Citizens' Climate Lobby UK

Lobbying for a carbon fee and dividend

News

Cathy Orlando, CCI Project Director speaks out

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Cathy Orlando, Citizens Climate International Project Director and director of CCL Canada took part in the walk out from the People’s Plenary at COP26 today to protest at the draft deal described as  ‘a death sentence for vulnerable countries’. Participants were dismayed by the lack of progress on the $100 bn pledge, the stalemate on global carbon trading rules (Article 6) (in particular the request to link trading revenue to adaptation payments for developing countries) and the pressure being put on negotiators by the fossil fuel lobbyists.

Cathy Orlando said her country “had to pay” to help protect countries most at risk. “We are on a see-saw,” …..”There has been progress but there is a lot of work to be done. We need to protect our friends in the Global South in a realistic way, we need to listen.” 

John Kerry has come up with a new take on an old expression, re the subsidisation of fossil fuels, estimated to be in the region of trillions of dollars….’That’s the definition of insanity’.

Statement from Citizens’ Climate International on the progress at COP26, released on November 11th – Glasgow outcomes need to protect & enhance human wellbeing

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The first week of the COP26 was a roller coaster of major announcements and frustrations around access. The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) now includes 450 institutions controlling $130 trillion that will begin to align with science-based net zero targets. This could have a transformational impact on the mobilization of private-sector capital, and also on the way nations behave toward questions of climate and money.

As observers, we found ourselves with less access to the process than ever. Though some restrictions were necessary due to COVID, concerns continue that the absence of observers does not empower the most ambitious nations, but rather those that seek to disrupt and slow progress toward effective global climate action. There are some signs that this is happening, and could water down the legal language defining formal COP26 outcomes.

Rights are foundational.

One stark example of closed meetings empowering obstructors is the removal of key language about rights from draft outcome text. For instance, Saudi Arabia has aggressively opposed the mention of human rights in relation to Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE)—civics, education, public information.

  • Functionally, they simply asked that the Doha Work Programme language, which did not yet contain Paris Agreement recognition of numerous and specific stakeholders’ rights, be continued, for the sake of time.
  • The effect was to create a draft Glasgow Work Programme that does not mention some foundational Paris Agreement rights language.
  • In reality, the Paris Agreement already includes this recognition, and nations are bound to honor universally recognized rights, in Paris Agreement implementation, and in line with non-climate international law.
  • National high courts are increasingly recognizing climate protection as a human right, so this obstruction is out of step with legal standards and sends a signal that some nations feel threatened by the humanity of their own people.

One of our core principles is key here:

By virtue of existing, you are a climate stakeholder; you have a right to expect a healthy climate and a livable future.

It is not for people to demonstrate they are relevant to climate policy; it is for governments to honor the relevance and stakeholder status of all human beings.We shared this view directly on a UNFCCC podcast on Adaptation Day, noting:

If you can compete at that level, if you can plan your future, develop your economy, serve the interests of your people, while respecting human rights, you’re doing a much better job, you’re in a much stronger position, your nation is going to have more influence and more security, if you can perform at that level. If you can’t, then of course, stakeholders are going to say, why can’t you?

Listen to the podcast

We welcome the draft Glasgow Work Programme’s recognition of the role of communities and non-Party stakeholders in facilitating, coordinating, and sustaining ACE activity, including through training and partnerships. We also welcome the active encouragement for Parties to welcome public participation in the design and implementation of climate policies.

We will work with partners, and with aligned Parties and agencies, to create conditions for the Action Plan to be outlined at the mid-year negotiations in Bonn to consolidate real empowerment gains for stakeholders and communities.

Climate danger is already here.

As always, we must recall that the Convention is an agreement to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. We are now experiencing that dangerous interference, with real everyday consequences for human wellbeing and basic rights.

