Invest in Communities to Address the Climate Crisis

Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow and Co-Leader of the Scottish Greens, outlines why investment in communities is essential to addressing the climate crisis and why it is counterproductive merely to guilt trip individuals.

Photography: Christian Gamauf

By Patrick Harvie

With not long to go before world leaders gather in Glasgow for COP26, the global climate summit, the debate should be about the bold and transformative actions that are needed to build a world economy that’s sustainable, and able to meet human needs without destroying the rest of the living world around us.

These conferences have been taking place for decades, and the result has too often been the same; hope is built up, and then dashed. That mustn’t be the pattern this time.

We’re now long past the point of recognising that climate change is real, is serious, and that “something must be done.” Those facts have been beyond reasonable doubt since before the first COP, and over time the fraudulent climate denial industry, largely funded by fossil fuel interests, has declined in influence. When the conference met in Paris, it agreed that we must limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, but it’s strikingly obvious that current policies are far short of the mark to achieve that. The developing science paints an even more alarming picture now than it did when the Paris Accord was signed.

With Donald Trump gone from the White House and the US ready to at least return to the talks, the Glasgow COP takes place at a moment of both opportunity and urgency.

But what do we see from the UK Government, which is formally the host of the summit? Boris Johnson’s highest profile statement on this issue was at last year’s Climate Ambition Summit, an online event co-hosted with the UN, at which he denounced “tree hugging, mung bean munching eco-freaks”. Recently, his spokesperson Allegra Stratton started lecturing people about rinsing their dishes before they put them in the dishwasher (obviously unaware that most people don’t have one). Then, on a visit to Scotland, the Prime Minister actually started making jokes about the closure of coal mining under Margaret Thatcher, as though cutting emissions justified the brutal consequences.

People on the left in Scotland are often criticised for going on about Thatcher. And sure, it was a long time ago. We all still live with the consequences, but few people under 50 will have much memory of the politics of those days. It can be hard to relate to. 

But the comments above stand out to me, not for anything they say about the 1980s, but for what they say about the UK Government’s values today. To them, climate action is about little individual lifestyle choices, yet anyone who goes ‘too far’ is fair game to be ridiculed by the most powerful person in the country. They see the mass unemployment and generational poverty caused by deindustrialisation as just a price worth paying. Their kind of individualism places all the responsibility on the shoulders of those who have the least power, and point-blank refuses to invest in the collective wellbeing of the communities we all depend on.

Any serious response to the climate emergency will result in economic change. But any government which puts people’s wellbeing first will invest to build a new economy, one which offers livelihoods that can last for the long term. It will create the prosperity to meet people’s needs without trashing the planet, instead of serving only the short term greed of the wealthiest. 

Let’s think about what this means for our own communities. Cutting energy use is still one of the best things we can do to reduce emissions, especially as we shift more demand away from fossil fuels and toward electricity. It’s also one of the best things we can do to help people cut their bills, at a time when Ofgem has recently approved the biggest price hike in years. But in a city dominated by tenements and flats, many in poor condition and with mixed tenure, leaving this to individuals is a recipe for failure. Only those with enough spare cash will invest in improving their homes or switching to cheaper renewables, so the emission cuts won’t happen and inequality will get worse.

It’s only through investment at community scale – by the government and by forcing it from energy companies – that we’ll get the environmental and social benefits we need. Putting the energy companies into community hands would make this so much easier, ensuring that the profits of the industry are invested in all our interests.

Transport also suffers from this individualistic mindset. So much emphasis is placed on electric cars and charging points, when most of our city’s households don’t have access to a car, and many more wish they didn’t need one. Private car use isn’t going away, but for far too long it has taken priority over investment in solutions for the whole community – affordable and accessible public transport, and streets that are safe and clean to walk, wheel and cycle.

I could make similar arguments on everything from housing to food, and from land ownership to the financial services that drive investment in every part of our economy. Community scale solutions, and community ownership, are so often the way to ensure that people’s wellbeing, and the health of the world around us, come first.  

Years before the first COP was even thought of, Greens of my mother’s generation were already making the case for the changes we need. If the world had listened then, it could have been done slowly, gradually, and much more easily. But the world didn’t listen, and that’s why we’re living in a climate and ecological emergency that requires far greater urgency than any country is yet showing.

Each of us can choose to make small choices that do less harm, and that’s great. But the next time you hear someone in power – whether in government or in big business – trying to push all the responsibility on you and your individual choices, let’s turn it back on them, and demand the truly transformational change that’s so long overdue.