Decarbonising 2: Will Green ISAs and Brit ISAs help Homeowners Energy Trial?

Virtually all the funds and the larger scale projects to reduce carbon emissions that are being carried out on existing buildings are understandably for the fuel poor. However, this leaves nearly two thirds of the UK’s 28 million private housing stock virtually untouched.

At the end of last year Colin Hines* (above) set up a Homeowners Energy Action Trial (HEAT) in his street. Over 20 households tried to address this fact.

They got Energy Performance Certificates  and exchanged ideas about the best ways to make their homes energy efficient. A presentation by Octopus Energy and a visit to its research centre convinced them that the best way to reduce their homes’ carbon emission substantially was to fit heat pumps. However the estimated cost to pay for installing a heat pump and the accompanying changes needed in their houses – £10,000 in addition to the government grant – is a deterrent.

A massive increase in heat pump installation is needed

On behalf of the Green New Deal group, Colin Hines and Richard Murphy gave evidence to the House of Commons Energy Security & Net Zero Select Committee inquiry which covered areas such as funding the rapid transition to heat pumps. Proposals included using the NS&I’s Green Savings Bonds that the government plans to issue this financial year and a proposal to introduce Green ISAs.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is hoping to persuade more people to take advantage of the tax-free Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) and is considering setting up Brit ISAs to invest on London-listed companies. In an FT article on the subject, Helen Thomas comments, “Home bias is back in fashion”. And many people would prefer the use of proposed Brit ISAs, together with government’s green bonds, to assist a programme of investment, benefitting homeowners, increasing the shift to renewable energy.

The Welsh government is leading the way to decarbonise  social housing in Wales with its Optimised RetroFit Programme. The UK government’s preferred procedure for its social housing retrofit  obliges local authorities to spend – and potentially waste – many hours and thousands of pounds preparing bids for such assistance.

Colin Hines points out that the Climate Change Committee anticipates energy efficiency will only account for 8% of the reduction in residential emissions by 2050. By contrast, installing low-carbon heating (either at building scale or via heat networks) will account for 87% of emissions reductions by 2050 – more than ten times the carbon savings of insulation.

Such a programme of investment would create jobs, support households with the net-zero transition and restore confidence in the UK’s ability to meet its obligations on climate change.

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*Colin Hines was co-ordinator of Greenpeace International’s Economics Unit for 10 years and is now the convenor of the Green New Deal Group,

 

 

 

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Will the Conservative Net Zero Scrutiny Group undermine the government’s net zero agenda?

Colin Hines, writing in his capacity as convener of the UK Green New Deal Group, has drawn attention to the activities of the Conservative MPs and peers in the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) who have been attempting to undermine the government’s stated climate efforts.

They are linking the government’s net zero agenda to the cost-of-living crisis – calling for cuts to green taxes and an increase in fossil fuel production (read more about the group here). Opposite, group leader MP Graig Mackinlay.

Members of the NZSG are just a small minority of MPs – the net zero agenda is supported by hundreds of parliamentarians, from all major parties and from all reions of the country. Read more in this LSE article.

Hines rebuts their campaign in the Guardian:

“The fact is that a just transition to net zero is easily affordable, and poorer people and the increasingly squeezed middle class won’t have to suffer in the process.
“Of course, a windfall tax on Shell’s and BP’s present licence to print money is a key first step, but the question is, where will the bulk of the many tens of billions that are required come from?
“The key to answering this is to realise that the entire cost of tackling the Covid crisis was funded by a £450bn expansion of the quantitative easing programme.
“This money creation programme now needs to be expanded again to fund a post-Covid recovery that tackles not just the climate emergency, but also the cost-of-living crisis and the inequality of social provision.

“Also crucial will be the use of government incentivised savings, such as pensions and ISAs, and a fairer taxation system to help achieve these goals. This combined use of QE, savings and tax, should be encapsulated in a political rallying call for a QuEST to fund a sustainable future”.

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See also Monbiot.