Lia Nicholson, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, told the Guardian:

Major emitters have to step up their climate action now, not in 2025, backed by concrete steps like ending fossil fuel subsidies in the next few years. Scaled up, accessible climate finance needs to happen now for more ambitious climate action in developing countries, through grants and not debt. It’s time to get to work and live up to our grand pledges.

Saleemul Huq—director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and co-chair of the Resilience Action Track for the United Nations Food Systems Summit—says reporting on progress and actions to raise ambition should be annual elements of the COP process. Others have made similar calls. The Climate Vulnerable Forum is calling for an Emergency Pact that includes this commitment.

The COP26 Action Zone is set up in a way to remind delegates that Earth is a living world moving through inhospitable space.

The reality is: If all nations do what they must to achieve overall mitigation of global emissions (OMGE), the scale of innovation and transformation will involve such relentless competition, it would become practically and economically untenable to operate with lower climate ambition. In a race to the to lead the climate-smart zero-emissions economy, revising national climate plans upward, regularly, will become a competitive must.

The COP26 has also produced a “delivery plan” for the promised $100 billion per year in catalytic climate finance assistance for developing countries.

Read the Delivery Plan

What’s in the draft COP26 outcome?

The first draft of the COP26 Cover Decision was released yesterday, and includes a requirement that all nations release new national climate action plans, aligned with higher overall ambition, by the end of next year. Key provisions in the draft outcome may determine whether the nations of the world set us on a course to limit global heating to 1.5ºC.

The draft COP26 Decision emphasizes the urgency to act, as laid out by the best available science, citing the report of Working Group 1 for the IPCC 6th Assessment. There is significant overlap, but also additional operational detail in the draft CMA outcome (specific to the Paris Agreement), which we draw from here:

  • I. Science — 1. Recognizes the importance of the best available science for effective climate action and policymaking;
  • III. Adaptation finance — 15. Urges developed country Parties to urgently scale up their provision of climate finance for adaptation so as to respond to the needs of developing country Parties as part of a global effort;
  • IV. Mitigation — 28. Decides to establish a work programme to urgently scale-up mitigation ambition and implementation during the critical decade of the 2020s;
  • IV. Mitigation — 29. Urges Parties that have not yet submitted new or updated nationally determined contributions in accordance with decision 1/CP.21, paragraphs 23-24 to do so as soon as possible in advance of the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties (November 2022)…

Together, these four paragraphs demonstrate a clear recognition by the COP (the 196 national governments gathered in Glasgow) that dangerous climate destabilization is happening, that it will get worse without a significant increase in ambition, and that national ambition and the mobilization of finance are critical for the basic protection of human populations around the world.

The proposed work programme on mitigation ambition is a more powerful form of action than it might sound, to the outside observer.

  • A work programme is a formal part of the climate negotiations, which in this case would mean there is an ongoing body working year to year on ways to enhance national climate ambition and the immediacy of climate action.
  • It provides a collaborative way for nations to support each other’s innovation and progress, and also to hold each other to account under the scrutiny of their peers (who are also trading partners).

It is recommended it be read together with the draft CMA outcome (on Paris Agreement implementation).

Read the draft COP26 outcome

Unblocking Article 6 could unleash economic opportunity everywhere.

The negotiations around Article 6 of the Paris Agreement could provide important opportunities for enhanced action, both through international cooperation and down to the community level. Instead of high controversy about specific details, negotiators could settle on strong foundational language that makes clear:

  • Accounting must operate on the understanding that we need verifiable emissions data, with molecular granularity, no double-counting, and a persistent move toward zero emissions (6.2).
  • The Article 6.4 mechanism can be one integrated market or a menu of markets connected and coordinated but not fully integrated.
  • Negotiators should look for ways to make the “non-market approaches” of Article 6.8 into an opportunity for creative, high-ambition cooperation across the world, in line with strict transparency standards of no double-counting and persistent progress on OMGE.

Those non-market approaches (NMAs) might be tax policies or trade policies, revenue recycling, or even policies that look a lot like a market, but are in fact more strictly regulatory. NMAs could include direct (non-tradable) investments in Nature, or payments for climate services.

