Note who made this call, Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund, Robert Zoellick of the World Bank and Pascal Lamy of the World Trade Organisation. They were joined by the heads of eight other multinational and regional organisations including the World Health Organisation, the International Labour Organisation, and the UN World Food Programme.

The people who have forced governments to adopt austerity cuts with the claim that they were necessary to ‘solve the global economic crisis’ have woken up to the fact that such cuts, unequally applied across society as they are, risk damaging social cohesion, and as they say, lead to ‘negative economic and social consequences.’ They are now calling on governments to reappraise their aggressive deficit reduction programmes appealing to them to apply what they call ‘fiscal consolidation’ in a ‘socially responsible manner.’

Of course this is not an open admission of guilt or a full recognition that the austerity packages were misguided. To do that would risk destabilising those governments that have, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, adopted such policies. Rather than execute the necessary U-turn and encourage Governments to start investing in the green economy, they want to see public-private financial partnerships to generate the investment they see as necessary to secure economic growth. In other words, they want to see private companies given access to what remains of the public coffers. Their focus remains on public sector finances and they fail to acknowledge that it was corporate and private sector debt driven by the needs of the consumer economy that precipitated the crisis. They fail to see that the private investor needs a strong ‘steer’ from Governments’ own investment programmes. They think that pious calls to all to play fair by the rules of globalisation to secure ‘growth’ will avert the bigger crisis that most new recognise is yet to come.

It would appear from reports that the World Economic Forum was itself dominated by concerns for the Euro-zone and public finances, and who was throwing the best parties. Here the real business of Davos was conducted, deals made that would make the rich richer, and projects floated that would further deplete the world stock of natural capital, and that would continue to leave millions of people desperate for the basic means of survival.

The Davos jamboree is a sham, it will not find solutions because it is a product of the problem with its exclusivity and shameful conspicuous consumerism. It has nothing new to offer and its only idea is ‘growth’ demonstrating how still economists fail to grasp the fact that the Earth is round not flat. If Christine and her colleagues are serious about equality and greening the global economy, they are wasting their time and damaging their digestive systems at Davos.

But in truth, Davos isn’t about finding solutions, despite the pious ‘statement’. It’s about power. About ensuring that the economic power that underpins political power is held firmly in private hands. It is about ensuring that by the time policy comes to the floor of democratically elected parliaments, it is already decided – like the austerity packages. Better solutions are available, and if they were implemented the economy would respond – because the economy isn’t the problem, it is the means to deliver the agreed programme. At the present, the agreed programme is private wealth and the control of global power. Davos Man may be starting to recognise that climate change, mass unemployment, water, food and energy shortages are a threat to his world, but he is not prepared to do anything effective to counter them, he prefers to fiddle with the economy while the world heats up.

Once again, it is down to us, the affected majority, to take things forward, each of us taking small steps, a myriad of small steps globally creating an unstoppable forward momentum. Once again world leadership, this time in the guise of the World Economic Forum, has failed us.

[Mike Shipley, February 2012]

The one event that will interest them from 2011 hardly made the press let alone the headlines: the Durban Conference of the Parties number 17. They will then turn straight to number 18 in Qatar, having read with incredulity about COP16 in Copenhagen. How could the world leaders so callously ignore the clear evidence of science and willingly accept a temperature rise of 3°C, in the full knowledge that this would surely trigger a further rise to 4°C with a strong possibility of a resetting of the global thermostat at 6°C above the long term Holocene average. The people of 2050 will be living with the reality that CO2 levels will not have been stabilised at 550ppm and they will know then that that level was far too high, as a majority of scientists in 2011 warned.

What will not be hitting the headlines in 2012 is the end of the first accounting period of the Kyoto protocol, which started in 2005. This period should have seen the developed nations cutting their emissions by 5% of 1990 levels. It should have seen emissions beginning to stabilise and a new accounting period launched in 2013 to see emissions brought to a level consistent with no more than a 2°C rise in average global temperatures.

What has in fact happened is that global emissions have grown by 49% since 1990. Last year, despite the global recession and 20 years of so called ‘climate negotiations’, they grew by 5.9%. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now higher than they have been for 800,000 years and the climate is responding.

