• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    Julian Assange

    Julian Assange’s extradition given the green light by the UK home secretary

    RSPB heritage event

    RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      Julian Assange

      Julian Assange’s extradition given the green light by the UK home secretary

      RSPB heritage event

      RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home News Environment

      Climate change commitments: ugly truths, beautiful ideals

      Delivering COP26 promises will require a global cultural shift – with effective street campaigns holding our leaders to account.

      Andy BrownbyAndy Brown
      12-11-2021 16:37
      in Environment, World
      a photo of a person holding a sign saying change the politics not the climate

      Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash

      107
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      The simple fact is that the Glasgow summit has not been a great success. For the leaders of many nations the main purpose of coming to Glasgow was to make statements that sounded impressive without any intention of taking serious action or even delivering on weak and woolly commitments. There is absolutely nothing any international body can do to hold those leaders to their promises.

      Other nations didn’t even bother to do that. They sent junior delegations and refused to engage in any meaningful way. There is also no international mechanism that can force those countries to act.

      We are trying to manage an urgent planetary problem on the basis of voluntary pledges from nation states. Too many of those nation states are dominated by leaders without the least interest in anything other than hanging on to their own power whilst enriching and empowering those who help to keep them in office.

      Putin’s Russia is an environmental disaster

      Take, for example, the actions of President Putin from Russia. For 20 years he has allowed his country to become the victim of the worst forms of short-term rapacious capitalism. Under him the country has become dominated by an extractive elite who keep him in power because he is very talented at suppressing any meaningful challenge or opposition.

      Across Siberia trees are being cut down because they provide profits for criminal gangs that are linked to powerful local politicians. Those trees are responsible for much of the rainfall across the whole of northern Eurasia and they will grow back desperately slowly if at all.

      At the same time oil and gas is being sucked out of the country at such a pace that badly managed rigs and sloppily constructed pipelines leak massive amounts of methane. Russian homes are inefficiently heated because they have been shoddily built by dodgy construction companies that paid heavy bribes to get the permits to build.

      Putin has absolutely no incentive to clean up his act. For 20 years he has survived by pumping out machismo nationalist views as rapidly as he pumps out oil. Many ordinary Russians live in poverty whilst a small elite get very rich. His promises to stop cutting down trees in Siberia by 2030 are completely meaningless.

      There is simply no mechanism in Russia that will enable the central government to get genuine control over the logging companies in remote districts. The entire economy is directed by those who can afford to buy favour. Local officials of Putin’s own party have absolutely no interest in cutting off the flow of bribes and mutual favours. Only those who oppose them get raided.

      Russia is stumbling blindly towards the creation of a cold desert in Siberia that will do every bit as much damage as destroying the Amazon rain forest and there is nothing any other nation can do to stop them. Putin has built its whole economy on the back of extracting oil, gas and valuable metals and needs the revenues from those activities to finance his own position of power.

      A photo of a climate action protest
      Environment

      No more ‘blah blah blah’ on climate action

      byHugh Goulbourne
      10 November 2021

      Multinationals pay lip service to climate action

      A similar level of cynical and selfish short sightedness drives many large multinational corporations, international financial investment companies and offshore trusts. There are some well-intentioned business people out there with a genuine interest in developing the technological solutions that will help us make the transition to more sustainable lifestyles. But those far-sighted people are being swamped by the great weight of cynical hedge fund managers and corporate lawyers who have learned how to hide wealth and protect it from taxation by national governments.

      Without effective international management of capital flows, we are back in the days of the 19th century, when uncontrolled capitalism concentrated more and more wealth in the hands of a small elite of the very rich. The offshore rich are increasingly powerful and have huge resources at their disposal. If they choose to use them to burn massive quantities of fossil fuels to fire themselves into space for fun, then there are no effective international tools currently in place that can stop them.

      Owt is better than nowt

      All of which leads to a worrying tension between despair and effective action. Much has been said by protesters outside the COP26 about how weak and inadequate the achievements of those inside the negotiation rooms have been. They are right, but it isn’t the complete picture. Owt is a lot better than nowt. The agreements aren’t remotely adequate, but they represent some progress.

      That progress is too slow and completely unenforceable by any international agency, but even the smallest of steps forward is still welcome. Every extra penny that is pledged, every agreement to move more rapidly, each bit of pressure on international leaders to sign up to change, helps. Those who have spent hours locked in stuffy committee rooms trying to extract one little bit of extra commitment are not wasting their time. They are just not adequate to the job.

      That is where the protestors outside come in. Since there is no enforceable legal mechanism that can make states act, it is down to their own citizens to force them to take the necessary measures. The only way to ensure politicians and business people keep moving forward, is to keep up the pressure from the streets. Every person who marches and challenges governments to act with urgency increases the likelihood of constructive action. Just as every voter who turns out and elects politicians who takes the crisis seriously places heavy pressure on all politicians to change.

      Climate action requires a global cultural shift

      We need a combination of serious inside work on thrashing out messy hard compromises, and effective street campaigns to make sure the promises are actually delivered. These things aren’t alternatives but part of a partnership that gives humanity the possibility of a better future.

      Ultimately what is needed is a huge cultural shift. We have had a couple of hundred years of trying to manage our civilisation on the basis of what actions will make the most money. And we have lived within the narrow confines of nation states. We need to move to a civilisation that is sustainable and supportive. One that is capable of delivering both international action and strong local communities.

      The work of creating such a society begins at the local level with individual action, but ultimately it cannot succeed until those local actions have been aggregated to such a point that we are able to overcome the resistance of the rich, the powerful and the cynical.

      In whatever country they reside.

      Tags: climate change
      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      The Iceman Cometh: Arctic ice music premiers in Leeds

      Next Post

      Challenges for young people from overseas wanting to volunteer in the UK

      Andy Brown

      Andy Brown

      Andy is a Green Party councillor and is leader of the Green group on Craven District Council. He has stood for parliament three times in Skipton and Ripon. He began his career as a college lecturer before becoming head of Hillsborough College in Sheffield and then director of young people’s learning for Yorkshire. He is a beekeeper, writes regularly on nature for the Yorkshire Post, and has had a lifelong interest in economics.

      Related Posts

      Emmanuel Macron
      Politics

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      byAnn Moody
      25 June 2022
      European Union
      Politics

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      byRichard Corbett
      21 June 2022
      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0
      Music

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      byLucy Pickering
      20 June 2022
      Yorkshire cows
      Business

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      byPeter Gittins
      19 June 2022
      RSPB heritage event
      Environment

      RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

      byLouisa Merrick-White
      17 June 2022
      Next Post
      a photo of a volunteer

      Challenges for young people from overseas wanting to volunteer in the UK

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      25 June 2022

      MOST READ

      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In