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Revitalise democracy to build a stronger and more peaceful country

Nancy Platts (right), a Brighton councillor, says: “There is increasing momentum for change both in unions and the Labour Party. It’s time to replace Westminster’s broken set-up and extend the progressive voting systems we see in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into Westminster”. Read on here)

In the Guardian, Colin Hines says that to avoid what he sees as ‘a corrosive and permanent Tory democratic dictatorship’,  opposition parties in vulnerable constituencies must make clear that once there is a non-Tory majority elected, the new parliament’s first act will be to change the voting system to an agreed form of proportional representation.

A new report on the benefits of the case for fair votes makes clear that the experience of councils in Scotland as well as governments across Europe shows that proportional voting systems – where every vote counts – help to foster ‘consensual’ politics, where unions and civil society are included as key players:

“When every vote counts – with seats matching how people really vote – parties don’t just pander to wealthier swing seats and a handful of influential voters. They have to win support across the board”.

Molly Scott Cato has long campaigned for democratic reform in the UK – for ‘changing our outmoded electoral system to one that is truly representative’. She advocates exploring ‘possibilities for electoral alliances and pacts where we can agree on a progressive programme and commitment to proportional representation . . . ‘, ending prophetically:

“These are dark days but by showing each other compassion and by standing together in support of a revitalised democracy we can find a way to build a stronger and more peaceful country”.

 

 

 

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Post COP26: Climate QE would keep the 1.5C alive during the year before COP27

Colin Hines has drawn attention to a crucial, but shamefully under-reported argument made at the Glasgow COP by Mia Amor Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, which is under threat from rising sea levels (EU Observer)

“The central banks of the wealthiest countries engaged in $25 trillion of quantitative easing in the last 13 years. Of that, $9 trillion was spent in the last 18 months to fight the pandemic.

“Had we used that $25 trillion to finance the energy transition we would now be reaching that 1.5 degrees limit that is so vital to us.” 

John Vidal, the Guardian’s veteran environmental correspondent, also made the same point in his analysis of the shortfalls of COP26, stating that within a few weeks trillions of QE were found by the rich world to tackle the banking and Covid crisis and asking why it can’t be used for the climate crisis

It is clear that massive upfront money is URGENTLY required to respond to the global climate and nature emergency. The advantage of Climate QE is the speed at which trillions can be made available by central banks printing money, and since it doesn’t need to be paid back to any lenders, it can be invested as grants.

Private and public loans for such areas as the shift to renewables, with a clear financial profit potential, can be covered by those private and public investment sources requiring a return.

In a Guardian letter, Richard Murphy and Colin Hines added that the prime minister of Barbados said “The central banks of the wealthiest countries engaged in $25tn of quantitative easing in the last 13 years. Of that, $9tn was spent in the last 18 months to fight the pandemic.

Some of the Climate QE will allow trillions to be rapidly used to help fund a transition that does not make the majority poorer in the rich countries, enhancing political support for the transformation required. The majority must of course be used for funding the massive mitigation and the transition programme required by poorer countries.

As Hines and Murphy say, civil society which will play a crucial role in keeping 1.5 alive in the run up to the next COP in Egypt, should focus on Mia Amor Mottley’s call for ‘Climate QE’.

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Keir Starmer: learn from the convenor of Britain’s Green New Deal Group

Future QE can and must fund aspects of the economy that need investment.

Colin Hines, Convenor of the UK Green New Deal Group (right), has been prompted to comment on an assertion by New Statesman journalist Philip Collins, that Labour needs to work out what it means to be a social democrat without money (The Public Square, 6 November). He writes:

Keir Starmer needs to understand that money is not the problem, but what it is spent on, and who gains.

To help to cope with the fallout from coronavirus, the government turned to the Bank of England to inject £150bn of newly created electronic money into the economy via Quantitative Easing.

What politicians and activists need to grasp is that the previous £745billion of QE already spent or announced has not made extra demands on the taxpayer, increased government borrowing or resulted in rising inflation (which is expected to remain historically low).

However, this new money has not achieved improved conditions for the majority. Instead, it has been used predominantly to boost the property assets and shares of the wealthier sections of society.

