development charities,Read more…
Labour: 1m green jobs in climate change plan
At the heart of Labour’ Green Plan for the next parliament is a transformative industrial strategy to create a million high productivity green jobs through investment in renewable energy, home insulation retrofits, zero carbon homes, community energy projects, carbon capture & storage, new…Read more…
“Standing for the common good”
At the Arcola theatre, Hackney, Natalie Bennett launched a Green party manifesto based on the wholesale rejection of austerity – “that no one in the world’s sixth richest economy should not be able to put food on their own table or have a roof over their head.” Bennett challenged the notion of an…Read more…
Conservatives’ “anti-green growth, anti-clean energy manifesto”
The trade body for the renewables industry says some 19,000 onshore wind jobs are at risk as a result of the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to halt the spread of onshore wind farms. The onshore wind sector delivered £1.6 billion in investment in the UK last year. But Renewable UK says that…Read more…
Labour: tackling climate change ‘an economic necessity’
Labour’s manifesto says tackling climate change is “an economic necessity … the most important thing we must do for our children, our grandchildren and future generations.” It plans for the green economy create a million additional green jobs through world leading investment in low carbon…Read more…