It is imperative that Article 6 policies, activities, and related financial interventions, be strictly transparent and accountable. No credit for emissions reduction can be used to cover for delayed action or expanded pollution. If real-world action under Article 6 can be unblocked and mobilized, there will be significantly enhanced opportunity for investment on the ground, into Nature-based solutions and green development.

Dig into Article 6

Climate emergency is a human story.

Citizens’ Climate International wants to see human rights, gender equity and indigenous rights, intergenerational equity, community-level participation, and also the rights of Nature, recognized as mechanisms for grounding the lofty announcements coming out of Glasgow. Climate emergency is hurting people, now, today; our global climate response needs to work through and provide value at the human scale.

In the closing days of the COP26, there is much more at stake than the text itself. Those problematic countries, who have sought to water down language and obstruct progress, are by doing so recognizing the legal and transformational power of this process. They are recognizing the weight and impact of the text. Everyone else needs to be clear that we cannot afford such consequential negotiations to conclude without a commitment to act now to avoid persistent climate emergency.

As Dr. Katharine Hayhoe said during our conversation at COP26:

We live in the perfect home that we have taken for granted for many years, and today we realize that that home is in peril—not the actual planet itself but its ability to sustain our civilization and the life of many other living things… This is a time that history books will be written about in the future.

Let’s make sure we let future historians report that we made daring choices, and committed to work together, to create conditions for a livable future.

Pictured above: Isatis Cintrón, CCI Board member and International Regional Coordinator for Latin America, addresses the high-level segment at COP26.

Statement from Citizens’ Climate International on COP26 – CCI welcomes COP26 commitments to rapidly cut global heating pollution

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Citizens’ Climate International works to empower citizen volunteers to build political will for a livable world. We want to see the everyday economy tell the truth about pollution costs, and for mainstream finance to value the health and resilience of people and nature. We welcome the historic breakthroughs of Week 1 of the COP26, noting that sustained action is needed to operationalize these announcements and reshape the structural incentives of our everyday economy.

The Global Methane Pledge now counts 105 nations committing “to work together in order to collectively reduce global anthropogenic methane emissions across all sectors by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.” This is a vital contribution to future climate stability, because projected methane emissions—including those from land use, ecosystem change, and melting of permafrost—could generate more global heating than all expected additional carbon dioxide emissions.

More than 100 world leaders have committed to end deforestation by 2030: “Countries spanning from the northern forests of Canada and Russia to the tropical rainforests of Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will endorse the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use. Together, they contain 85% of the world’s forests, an area of over 13 million square miles.”

Governments representing 75% of global trade in key commodities that can threaten forests – such as palm oil, cocoa and soya – will also sign up to a new Forests, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Statement. The 28 governments are committing to a common set of actions to deliver sustainable trade and reduce pressure on forests, including support for smallholder farmers and improving the transparency of supply chains.

Regen10 launched “an ambitious collective action plan to scale regenerative food production systems, worldwide, in a decade,” aiming for:

  • Over 50% of world’s food to be produced in a way that drives regenerative outcomes
  • Over 50% of the world’s agricultural land to be farmed in a way that reverses nature loss and supports decarbonisation in line the Paris Climate Agreement
  • Over 500m farmers to apply regenerative production methods, receiving a fair income for the outcomes they deliver, and
  • Over $60bn per year to be deployed to finance the transition

$130 trillion: This astonishing number—130 million times 1 million, or $168,612 for every human being on Earth—is the total assets under management of the 450 financial institutions signing up to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). Members of the Alliance collectively commit to mobilize capital to transform economies to reach net zero global heating emissions. To be real, this commitment will require mobilizing enough capital to eliminate half of all net global heating emissions in the next 9 years. All of the math of every sector will have to be reworked, when it comes to the cost, benefit, ease, and immediacy of climate action.