Future QE must fund aspects of the economy that need investment. It could form part of a Covid exit strategy: not only providing short-term support for the hospitality, entertainment, retail and tourism sectors, but also financing longer-term measures that deal with regional inequality, repair our threadbare social infrastructure and tackle the climate crisis.

 

 

 

 

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“The world’s economy can and must deliver for the common good and the majority of its people”

A year ago, Colin Hines and Jonathon Porritt challenged the “permanent propping up of whole sectors of our economy as a direct result of our failure to train people properly here in the UK”.

They called for the training of enough IT experts, doctors, nurses and carers from our own population to “prevent the shameful theft of such vital staff from the poorer countries which originally paid for their education”.

Mass migration from developing countries deprives those places of the young, enterprising, dynamic citizens they desperately need at home

Dependence on the free movement of peoples as practised in the UK is the opposite of internationalism, since it implies that we will continue to employ workers from other countries in agriculture and service industries and steal doctors, nurses, IT experts etc from poorer countries, rather than train enough of our own.

Many individuals who migrate have experienced multiple stresses that can impact their mental well-being

Professor Dinesh Bhugrah is an authority on the stresses of migration.  Years of research have revealed that the rates of mental illness are increased in some migrant groups. Stresses include the loss of the familiar, including language (especially colloquial and dialect), attitudes, values, loss of cultural norms, religious customs, social structures and support networks.

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Porritt and Hines advocate – like former Chancellor Merkel – a redoubling of our commitments to improve people’s economic and social prospects in their own countries, tackling the root causes of why people feel they have no choice but to leave family, friends and communities in the first place. 

They advocate the replacement of the so-called free market with an emphasis on rebuilding local economies . . . dramatically lessening the need for people to emigrate in the first case. Hines gives a route to localization in his classic: Localization: a global manifesto, pages 63-67.

The seven basic steps to be introduced, over a suitable transition period are:

• Reintroduction of protective safeguards for domestic economies (tariffs, quotas etc);
• a site-here-to-sell-here policy for manufacturing and services domestically or regionally;
• localising money so that the majority stays within its place of origin;
• enforcing a local competition policy to eliminate monopolies from the more protected economies;
• introduction of resource taxes to increase environmental improve­ments and help fund the transition to Protect the Local, Globally;
• increased democratic involvement both politically and economi­cally to ensure the effectiveness and equity of the movement to more diverse local economies;
• reorientation of the end goals of aid and trade rules so that they contribute to the rebuilding of local economies and local control, particularly through the global transfer of relevant information and technology.

Since that book was written, a gifted group of people set out the Green New Deal which – though aimed initially at transforming the British economy – is valid for all countries and most urgently needed in the poorest countries from which people feel impelled to emigrate.

Funded by fairer taxes, savings, government expenditure and if necessary green quantitative easing, it addresses the need to develop ‘green energy’ and ‘energy-proofing’ buildings, creating new jobs, a reliable energy supply and slowing down the rate of climate change.

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Likeminded advocates 

Senator Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest person ever to be elected in Congress, now advocate a Green New Deal in the US.

Professor John Roberts, in one of the newsletters posted on http://www.jrmundialist.org/ says: “Increasingly my thoughts return to the overwhelming need for all of us to think (and then act) as world citizens, conscious of a primary loyalty not to our local nationalism but to the human race (however confused and divided) as a whole”.

Jonathon Porritt quotes Alistair Sawday: “I remembered that the skills and the policies to reverse the damage are there; it is a matter of will – and of all of us waking up.

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, which has developed the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to transform our world,, urges all to work to “…Narrow the gaps. Bridge the divides. Rebuild trust by bringing people together around common goals. Unity is our path. Our future depends on it.” –

Jeremy Corbyn addressed the General Assembly at the United Nations Geneva headquarters last year. He concluded:

“The world’s economy can and must deliver for the common good and the majority of its people. . . But let us be clear: the long-term answer is genuine international cooperation based on human rights, which confronts the root causes of conflict, persecution and inequality . . . The world demands the UN Security Council responds, becomes more representative and plays the role it was set up to on peace and security. We can live in a more peaceful world. The desire to help create a better life for all burns within us. Governments, civil society, social movements and international organisations can all help realise that goal. We need to redouble our efforts to create a global rules based system that applies to all and works for the many, not the few.

