The updated version of the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group’s pamphlet One million climate jobs was launched on Thursday evening in the House of Commons , a large building in central London which is a shrine to tacky Victorian bling and British imperialism. It also has a mouse problem or, depending on your perspective, the mice have a Con Dem problem.
Under an immense painting of King Alfred inciting the Saxons to prevent the landing of the Danes (sic) Green MP Caroline Lucas, Jonathan Neale for the campaign, the TUC’s Philip Pearson, John Mc Donnell and Chris Baugh of the PCS set out the arguments. Here is a slightly random account of some of what they said.
Jonathan kicked off. The pamphlet argues that the government should hire one million people in a year to work in jobs that will reduce the amount of carbon that goes into the atmosphere. This would cost what by current standards is a paltry £18-20bn. As Jonathan said, if the planet was a bank it would be too big to fail and governments would find the cash with no trouble at all. He observed that although we have grown used to thinking that catastrophic climate change is a generation or so away it may be on us sooner than we think. As evidence he pointed to the floods in Pakistan, the failure of the Asian monsoons and the droughts in Syria and Iraq which have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Caroline Lucas welcomed the rapprochement between trade unionists, Greens and environmental activists which has happened in recent years and went on to suggest that workers need to be involved in planning a carbon neutral future. In her opinion the pamphlet provides the answer to the question "what’s your alternative?" Although she did use the expression "win win solution" and appeared to mean it she made up for this lapse by raising the question of what kind of development and growth are possible on a planet with finite resources, an issue a handsome, charming and articulate contributor explored a bit further in the discussion from the floor.
Philip Pearson from the TUC argued that the Con Dems will axe one million jobs with their cuts strategy and the losses will be equally divided between the private and public sectors. He went into some detail about the impact of Con Dem policy on even the modest efforts at carbon reduction made by New Labour.
Kondratieff probably doesn’t get many shout outs in parliamentary committee rooms but John McDonnell began by quibbling with his timings. John reckons that big crises and opportunities come along every twenty five rather than fifty years. He also described how some of the new Tory intake laughed when he said to them "I’m not a Keynsian, I’m a Marxist". For John it’s a classic capitalist crisis straight out of Capital vol.2. The ruling class is trying to increase the rate of profit by driving down wage and creating a reserve army of labour and the cuts that they plan to make will exacerbate climate change.
Next week, he explained, the debate on cuts will move from abstraction to reality for millions of people.He predicted that this is only the first wave and the markets will force Osborne to return next spring with more. For our side this is a moment of potential opportunity.and a chance to move the debate onto how the system has failed. The unions will be the site of the most consistent source of mass opposition and the growing connection between the unions and the environmental movement is a big step forward.
John reckons that we are now entering a revolutionary period in which millions will begin to question how the capitalist system works. He wasn’t implying that the overthrow of the bourgeoisie is just around the corner but he was clear that the coalition is pretty fragile and that the Lib Dems are starting to ask themselves what exactly they are doing.
The kindest thing he had to say about the new shadow cabinet is that they are blank sheets of paper and career politicians with no ideology. That’s pretty generous. In fact he was a bit vague about who some of them were. However his point was that if there is a big enough movement they will absorb some of its politics and demands. Oh yeah, he said that we might have expected to be grateful that a former climate change minister is now Labour leader. But he pointed out "that toaster supported the new runway at Heathrow". I think he said "toaster". It definitely started with "t" and ended with "er".
Last up was Chris Baugh of the PCS but by this point I’d stopped taking notes. You’ll just have to accept my assurance that Chris spoke a lot of sense.
Climate change is still the major danger faced by the working class and poor of the world. This pamphlet is a modest step in building a movement to offer a solution that favours the interests of the majority of humanity. For that reason it’s important and you should order a load of copies for your union branch.
Liam redux 
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