“Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.” – Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
The dominant economic model is ‘at war’ with the natural world. Unfettered capitalism and globalisation continues to place unsustainable burdens on the Earth’s natural assets including its water, its air, its fauna and flora and threatens the very continuation of mankind.
Fighting climate change is not a ‘cost’ – it is a necessary strategy for human survival which simultaneously provides another means to promote a collective and democratic economy. The first steps in this struggle will be the introduction of a Green New Deal – a sustained and substantial drive to bring all buildings in the residential, commercial and industrial sector up to the highest level of conservation necessary, to expand and upgrade the quality of public transport with significant reductions in fares, the increased mobilisation of R&D to urgently progress the development of ocean/sea based renewable energy to complement other forms of green technology.
We will legislate for ambitious and binding climate change targets, including a ban on fracking, a transposition of the Rio de Janeiro Agreement into domestic law and we will use Bolivia’s Law of the Rights of Mother Earth as a guide.
A Progressive Government will make protection of the rights of Mother Earth a Constitutional imperative subject to democratic control and declare that natural resources, including water, are a public good and cannot be privatised.
We further commit to encouraging and supporting local campaigns against corporate threats to the environment and to launch a major public education campaign, including in schools, on the dangers of climate change and the threats posed by corporate exploitation of the environment.