“With solidarity, calm leadership and cooperation we can build a new social and economic system with human rights and justice at its core, deliver climate justice and a better way to live together on this planet, recognise the humanity of refugees and offer them a place of safety. Work for peace, security and understanding. The survival of our common humanity requires nothing less”.

 

 

 

 

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A progressive alliance with progressive policies

Christine Parkinson has drawn attention to an article in the Guardian, in which MPs Clive Lewis and Caroline Lucas  express a profound sense of frustration and dismay about the Conservative victories won by narrow margins in places such as St Ives, Richmond Park and Hastings. They pointed out that if every progressive voter had placed their X tactically, Jeremy Corbyn would now be prime minister with a majority of over 100.

Highlights from their article

The regressive alliance we see forming before our eyes between the Conservatives and the DUP can only be fully countered by a progressive alliance on the opposition benches and if we work together there is nothing progressives can’t achieve. The limits of the old politics are there for everyone to see – the limitlessness of the new we are just starting to explore.

More than 40 electoral alliances, in which people across parties cooperated on tickets including support for proportional representation and the common goal of preventing Conservative candidates winning, were pulled together quickly for the snap election. People from different parties worked together to ‘do politics differently’ and there was a sense that politics has become hopeful and positive again.

We shouldn’t forget the challenges we face:

• markets that are too free,
• a state that can be too remote,
• a democracy that still leaves so many voices unheard
• and change on a scale our people and our planet can’t cope with.

It is going to take a politics that is social, liberal and green to overcome these challenges. No single party or movement has all the answers. We are going to have to learn to cooperate as well as compete to build the society of which we dream. And we are going to have to recognise that the future is not a two-party system but one in which smaller parties grow – both in influence and in their electoral representation.

Colin Hines adds detail: also advocating a progressive alliance of Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid and the Greens he says that they will need to get their ‘policy ducks in a row’ to win it. He continues:“Firstly, these must provide hope, not just for the young, but for every community in the country.

“To do this Jeremy Corbyn must revisit and vigorously shake his people’s QE “money tree”. This could pay for real economic activity on the ground via decentralised infrastructure projects to make the nation’s 30 million buildings energy efficient, ensure a shift to localised renewable energy, and the building of local transport systems.

“Secondly, the divide between young and old must be bridged by policies fostering intergenerational solidarity. Older people with significant saving should be offered “housing bonds”, paying, say, 3% interest to help fund a massive council and affordable homes programme.Tuition fees would be scrapped, but so too must be the threat of having to lose a home to pay for care, or having to scrabble for means-tested benefits such as heating allowances.

“Financed by progressive and fairer wealth and income taxes, and a clampdown on tax dodging, this should have an election-winning appeal to the majority of grandparents, parents and their young relatives”.

 

 

 

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Broken Britain 4: being sold piecemeal to foreign governments and companies

In April, Peter Hitchens eloquently described the way this country is being sold to foreign governments and companies:

“I don’t think any other nation would put up with this. Why do we? The most ridiculous is the way our trains – devastated by John Major’s mad privatisation scheme – are falling into the hands of foreign state railways. So, while the Government cannot bear to have railways run by the British state, it is happy to have them run by the German, Dutch, French or even Hong Kong state systems . . . in this country that invented the railway and once exported equipment and skills around the world.”(Right: Private profit from public loss: NIPSA 2013)

Hitchens summarises:

• Privatised railways’ jaws are clamped firmly to the public teat; when they fail they can just stroll away from the mess they have made.
• British Rail’s trains were faster and more comfortable. It looked after its track far better and – given the money – it would never have made the mess its successors are now making of electrifying the Great Western line, which is years behind schedule, partly abandoned and vastly over budget.
• In the 20 years to 2013, state subsidies to the rail sector roughly tripled in real terms, while fares continued to rise.
• My trains are almost always late, frequently very badly so.
• But they get more expensive all the time.
• those responsible are protected from us by call centres and unresponsive websites, which only talk to us when they want to.