On Tuesday, at a special high-level event hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, we heard examples of leadership and experiences of effective carbon pricing. The Canadian example shows returning revenues to households can help sustain the policy, intensify price signals, create new opportunity, and drive change. There were also clear calls to include trade policies and regulatory interventions in the carbon pricing toolbox, to allow more nations to cooperate around carbon border adjustments, and remove the structural economic incentive to profit from pollution.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance has added 28 new members, including nations and financial institutions. The Alliance, which now includes 168 nations, is committed to ending the use of coal for power generation, globally, to eliminate one of the main sources of global heating pollution.

Together with individual and multilateral commitments to foster a just transition—to ensure major disruptions of current financial flows, industries, commodity markets, and trade, do not leave vulnerable populations without access to work or to everyday needs—these commitments will be vital for securing a livable future. What is most essential, however, is that action move at the speed and scale necessary to eliminate global heating pollution, and that finance, best practices, and new opportunity be open to all.

Pictured above: In a special plenary session, COP26 delegates heard from world-leading Earth observation specialists about how we can now track climate-disputing pollution.

 

Why Buying a Windfarm is Like Buying an EV – Day 5 at COP26

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I’m much less grumpy today.

I can at least now get into the plenary sessions which means that I get to hear new announcements first hand. I’m still not able to listen in on the really detailed negotiation sessions but, perhaps, that’s not surprising. I may have been given the wrong impression by the subsidiary-body talks back in May.

My day started with a session in the Science Pavilion where the 2021 carbon-budget was presented. This was formally published in a scientific journal yesterday and gives a snapshot of the current state of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. There is some good news with the overall emissions now showing a clear levelling off despite more bounce-back after Covid than expected.

The detail is quite interesting with a levelling-off of coal-based emissions but rapid rises in both cement related emissions and those due to burning of natural gas. It’s clear that, at the moment, coal-power may be in retreat but it’s being replaced by natural gas. It’s a step forward but not a permanent solution.

Emissions due to land-use change are also encouraging with a continuation of a steady fall that’s been going on since the 1960s. One final issue, though, is that natural take-up of carbon dioxide by plants and oceans are showing signs of becoming less efficient. The effect is small but still worrying.

After that I headed for a plenary and was able to see our own Kwazi Kwarteng announcing that the UK has extended funding for the Energy Transition Council for another 5 years. The council helps to finance the early closure of coal-fired power stations that I mentioned yesterday. I lost count of how many times I heard the phrase “just transition” and this feels like real progress.

On a similar theme, I moved from there to the Green Climate Fund Pavilion where finance for developed nations was being discussed. This was an eye opener for me. I had been thinking about the $100 billion per year of finance for developing countries as justified compensation for the problems developed countries have caused. I now think this is the wrong way to look at it.

Developing countries are perfectly happy to borrow money to finance their green transitions but they’d like to be able to do it on the same terms as richer nations. At the moment they face interest rates that can be up to seven times higher!

It’s also about CAPEX versus OPEX. For those not familiar with the jargon (like me until recently) I heard a great analogy in this meeting. It’s like buying an EV. EVs are better for emissions and cheaper overall but the up-front cost is high and this stops less well off people from buying them. In exactly the same way the overall cost of renewable energy is lower than fossil-fuel electricity but the up-front costs (CAPEX=capital expenditure) is high and so less well off nations cannot afford it. The $100 billion per year finance package helps to reduce risks to lenders (so they drop their interest rates) and can get round the problem of high up-front costs.

OPEX is operating costs, by the way.

So, enough economics lessons already, and apologies to all those who already knew all this.

 

David Waltham

Glasgow,

November 4th 2021

Pictured above: Plenary Session at COP26

News from COP26 by CCL member and Citizens’ Climate Education Observer, Dave Waltham

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I’ve not written earlier simply because I thought I’d wait until I had something positive to say. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting.