Even if all the pledges that have been made at the plethora of international conferences were kept, the journal ‘Nature Climate Change’ found that emissions would continue to rise at about 3% per year. These ‘pledges’ – including America’s ‘pledge of a 2-3% cut’ – are totally inadequate, and our leaders know it. Ahead of the Durban talks, the International Energy Agency, by no means a green organization, said this: ‘The world has only five years to seriously start replacing fossil fuels by low carbon energy and energy efficiency. Failure to make the required investment by 2017 would ‘lock in’ high future emissions to such an extent that the 2°C goal would become unattainable

Those politicians and lobbyists who set out to frustrate negotiations and block the required action, have closed the door on stabilisation at or below 2°C. They have also closed the door on the second accounting period from 2013, the corporate capitalists did not want it and they rule the planet. Even though they didn’t actually manage to kill off the Kyoto treaty in Durban, which is what they wanted, it is as good as dead and there will be no binding agreements until at least 2020. Nothing will happen by 2017, 2°C is unattainable. Our leaders have failed us, they have rolled over in front of the corporate capitalists and their lobbyists, preferring self interest instead of the welfare of humanity. They may be feeling pleased with them selves, living their lives of sumptuous luxury, but history will not be kind to them.

And our response, the response of the people whose lives will be most affected by the failure to curb carbon emissions? That is something that those who read history in 2050 will also be interested to understand.

Consider our own judgement of people who lived amid the gathering clouds of crisis, in 1930’s Europe for example. Why, we might wonder, did most people of the time do nothing? Why did they turn away as neighbours were dragged from their homes, why didn’t they ask about those who disappeared? How could they voice agreement with the lies and deceit of their governments, or merely sit silent, witnessing the manifest wrongs, but doing nothing. What, we might ask, would we do among the gathering clouds of crisis? What are we doing amid the lies and deceit of the climate denialists who control most of popular media? What are we doing when given the clear information that contemporary political policy is flawed and risks serious conflict in the future. What happens when we are given the choice at elections, the choice of business as usual or the choice of a clear programme that would head off the danger? What happened in 2010 in the UK, in 2011 in Spain, Italy and Greece? The electorate turned to the right and ignored the warnings, voted to hold on desperately to their own comforts and conveniences, choosing to ignore or deny the crisis that the next generation will have to face.

The ordinary people of Europe in the mid 1930’s possibly thought that they were acting in the best interests of their children, how could they have thought otherwise? But through their inaction and denial, they condemned their children to the bloodiest war ever fought over the face of the Earth. People today make similar claims, we must protect jobs, we must protect the economy, cutting emissions is just too costly, holds too many risks with jobs to be able to address at this time. So they condemn their children to face the frightening possibility of escalating temperatures, to the spread of uninhabitable regions, and to the unknown experience of ecological collapse.

This is one version of future history – it is the outcome of ‘business as usual’. But there is another version of history, a version that must be written by the actions of ordinary people. We must not sit passively by and let this global catastrophe unfold, we have to challenge the deceit of the denialists and take action to counter the ineptitude of our leaders. The sheer courage of ordinary people across the Middle East gives us an inspirational lead. Throughout history small groups have similarly acted with courage to confront the wrongs of entrenched and powerful interests. From Tolpuddle and Peterloo to Occupy Wall Street, those self-serving interests have been, and will be forced to concede ground to the demands of ordinary people. But they will give nothing willingly.

Time is running out, the storm clouds are gathering. Our false political leaders and their commercial puppet masters have made it abundantly clear over the last 20 years that they are not going to do anything other than continue to con us into believing that they are acting in our best interests. It is up to us now to fight the battle to prevent dangerous climate change, to close the ever widening gap between the super rich and those in poverty, and to bring about the necessary political and economic change.

Green minded and fair minded people know that there is a better way forward, together, but only together, we can, we must, take that path. Our actions can and must determine history.

[Mike Shipley January 2012]

David Foster, Chair of Derbyshire Green Party, has urged householders to install solar panels as soon as they can. Following newspaper reports and mistakenly leaked documents, it has become clear that the Government has plans to halve the Feed-In Tariffs for solar photovoltaic panels.

