Copenhagen: the progressive case for climate action

By Melanie Smallman

As the world prepares for the forthcoming International Climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Labour supporters could be forgiven for thinking that this is not an issue for us. The fundamentally conservative calls to protect, preserve and safeguard, coupled with the zeal of the ‘deep greens’ for the West to repent and sacrifice modern lifestyles in order to pay for the greed of the past, make a pretty unappealing package to those of us who want to make the world a better place.

But as we argue in SERA‘s latest pamphlet ‘The Road to Copenhagen – a progressive case for climate action‘, launched today by Rt Hon David Miliband MP, there is another way. A progressive approach to the environment, focusing on promoting opportunity and creating jobs rather than restricting and protecting; on increasing fairness and improving people’s life chances rather than simply safeguarding what we have already, is not only the best way to tackle climate change but also offers a way to deliver on our wider agenda.

Climate change is like no other issue. It’s a global problem that needs international cooperation and collective action. Just as this can’t be delivered by a Conservative Party that focuses on individualism and is ambivalent about Britain’s place in Europe, nor can it be delivered by those who argue that we have to halt economic growth. China, India and other fast-growing economies must be part of the solution, but people in these countries want higher living standards and will not be held back by emissions targets. But as Spain’s Environment Minister Elena Espinosa writes in our pamphlet, “there is no conflict between economic success and a low-carbon world”. We need to use the looming climate crisis as a positive catalyst to change the current economic growth model, towards one that is more sustainable and progressive, she argues. This new growth model would combine profit-making with reducing poverty and improving the environment, by investing in clean technologies, sustainable buildings and water.

Rather than painting a false choice between economic growth and environmental protection, then, at Copenhagen, developed countries must take a lead and provide sufficient support for developing countries to be able to leapfrog the mistakes of our oil-driven model of growth, and go straight to a lower carbon but more resilient form of development. We must also learn these lessons ourselves, re-tooling our society so that it is fit for the 21st century. If we don’t have the technology to do that now, then the world needs to find ways to finance its development and share its application – rapidly and generously.

And this perhaps brings us to the strongest reason why tackling climate change is a progressive challenge. While there may be a deeply conservative thread running through many environmentalists’ desires to preserve our natural world, doing so requires radical and far-reaching change. It’s change that challenges the Conservative tradition of preserving the status quo, but is a dream for those of us on the progressive left who believe in social change. Matthias Machnig, the recent German State Secretary for the Environment puts it very neatly in our pamphlet: “Copenhagen is not a trapdoor but a key”.

The Road to Copenhagen: The progressive case for climate action is published by SERA, the Labour Environment Campaign, and edited by Andrew Pakes (Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Milton Keynes North) and Rachel Reeves (Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Leeds West). Copies are available from www.sera.org.uk.