Leicester Fights Climate Change

The massive and growing threats posed to human life by global warming are critical issues that must be addressed. This is why hundreds of concerned citizens marched through Leicester earlier today — to demand that our government take meaningful action in the forthcoming climate negociations which start later this month in Paris.

Today’s protest was, however, just one of thousands taking place across the globe. Global warming is a truly international issue that concerns all people.

Only last year in New York, 400,000 people joined in a similar protest as part of the People’s Climate March. People are angry across the world, and system change is gaining support as the guiding aim of environmental struggle.

The fifteen warmest years in history have occurred since 1998, 2014 being the hottest, with 2015 looking set to break that record.

A national spokesperson for Friends of the Earth, who organised todays protest in Leicester, has pointed out action is “needed to prevent global warming from wrecking people’s lives.”

“The UK Government’s actions ahead of crucial climate talks have been a disgrace. Since winning the general election, ministers have repeatedly gone out of their way to undermine investment in clean renewable power, while boosting investment in dirty gas and oil. This sends out all the wrong messages and will not tackle climate change.”

What is clear is that a rapid, root and branch transformation of society along socialist lines is needed to tackle the environmental threat facing us. The same politicans and corporations who destroy our environment are, of course, those very individuals that are demanding the bombing of foreign countries; hence the massive protest in London that also took place today to oppose the planned war on Syria.

The Socialist Party, which supported today’s climate protests in Leicester and across the rest of the world through our Party’s sister organisations, calls for immediate action to remedy the growing catastophe that is climate change. We call for:

• Rapid conversion to the use of renewable energy sources: wind, wave and solar power. In Britain, off-shore wind farms should be given priority, in order to minimise impact on local communities
• A big expansion of public transport facilities, with fare subsides; to encourage quick switches from private transportation
• Development of the rail system, so that short and medium haul air travel can be reduced and then replaced
• Conversion of the car industry to renewable sources of power. Electric and hydrogen powered vehicles are on the market now, but need to be affordable and an infrastructure has to be constructed so their use is possible
• A massive programme of energy saving measures implemented, including new homes to be made carbon neutral
• Step up research on green energy, for example on how to make long distance energy transmission more efficient
• Public ownership of the energy generating and transport industries; and the top banks and companies that dominate the economy
• A democratic socialist plan of production based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people, and in a way that safeguards the environment

Interview at 2014 People’s Climate March in New York