Currently people can claim 43 pence for every kilowatt of electricity they generate off their roof but the government now plans to cut this to around 21p from the beginning of December, with the possibility of even deeper cuts to follow.  The feed-in tariff scheme was introduced in April 2010 and has seen over 80,000 solar installations, the creation of more than 22,000 jobs and almost 4,000 new businesses.

David Foster  said,

“If people install solar panels now before the cut is due to take place in December then they will get the 43p rate for the next 25 years if they were to install them after that they would get less than half that.”

The Green Party claims that this cut will jeopardise currently planned free solar schemes for people unable to afford the upfront costs of solar panels as well as planned schemes for council properties. These are set up to be self-funding under current Feed-In Tariff arrangements but, the Greens say, they may no longer be so after the proposed cut.

Mr. Foster went on to say, “These cuts by the government are nonsensical. Over 25,000 people are employed in the solar industry and these cuts are a threat to these jobs.  The cost of the Feed-In Tariff is very small, less than 50p/year on the average fuel bill and a fraction of the cost of government subsidies of nuclear power stations.   As always, it is those on the lowest incomes who will suffer the most since they will be unable to participate in low-cost solar schemes.  As a result of this cut, it is now almost certain that the Coalition Government will miss the legally binding carbon reduction target for the UK set in the 2008 Climate Change Act.  This government’s claim to be the Greenest Government ever is looking increasingly hollow and lacking in substance.”

John Youatt, the Greens convener in Derbyshire Dales and a founder member of Sustainable Youlgrave said,

“No matter how many Ministers try to justify this cut to the renewable energy programme, it makes no sense either financially or environmentally. The Green Party is unable to understand the logic of this decision. By investing in renewable technologies, not only does the Coalition Government help combat climate change and create jobs, but also it gives Councils a further incentive to help the fuel poor as well as increasing local authority revenue. In my locality, we held a forum and people signed up for panels, but only because the rate was right at under 10 years pay back. At over 15years, people will not invest. “

]]> http://derbyshiregreenparty.org.uk/2011/11/01/greens-condemn-government%e2%80%99s-short-sightedness/feed/ 1 michaeljshipley http://derbyshiregreenparty.org.uk/2011/10/27/caroline-lucas-e-petition-to-promote-tax-and-financial-transparency/ http://derbyshiregreenparty.org.uk/2011/10/27/caroline-lucas-e-petition-to-promote-tax-and-financial-transparency/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:55:32 +0000 patrickralph http://derbyshiregreenparty.org.uk/?p=1096 Continue reading →]]> Please see following message received from Caroline’s Senior Parliamentary Press Officer :

The proposal is to allow traffic to revert to travelling straight across from Curzon Street into Cheapside and Wardwick into Friar Gate.

These manoeuvres were banned at the end of May, except for bikes, buses and taxis, as part of the inner ring road project (Connecting Derby) to create a safer, more pleasant city centre environment for shoppers, and better routes for people travelling through the city on foot, by bike or by bus. Cars are kept to the ring road, apart from to gain access to local areas and cannot not pass right through the city centre.

This proposal is a waste of money, and it is also badly planned and not thought through. The ring road was completed at the end of May and just two weeks later the council leader Philip Hickson declared that they were harming city centre trade and had to be revoked. However, no analysis of the cause of the reduced trade has been carried out, given that cars can still get access to every street they could before; no alternative measures have been considered and there is no evidence to say these changes will bring trade back.

The Connecting Derby project has created some great routes into and around the city centre for cycling and walking, but some of these improvements will be lost after just two months.

Please object in writing quoting:

Objection to the Revoking of Connecting Derby

Traffic Regulation Orders

to these people:

Nicola Weekly  (e-mail  Nicola.Weekly@derby.gov.uk )

Traffic Management Team Leader

Neighbourhoods,

Saxon House,

Friary Street,

Derby DE1 1AN.

AND

Paul Robinson (e-mail   paul.robinson@derby.gov.uk )

Director of Neighbourhoods,

Roman House

Friar Gate

Derby DE1 1XB

Please copy your objection to Councillor Hickson

and all three of your local councillors.