To be frank, I’m a bit frustrated. The point of observers at COP is to be the eyes and ears of civil society. However, very few of us can get near the actual negotiations because the sessions are “ticketed” and very few tickets are being made available. For example, an important meeting yesterday morning had 25 such tickets. There are thousands of observers here! The explanation given is “Covid” and the need to keep numbers down in rooms.

My experience at the preliminary “subsidiary bodies” meetings, on-line and 6 months ago, was very different. I could get into most of the meetings I was interested in and hear exactly what the various parties were saying. I’d expected COP26 to be similar but, sadly, I don’t even have on-line access to most meetings and there’s no obvious reason why Covid issues should stop me listening on-line. The explanation for on-line issue is “software problems” but it all feels more deliberate than that.

A related issue is that far fewer observer passes have been distributed than usual. As you might expect the reason given is Covid but, as a result, I have been unable to obtain a pass for week two of the conference. I’ll be heading back south in the CCL battle-bus on Monday and will talk to you all some more at the national zoom call, next week, from the comfort of my own home. I’m sorry of that will seem a bit of let-down.

On the bright side, there are around 100 “pavilions”, mostly associated with individual countries, and each of these runs a dozen or more side-events every day. So there’s plenty to see and do and I’m certainly enjoying myself and learning a great deal. For example it was fascinating, today, to hear about how major banks plan to buy up coal-fired power stations and close them down so that they’re not still running in 30 or 40 years’ time. It’s good to know that people are working on how to take these assets out early.

But I’m not doing what I believe I am here to do!

Dave Waltham,

Glasgow,

November 3rd 2021

Pictured above: watching Biden at COP26

Citizens’ Climate lnternational statement on COP26 by Jo Robertson, Citizens’ Climate International – Executive Director

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COP26: Acting together to secure a livable future

The COP26—the 26th Conference of the Parties to the Convention—brings together leaders from 196 nations and thousands of observer organizations, to detail national climate action commitments, settle on operational rules for cooperative emissions reduction, and mobilize unprecedented levels of climate-related finance. The result must be a mainstreaming of science-based pathways to zero emissions economies by mid-century, on schedule to avoid more than 1.5ºC of global heating.

To get there, a few key areas of climate action need to be worked out:

  1. All nations must agree that they will fully decarbonize their economies by 2050.
  2. “Cooperative implementation” must align with 50% reductions in overall global heating emissions by 2030.
  3. Science-based financial decision-making must have clear pathways to becoming the mainstream reality.
  4. Food systems, ecosystem restoration, clean watershed services, and climate-smart agriculture, all need to become part of the mitigation, adaptation, and resilience program of every country.
  5. Forward progress must be reinforced by science-based trade policy, opening opportunity for climate-smart practices and reducing the market for destructive practices.

At Citizens’ Climate International, we recognize the need for active, ongoing citizen participation in the design and implementation of climate policies. We must acknowledge the direct impact of climate threats and costs to basic and universal human rights and the critical judicial precedent of several nations’ supreme courts recognizing that climate protection is a human right.

When we talk about energy systems, climate science, and national policy, we often overlook the degree to which universal human rights are structural imperatives that should shape all of these. Progress toward recognition of climate rights will be instrumental for providing clarity, structure, direction, and momentum for innovation, across all sectors.

To connect needed areas of action to specific capabilities, Citizens’ Climate International comes to the COP26 negotiations with a focus on the following areas of action:

  1. Civics and public participation
  2. Pollution pricing
  3. Climate-smart finance
  4. Nature, from summit to sea
  5. Food systems

On Civics and Participation: We see regular, ongoing engagement of citizens, communities, and stakeholders in both the design and deployment of climate solutions, as critical for securing high ambition and efficient implementation.

On Pollution Pricing: We support establishment of a global “price floor”, supported by national policies to impose a steadily intensifying price signal disfavoring climate pollution. As the IEA has reported, “There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply…” Pricing systems should effectively and efficiently eliminate climate pollution while building incomes for people and enhancing international cooperation for a zero-emissions future.

