EU environmental benefits justify "Remain" vote says Green Party

 

The Green Party has called on voters who care about the environment and tackling climate change to vote for the UK to remain in the European Union.

The party's leader, Natalie Bennett, is taking this message around the country as Greens for a Better Europe begins its final campaigning push [1].

Bennett will say that collective standards across Europe can ensure that all governments - particularly our own, with its dreadful environmental record - meet the need for action on climate change and other environmental crises that we face - crises that don't stop at national borders.

She'll also highlight how the politicians running the Leave campaign have an abysmal record on the subject, including Michael Gove, who attempted to remove climate change from the school curriculum.

Bennett said:

"In environmental diplomacy, the EU as a whole is far more effective than member states could be individually in developing and promulgating cooperation, long-term approaches, and motivating others into action.

"The current UK government has taken actions, in particular on renewables policy, that have seen Britain slide disastrously in the league tables for attractiveness to clean energy investors and damaged small businesses and job prospects. But thanks to the collective peer pressure from our European partners, the UK government has indicated that it will aim to improve in areas of home heating and transport, where it so often falls behind

"When one EU country, for example the UK, moves in the wrong direction, this can be challenged by cooperative action. For example the European Parliament has called for a fracking moratorium and for chemicals legislation that can also act as a check on this government's fracking ambitions.

"On climate diplomacy, the UK benefits from enhanced representation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, being both a party as the UK and again as an EU member.

"The Brexit campaign leadership is dominated by climate sceptics, with a terrible track record of attacking renewable energy and undermining climate action. They deny the scientific evidence on climate change, just as they deny the economic and environmental risks of leaving the EU.

"Michael Gove tried to remove climate change from the national curriculum, an indefensible attempt to prevent our young people being informed about the overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and UKIP want to abolish the Climate Change Act and have expressed total opposition to wind power [2]."

The Green Party's campaign is also focusing on celebrating the free movement of people in the EU, on our membership's central place in maintaining and enhancing workers' rights, and on the capacity and actions of the EU in reining in the abuses of tax-dodging, low-paying multinational companies.

Notes:
[1] https://www.greenparty.org.uk/europe
[2]http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/03/11/nigel-farage-on-climate-change-in-his-own-words/
http://www.environmentalistsforeurope.org/

Keeping up with Molly

Molly Scott Cato has a new website, so you can find out more about what she’s doing in Europe – do visit http://mollymep.org.uk/

You can also keep up with her on Twitter - @MollyMEP

Or by ‘liking’ her facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MollyMEP

There may only be three British Green MEPS working on our behalf, but they work very hard indeed and are involved in a whole array of issues. Our Greens are part of a much bigger Green Group in the European parliament, which helps get Green issues heard.

Turn it off: Saving energy in the home

guest blog from Keiran Wake

New plans unveiled by EU commissioner for energy, Günther Oettinger, will encourage EU states to increase their energy efficiency by 30 per cent by 2030.

Speaking of the new target, Oettinger said: “Our aim is to give the right signal to the market and encourage further investments in energy-saving technologies to the benefit of businesses, consumers and the environment.”

With this in mind, it’s likely that governments across Europe will intensify the focus on energy efficiency in the home. In an effort to help you get ahead, this post will suggest ways you can reduce your energy consumption, improve safety and cut household bills.

The phone charger

Rarely are we seen without our smartphones, which usually means our trusty charger is in tow too. The average mobile phone charger uses around two to six watts of energy — fairly small fry in the grand scheme of our household’s energy usage.

However, if you’re a grab-and-go kind of person who’s always forgetting to unplug their charger when not in use, you could be wasting up to 0.5 watts an hour. If this happens all day every day for 365 days a year, you stand to waste 4,380 watts of energy — or around 730 full smartphone charges.

When put in context, this type of energy wastage should not be overlooked, so unplug next time your phone’s fully charged.

The tumble dryer

Our busy lives mean we all want to get our everyday household tasks done quickly and efficiently. As a result, many households make frequent use of a tumble dryer. However, the tumble dryer is actually one of the most expensive household items to use.

According to British Gas, the average tumble dryer costs owners around £30 to £40 per annum, producing between 129kg and 175kg of CO2. As you can see, this isn’t the environmentally or wallet-friendly option.

It’s easy to cut this energy usage in the summer. Drying laundry outside is a great way to eliminate the need for this energy-hungry appliance, helping to minimise your usage to just the winter months. If you’re looking to buy one, always choose the tumble dryer with a high energy-efficiency rating.

Overloading sockets

While it is important to be in the know about energy usage, it’s also important that we use our appliances safely. We’re all guilty of overloading sockets without even knowing, but doing so can be particularly dangerous, causing your appliances to overheat and potentially even cause a fire.

So how do you know if your extension plugs are teetering on the danger line? It can be difficult to work out, but Gentoo, in conjunction with the Electrical Safety Council, has made it easy with their socket overload calculator. This interactive tool is perfect for discovering what’s safe and what’s not.

These small changes won’t change the world overnight but, if we all work collectively, we can help our home nations to smash the new 2030 energy efficiency target. 

Bikes Outsell Cars

Apparently, in 26 out of the 28 EU countries, bikes outsold cars in 2012. There’s an article about it here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25209551.