Derby City Councillors – Contact Details

Closure date for objections: Monday 22^nd August 2011

If you want more information:

Key points for objection:

1. A waste of £90,000 undoing recently completed street works, instead of spending it enhancing other parts of Connecting Derby, many of which were suggested by DCG members and given to the council by us.
2. No proper analysis of the cause of a claimed fall in trade in the area has been carried out. We risk implementing something which will not solve the problem.
3. Goes against the objective of creating a safer, more pleasant area for shoppers and for people travelling through by sustainable means
4. This is a blinkered approach to transport planning, with unwarranted bias towards cars (which already have a new ring road) and an abandonment of any notion of an integrated transport policy.
5. A lack of proper consultation, with Councillor Hickson bulldozing his own ideas through, disregarding local democracy.

Please bear in mind the following points relating to this issue:

1. Cars can still access every street they could prior to the inner ring road opening and parking provision is virtually the same as before. The inner ring road has now to be used to get to some streets instead of cutting through the city centre on that tortuous old “ring road”.
2. Some local traders and the Bold Lane car park are reporting reduced trade since the inner ring road opened. However no proper analysis of the cause of this fall in trade has been carried out.
3. Derby Cycling Group are proposing alternative solutions to redress the perceived fall in trade in the Cheapside area, but Councillor Hickson will not consider these.
4. We feel that the recent job losses at Bombardier, Egg and the Post Office will also be affecting trade, we need to know about trade in other parts of the city.
5. Derby Cycling Group have suggested that better signage to the Cathedral Quarter car parks and promotion of the new Connecting Derby road layout could help to restore trade. However, Councillor Hickson has so far not agreed to meet with us to discuss the matter. He has decided by himself what should be done.

A fish rots from the head down and so do nations. We let Fred Goodwin’s bankers off. Greed is good, we were told. So young idiots took note and explored midnight opportunities in the retail sector.

Best story so far is from Dalston where the Turkish Cypriots and Turks of Stoke Newington Road got themselves organised and successfully repelled the mob heading towards Stoke Newington Police Station. Muslims save cops.

There was something rather wonderful about all these incredibly rich, soppy public schoolboys having to break off their holidays in Tuscany as the oiks run wild. In fact, rioting was a lot worse in Toxteth under Thatcher or in Bradford in 2001, but memories fade and I’m sure we’ll have a hue and cry and let’s hope the police can get on top of it.

I want a fairer society not a Big one. I want corporations that pay taxes so that youth projects are funded. An end to greed at the top and their culture of impunity. Will it be like the war on Thatcher? Probably not, but I’m nostalgic already.

Councillor Duncan Kerr

In a late report just released by Bolsover Council the expert members on the Council’s remuneration panel have unanimously backed Cllr Kerr’s claim that the Bolsover’s members have granted themselves excessive allowances and have called for these payments to be slashed by 46% saying “their work cannot be substantially different from members of other authorities”, precisely the point that Cllr Kerr has been campaigning about. Commenting on the development Cllr Kerr said:

“I am grateful that the experts on this panel have been brave enough to stand up and speak the truth that Bolsover Councillors, led by its Labour administration, have been helping themselves to far too much of the tax-payers money. By my reckoning during the four year term of the last council members took in total over £1M more in allowances when compared to some other authorities. This is money that could, and should, have been spent on delivering services. We will wait and see whether the Council accepts this report and apologises to the people of Bolsover.”

Whilst Cllr Kerr is supportive of the Panel’s view on basic remuneration he is concerned to see that they propose substantial increases in the “Special Allowances” paid to some Councillors such as the Leader, Cabinet and Committee Chairs by 31% in some cases and 94% in others. Commenting on this Duncan said:

“Whilst the panel have collected data from six other similar authorities near-by to make their recommendations they do not appear to have taken any account of the fact that all these authorities have significantly higher populations (on average over a third higher) than Bolsover. If this had been taken into account several of these special allowances would not go down not up, so I will be asking them to reconsider their recommendations”.

Ends.
———————————————————————————-
Cllr Duncan Kerr is a Green Party Councillor representing the Whitwell ward on Bolsover District Council. He was elected in May 2011

Email: DuncanKerr@Bolsover.gov.uk  or Kerr.duncan@hotmail.co.uk
Tel: 07522116609 or 01909 726349

The Bolsover Council meeting is at 10am on Wednesday 20th July, in Sherwood Lodge, Bolsover. Agenda item 14 refers and it was issued on the 14th July, three days after Cllr Kerr’s question was submitted.