On Finance: We support the goal of not only mainstreaming climate-smart finance, but achieving a world in which no money generates climate damage. Public, private, and multilateral finance must rapidly shift into alignment with a zero-emissions future; the fiscal stability of nations must be measured against this science-informed imperative. Climate-smart finance must integrate complex, rapidly evolving Earth systems science data, and foster a decentralized landscape of innovation, Nature-positive production, and resilience-building everyday actions.

On Nature: We take note of the need for much more robust national and cooperative international integration of a Summit to Sea resilience value approach. We need to value, invest to sustain, and safeguard a healthy cryosphere, feeding healthy watersheds and land-based ecosystems, sustaining biodiversity, and preventing harm to ocean life and to the climate chemistry of our ocean. On Nature: We take note of the need for much more robust national and cooperative international integration of a Summit to Sea resilience value approach. We need to value, invest to sustain, and safeguard a healthy cryosphere, feeding healthy watersheds and land-based ecosystems, sustaining biodiversity, and preventing harm to ocean life and to the climate chemistry of our ocean.

Food Systems integrate many of the above areas of action. Without a healthy crysophere, stable climate patterns, reliable rainfall, resilient watersheds, ecosystems, and biodiversity, food security is not achievable. Climate action driven by food systems transformation will require regenerative farming and other sustainable land management practices, new kinds of finance, decentralized multisystem data integration, and pollution pricing linked to Nature-positive production.

The COVID, climate, and biodiversity crises together put clear light on the value of solidarity. Solidarity among people, and between nations and generations, and with Nature, is not only an emotional, cultural, or political preference. Recognizing that human and natural systems, our everyday wellbeing, the security of nations, and the livability of the world we leave to future generations, are all part of One Health is already visible as the defining insight of our moment.

The COP26 needs to send the signal that this urgent need for solidarity is recognized by the community of nations. That signal must be reinforced by coordinated, high-ambition climate action, and by the mobilization of unprecedented financial resources. We don’t need to make money out of thin air; we just need it to be realigned. We need to stop funding destruction and start investing in health and resilience.

Read the CCI brief on COP 26

Maggie’s Think Tank Supports Climate Income stating that ‘Carbon pricing can ensure that decarbonisation is done in a fair and responsible way….’

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The Centre for Policy Studies was set up in the 1970s by supporters of Margaret Thatcher such as Sir Keith Joseph. It has remained highly influential amongst Conservative politicians ever since and many UK government policies have started life as proposals from the CPS. So, when we heard that they were investigating carbon pricing, we just had to get in touch and we are grateful that they have involved us in their consultations. This kind of work is the bread and butter of CCL—forming relationships with potentially influential people and groups as a way of spreading the ideas underlying climate income—and I’d hoped it would help push forward our campaign a little more.

But the result was so much better than anything we could have hoped for. Take a look at their recently released web page on Pricing Pollution Properly. Right there, near the top of the first page, it says “Pricing Pollution Properly calls for the Government to move towards an upstream carbon tax”. And this is immediately followed by “This would involve no increase in overall taxation, with all the revenue raised returned to people’s pockets via a carbon dividend”. The Executive Summary states that : ” Carbon pricing can ensure that decarbonisation is done in a fair and responsible way, which does not harm the least well off in society – either directly or through inflicting damage on the economy”  – words that could have been written by any CCL member

This is the next best thing to having Climate Income as official Conservative Party policy and it could lead to that! It also means that other parties will now need to look seriously at Climate Income. Hopefully, the clear common sense that underlies it will be obvious to all and we’ll see it being taken up widely across the political spectrum.

The next steps will be to help CPS publicise their report with Conservative MPs. I hope that all CCL-UK members that have a Tory MP will step up and help this effort. Expect to hear more on this campaign very soon…

Climate Income is gaining momentum – perhaps the Time really is Now!