There are obvious economic reasons for what’s happening here. Cars are far more expensive to buy and run than bikes. With rising fuel costs and wide spread economic hardship, bikes are an obvious way of saving money. Why spend on a gym subscription when you can cycle to work and save money on both? For anyone interested in improving their health and fitness, swapping  a stressful short commute a bike ride is an obvious choice.

There are other practical reasons though. While cars sit in congestion, bikes can slip through, taking advantage of cycle paths and bike lanes, towpaths and other shortcuts. You don’t need to find a car sized space to leave your bike in, and usually you won’t pay to chain it up somewhere, either.

Cycling gives you a liberty that cars just can’t provide any more. The road is not a place of freedom or delight, and is often stressful, while the cycle path tends to be a quiet, enjoyable and safer space. Stroud has a lot of good cycle paths and the towpath, making cycling or walking a lot more fun than sitting in a queue.

Many people are turning to bikes for environmental reasons, too. Bikes do not create noise pollution or on-going air pollution. You don’t need to tarmac over vast expanses of countryside for cyclists. Bikes and pedestrians make for much friendlier urban spaces than an endless stream of cars do. On a bike, you get to be sociable. The personal advantages of both walking and cycling, are huge.

In London, Green Peer Jenny Jones is calling for 20mph speed limits to make roads safer for cyclists. https://www.london.gov.uk/media/assembly-member-press-releases/green-party/2013/12/news-from-jenny-jones-am-one-in-five-cyclists-have-abandoned We’re ahead here in Stroud, with 20mph limits in Randwick, Whiteshill and Ruscombe. Now plans are underway to get 20mph limits into more of Stroud – further information here. http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/extra/article/115270/Stroud-20mph-Speed-Limit-Proposal

It’s great that more people are cycling. However, for that to work, we have to support cyclists by making sure they are safe. Cyclists are really exposed compared to vehicle drivers, and recent tragic deaths in London demonstrate that it’s not enough to encourage people onto bikes. We need some political effort to make sure cycling is a safe, and therefore viable choice, right across the country.

What has the European Union ever done for us?

Below is a letter by Sid Phelps of the Forest of Dean Green party, which is such a splendid mix of wit and wisdom that I felt it needed sharing here.

 

Letter

Last week’s letter from the UK Independence Party reminded me of Monty Python’s Life of Brian sketch where Reg the Briton asks the prosaic question: What have the Romans ever done for us?

Well, what has EU membership ever done for us? Well if you discount peace between member states for the last fifty years then there’s legislation that protects our environment; landfill, wildlife, habitats, water-quality, air quality, reduction of climate change gases  etc; and there’s workers’ rights - ensuring paid holidays, health & Safety protection at work, equal treatment for part-time workers & women and protection when businesses are sold.

But don’t listen to the Greens or the Left. Even in a recent CBI survey, 8 out of 10 firms believe we have a better future within Europe than out of it.*

Admittedly, not everything about the EU is perfect – bureaucracy, inefficiency and accountability being major problems; but as we go into the campaign for the European elections next May, let’s think about whether or not we are, like Reg the Briton – glossing over the major achievements over the last 40 years of the EU just because a minority of us simply don’t like Europe.

* http://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2013/09/8-out-of-10-firms-say-uk-must-stay-in-eu-cbi-yougov-survey/

 

 

 

If you want to see those positive aspects of the EU supported, Molly Scott Cato is the local Green candidate for European election in 2014.

Molly for Europe

 

The European elections aren’t until next year – 22nd May 2014, and while that may still feel like a very long way off, things are already happening. The Green Party in the Southwest has chosen its candidates and now the work begins to put Green policies in front of people.  The lead candidate for the South West is our own Molly Scott Cato and if Twitter is anything to go by, people of Stroud are already showing a lot of love for Molly.

Molly leads the Green Group on Stroud District Council. She is Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at Roehampton University, the Green Party’s national speaker on finance and an international expert on green economics. Molly represented the Green Party on the “No to the Euro” campaign and is a regular commentator on the Eurozone crisis via her personal blog, Gaian Economics (http://gaianeconomics.blogspot.co.uk/ ).

Molly says, “I am deeply concerned that the Eurozone crisis is creating tensions and threatening the peace project that lies at the heart of my vision of Europe. I believe I can communicate the vision that Europe needs: of peace, prosperity and happy settled lives within a healthy environment, rather than competition and the endless quest for more.

There is a significant risk that if we don’t get the politics right, the political pressure for a referendum on leaving the EU will build, and the Union that has provided us with security and protection throughout our lives will start to break up. Restoring public support relies on increasing the democratic accountability of the European institutions and, crucially, on switching the focus to stability and away from the corporate single market.

My knowledge of economics can offer something important to the Green Group in the European Parliament at this time. I would like to join the likes of Sven Giegold and Philippe Lamberts, working to constrain the power of the ‘banksters’ and share wealth more equally, whilst remembering that nature is the true source of all our wealth.”

Molly was brought up in Bath and has lived in the West Country for most of her life. She holds a degree in PPE from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from Aberystwyth University. She has three children.

There are Green Members of the European Parliament from all over Europe, coming to the table with broadly similar aims and ideas around sustainable living and a fairer future. Molly would be a powerful voice in that mix. A European Parliament that delivers for the people of Europe has to be about far more than big business and keeping the bankers happy. A good quality of life, real peace and real security are what we all need. We can make that happen.