Further information on other activities and a copy of the question Cllr Kerr has placed on the Council agenda for the 20th July is on his blog www.greeninbolsover.blogspot.com

Councillor Duncan Kerr

13th July 2011 not embargoed

Duncan was elected for the Green Party to represent Whitwell on Bolsover Council two months ago but has been appalled by the selfish practices of the controlling Labour group. He will be calling Cllr Eion Watts the Leader of the Council to account by posing a question at the Council meeting in Sherwood Lodge, Bolsover on Wednesday the 20th July.

Duncan said “I am determined to expose the scandalous practices that have turned Bolsover into a rotten borough to the embarrassment of  residents, the MP Dennis Skinner and the leadership of the national Labour party who will be as shocked as I was to learn that:

Duncan says “I may be a single green voice in a sea of red but I believe that the best disinfectant is the glare of public opinion and I intend to carry on exposing hypocrisy until every Councillor in Bolsover understands that the public will not tolerate excesses here anymore than they have in Westminster. The Labour Councillors need to start putting the needs of communities first before their own pockets. Their actions are crippling residents with high tax bills, creating unnecessary redundancies and dragging down the good name of Bolsover.

If any member of the public or press shares my indignation at this scandalous situation I would urge them to come and show their support at the Council meeting at 10.00 on Wednesday the 20th July in Sherwood Lodge, Bolsover. I’m sure we will all be fascinated to hear what Cllr Eion Watts Leader of the Council has to say”.

Ends.

There will be a photo-call at 9.15am on Wednesday the 20th July at Sherwood Lodge, Bolsover when Duncan will attempt to present a bill for £1 million to the Bolsover Labour party representing the cost to residents of the over-payment of member expenses from 2006 to 2011.

The Green Party has condemned the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government for giving a £3 billion order of new rolling stock for Thameslink trains to Siemens.

The rival bidder, Derby-based Bombardier, has laid off over a thousand workers, as the last remaining train builder in the country. The Bombardier factory in Derby is now under threat, and so are thousands more jobs in the Derby area in other rail businesses that supply the factory.

Green Party transport spokesperson Alan Francis said:

“We need more train carriages and more manufacturing jobs in the UK. Train manufacturing in this country should be expanded, not forced to close down. It is a dereliction of duty by the government to stand by and see the loss of skills and jobs.”

Derbyshire Green Party Chairman David Foster said:

“The coalition government is playing political football with the livelihoods of thousands of people in Derby and Derbyshire. One of the most worrying aspects of this deplorable decision is that it continues the trend of dismantling the whole engineering industry and technical know-how in this country. We have already witnessed the demise of the British automotive industry and rely heavily on foreign manufacturers. If we don’t wake up to what is happening, we risk losing our national engineering heritage. I urge the people of Derby and Derbyshire to show their opposition to this decision and come to the rally in Derby on Saturday 23 July.”

At a pre-general-election rail debate in Westminster in 2010 (1), Alan Francis was the only politician to argue not only for more train carriages for the rail network, but to also to state that they should be built in the UK to preserve British jobs.

Francis was on a panel with Chris Mole, then a Labour government transport minister, Stephen Hammond, then a Conservative shadow transport minister, and Norman Baker, then a Lib Dem shadow transport minister. The debate, before an audience of senior rail industry people, was chaired by the BBC’s Nick Owen.

When questioned about orders for new carriages, all of the panelists claimed that they wanted to see more carriages on the network. But Francis was the only one to talk about building those new carriages in this country. Alan Francis said today:

“This shows that all three of the main parties are so wedded to the free market, they are willing to sacrifice British manufacturing and British jobs. After the debate, I was congratulated by a member of the audience from a Derby rail company. He thanked me for being the only panellist to raise the issue of train building in this country.”

Mike Whittall was elected to Codnor Parish Council (Amber Valley) uncontested.

Paula Rea was elected to Ault Hucknall Parish Council (Bolsover) uncontested.