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What a month this is turning out to be! The  Austrian coalition government is planning a Carbon fee and dividend tax, the Guardian has reported a large survey by Demos which shows more support than expected for more carbon taxation in the UK and the Royal Society of Arts is supporting a ‘carbon dividend’ as well as climate assemblies, a green transition fund and street by street net zero plans. The RSA based it’s report on the findings of a survey of Conservative voters which found that they are keener on going further to combat climate change than the government supposes.

Perhaps most exciting is the news that Senate Democrats in the US are likely to include a carbon fee with cashback to households in the budget reconciliation bill currently being drafted in Congress. Campaigners for Climate Income in the US have had to combat the political mantra that there can be no higher taxes and Biden’s green policy up to now has resolutely steered clear of carbon pricing. It is therefore very encouraging to hear  that at a White House press briefing recently, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked if a carbon tax would violate the president’s campaign pledge to not raise taxes on all but the very wealthy. Psaki replied, “Polluter fees on corporations do not conflict with the $400,000 pledge.” Here is a very good (short) ‘Op Ed’ on what a carbon tax could achieve in the US. The current crisis in the UK shows the need for a fair but effective policy to price out fossil fuels here too.

Austria Gets Climate Income!

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According to Associated Press (AP), Austria will introduce Climate Income from July 2022. The initial carbon price will be €30 per tonne of CO2 rising to €55 per tonne in 2025. The dividend will be €100 per person per year with children receiving a half dividend. AP also report that there will be some regional variations in the dividend to, for example, compensate more those living in rural areas.

This exciting development is the result of the Austrian Green Party being part of the coalition government with the conservative People’s Party since the beginning of last year. I think this shows the importance of getting support for Climate Income from every organisation we can; you never know when they might be in a position of influence!

Another Council supports Climate Income – congratulations South Hams!

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I was made aware of the motion that went through Milton Keynes council by a mentor of mine, Jake Chapman, and immediately saw the importance of the Climate Fee and Dividend system. For too long, corporate giants have exploited our political and economic systems, citing the mantra of growth, while devastating ecosystems and communities alike. It is abundantly clear that profound changes in our cultural priorities are now essential. It is no simple task, however, to untangle centuries of complex power dynamics and accumulated precedents. I believe that the CFD system offers a clean, simple and powerful step in the right direction. A step that could help us avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, whilst increasing corporate accountability. 

 Whilst progressive motions can be met with less-than enthusiastic receptions at SHDC, after a bit of backstage haggling, I was thrilled that the council voted unanimously  (from 1.49.30) to support the aims of the CFD system and to lobby central government to appraise the impact of carbon pricing based on this approach and to publish the results. I would like to thank Milton Keynes Council for leading the way on this and I very much hope that many more councils will follow suit.

Cllr Joseph Rose

Green Party

SHDC

Tackling the Climate Emergency – Carbon Fee and Dividend

South Hams District Council has declared a Climate Emergency and is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Council welcomes the work of SHDC officers to create and begin to implement our CC&B Action Plan, aligning with the DCC Carbon Plan; however, we recognise wider carbon neutrality and meaningful climate action will require bolder national policies.

 Council notes:

  • That stated current government policy is to reduce carbon emissions by 68% on 1990 levels by 2030;
  • The deeply felt concerns of many SHDC residents who are aware that national and international expert advisory bodies report that progress to date is insufficient to meet the global challenge on climate change by 2030.

Council agrees:

  • With the widely understood principle that polluters should pay for the damage they cause;
  • That it would be unfair for residents of rural areas to be held accountable for pollution generated through lack of public transport available;
  • On the importance of ensuring a solid social and political consensus to sustain the transition to a low carbon way of life;

And therefore, South Hams District Council resolves to:

  • Support the principle of the Carbon Fee and Dividend system;
  • Lobby HM Government to appraise the impacts of carbon pricing based on this approach and publish the results;
  • Ask the Chief Executive to write to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to express these views. 

 Thank you