Finally Hitchens adds: “Last week it emerged that SNCF is bidding to operate HS2, a pointless vanity line that should have been cancelled long ago but which the Government is too weak to abandon. So we might be hiring a foreign state railway to run a service we don’t even need, while Britain is full of sizeable towns with no railway station, which could be linked to the national system for a tiny part of the cost of HS2 . . . The idea that our rulers have any idea what they are doing, or can be trusted with our national future, is a joke. They’re just hoping the bailiffs don’t turn up before the Election. But if they do, what have we got left to sell, to pay our bills?”

Hines argues that the Treaty of Rome needs transforming into a ‘Treaty of Home’ that will allow peoples to protect what they hold dear

Rupert Read has described Colin Hines’ ‘feisty clarion call’ for a change of direction away from acquiescence in the deregulated world that spawned the financial crisis and towards protection of nature, workers, localities and sovereignty, resisting rootless international capital.

As Read says, Hines’ policy of Progressive Protectionism will surely be part of a socially and environmentally viable future: crucial thought-leadership away from the political dead-end of globalisationist fantasy.

 

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Read’s review (text here) will be published in the Ecologist, May/June issue, see Contents https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/55993/spread/5

 

Seeking food supplies from Turkey and Morocco? Time for change!

On BBC Radio 4 today it was reported that some supermarkets are limiting sales of fruit and vegetables.

A newspaper elaborates: “Morrisons and Tesco have limited the amount of lettuce and broccoli after flooding and snow hit farms in Spain. Shortages of other household favourites – including cauliflower, cucumbers, courgettes, oranges, peppers and tomatoes – are also expected. Prices of some veg has rocketed 40% due to the freak weather. Sainsburys admitted weather has also affected its stocks”.

HortiDaily reports on frost in Europe in detail (one of many pictures below) and the search for supplies from Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia.

A former Greenpeace Economist foresees these and more persistent problems in his latest book, Progressive Protectionism.

Read on: https://foodvitalpublicservice.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/seeking-food-supplies-from-turkey-time-for-change/

 

 

 

Brexit 1: Will players in the global casino make rich pickings from Brexit?

Worthy souls produce food, some produce goods, some help to build or repair, some produce energy and some speculate on commodities. Others gamble on the markets, taking a loan to borrow shares and selling them in the hope that the price will fall, then buying the shares at a lower price, repaying the loan and pocketing the difference.

Paul Marshall is chairman and chief investment officer of Marshall Wace, a London hedge fund which is said to have made an immense profit in this way.

He rejoiced in the outcome of the referendum: “British business has broken free from Little Europe” seeing a future “punctuated by the exciting agreements that Britain forges as it becomes a beacon of free trade” and recreates a Commonwealth “Anglosphere”.

Dr Robert Falkner (LSE), whose research focuses on global political economy, global environmental politics, and the role of business in international relations, points out that these hedge funds have no room for such constructive sentiments when profit-making is possible, however, as this sector has already “moved aggressively to bet against the pound and British stocks”, expecting “a sharp deterioration in the UK economy” (“World’s biggest hedge funds pounce on pound after lying in wait for days”).

Andrew Mitchell, a Newcastle commentator, does not agree with Marshall’s contention that the Brexit vote was due to ”a commitment to freedom, democracy, open markets and an enterprise economy”. He points out that the evidence is that the Leave campaign triumphed only through enlisting millions with very different ambitions:

“(O)pen markets and an enterprise economy represent the very opposite of what they voted for. They wish to see protected markets and jobs, aggressive restrictions on immigration and an end to bankers and hedge fund millionaires living high on the hog”. 

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On that subject, see the forthcoming book ‘Progressive Protectionism’ by Colin Hines, which details why and how groups of regional nation states and their communities could and should join together to reintroduce border controls to protect and diversify their economies, providing a sense of security for their people and preventing further deterioration of the environment