What on Earth 81: How we Build Back Better

WHAT ON

EARTH FRIENDS OF THE EARTH SCOTLAND’S MEMBERS’ MAGAZINE

Issue 81 I Summer 2020

How we Build Back Better

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H T R A E T L A N D’S RT H S C O F T H E E A GA Z IN E O S D N F R IE S’ MA MEMBER 20

0 Summer 2 Issue 81 I

#BuildBackBetterScot

Friends of the Earth Scotland is: > Scotland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation > An independent Scottish charity with a network of thousands of supporters and active local groups across Scotland > Part of the largest grassroots environmental network in the world, uniting over 2 million supporters, 75 national member groups and 5,000 local activist groups

Our vision is of a world where everyone can enjoy a healthy environment and a fair share of the earth’s resources.

C O N T E N TS Coronavirus as a climate turning point

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Creating a caring economy

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Friends of the Earth Scotland is an independent Scottish charity SC003442

Transport choices

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What on Earth is published by and copyright to: Friends of the Earth Scotland 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PR

How we win a better world

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T: 0131 243 2700 E: info@foe.scot W: www.foe.scot Editor: Connal Hughes

Protecting workers through this transition 18 A global just & green recovery

Cover: Mitchell Gillies Design: Emma Quinn The views expressed in What on Earth are not necessarily those of Friends of the Earth Scotland.

FoES accepts no liability for errors, omissions or incorrect data in advertisements.

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Director’s view Dr Richard Dixon, Director @Richard_Dixon

The FoES team working from home.

As we start to see some bits of life returning to normal after months of restrictions, both the UK and Scottish Governments are beginning to put in place the policies and funding that will determine whether we return to some impoverished version of what we had before, or emerge a fairer, greener society.

Given that coronavirus has impacted every corner of Scottish life, it made sense that we should campaign together with other organisations for a wide-ranging Just and Green Recovery. The climate crisis and the crises of poverty, precarious work and poor housing all result from the same economic system that puts profit before people and planet. In recent months we’ve been learning from other groups, strengthening relationships and figuring out how to speak with one voice for maximum impact.

Approaches from individual sectors had been fobbed off with bland assurances or long lists of Government commitments, so we were determined to put together a strong, diverse group that couldn’t be ignored or pigeon-holed as having just a narrow interest.

We brought together groups working on children’s rights, health, housing, environment, international development, peace and young people as well as five unions and three churches to write to the First Minister calling, in detail, for a Just and Green Recovery that protects people and planet. This opened the door to a meeting with two Cabinet Secretaries, as well as gaining front page coverage for our demands.

We are continuing to build a shared campaign and understanding with these groups and others to try to shape the future of our society for the better. This issue of What on Earth explains the environmental gains we might make if Scotland makes the right choices, but it also features some of the other groups in this broad alliance and their visions of how we could all build a fairer, greener society.

P.S. If you would like to help us build this new alliance into a powerful force for good, and help our work to protect the environment as we recover, you will find a letter asking for your help included with this issue.

Given that coronavirus has impacted every corner of Scottish life, it made sense that our organisations should campaign together for a wide-ranging Just and Green Recovery.

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Coronavirus must be a turning point for climate action

By Caroline Rance, Climate and Energy Campaigner

As others will spell out across this magazine, the recovery from the pandemic offers a rare chance to transform our society for the better. People have realised the huge failures in our economy, but we have also seen that governments can act decisively to protect people when they choose.

The coronavirus crisis unfolded against a backdrop of climate breakdown. While we were in lockdown, temperatures in the Arctic hit an all-time high of 38ºC and 2020 looks set to be the hottest year on record. And then there is the evidence that new viruses are increasing, partly due to the harm human activity is causing to the ecosystems we are part of and depend upon.

Government bailouts and stimulus packages, worth billions of pounds, will have consequences for the climate for generations to come. We must make sure this moment sets us on a path to a fairer, greener future and not deeper into climate breakdown.

A new approach For too long, our governments have prioritised economic growth at all costs – allowing big business to pollute for profit while the climate and communities suffer. It is time to take a different path now.

Scotland needs a new Economic Strategy that repurposes government towards goals of wellbeing for all within environmental limits, meeting our climate targets instead of targeting endless growth, and a Circular Economy rather than an economy built on consumption and waste.

This may sound idealistic, but polls show just 6% of the UK public want a return to the pre-pandemic economy – an overwhelming mandate for change.

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Invest in climate for good, green jobs We already know that urgent action is needed to switch our transport, homes and energy systems away from fossil fuels and onto renewables over the next decade.

Various studies, from the University of Oxford to the International Energy Agency, have shown that investing in these sorts of projects is not only good for the climate, but can also create thousands of good, green jobs as part of the coronavirus recovery. Even better, programmes to improve the energy efficiency of homes across the country and building more wind farms for renewable energy will create far more jobs than road building projects.

How many more good reasons do we need?

We need to see serious sums of money though – the French government is spending £12 billion on green investment, while Germany is spending £36 billion. We need comparable investment here in Scotland in order to double the number of homes becoming more energy efficient every year, start rolling out renewable heating to homes across the country, build more (publicly owned!) wind turbines and create those good, green jobs.

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Bailout people, not polluters!

Recovery money should not be spent on propping up the fossil fuel industry and other climate wrecking companies. Government funds must support workers and communities, not chief executives and shareholders made rich from the climate crisis. Two-thirds of people agree that large corporations should only be given financial support if they agree to certain environmental and social conditions, such as cutting carbon emissions and protecting workers’ jobs.

As well as ruling out support for new fossil fuel projects, government should also resist calls for recovery funding into false solutions such as Carbon Capture and Storage or making hydrogen from fossil fuels. Not only are these technologies designed to keep fossil fuels running for decades to come but they are not proven to work at scale, and are therefore risky choices for recovery spending.

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Our demands for a Just and Green Recovery Over 80 civic society organisations from across different sectors of Scottish life are calling on the Scottish Government to deliver a radical response to the coronavirus recovery that puts people before profit. With the dual crises of coronavirus and climate change exposing and worsening deeply damaging inequalities within society, we demand that the recovery builds a fairer society for all.

We collectively call on the Scottish Government to: > Provide essential public services for people, not profit. > Provide new funds to transform our society and economy to meet Scotland’s Fair Share of climate emissions cuts and greatly enhance biodiversity. > Protect marginalised people and those on low incomes by redistributing wealth. > Strengthen democracy and human rights during these crises. > Offer solidarity across borders by proactively supporting an international response to Coronavirus and climate emergency.

Plan for a Just Transition Thousands of people have already lost their jobs in the North Sea since the beginning of the pandemic, with the fossil fuel industry treating the workforce as readily dispensable while they continue to pay huge sums to their shareholders.

And we know that many more devastating job losses are to come across Scotland.

A comprehensive, economy-wide Just Transition Strategy is urgently needed to show how the government will support the workers and communities reliant on high carbon industries.

There is an urgent need to map the skills required in a fossil free economy and begin

targeted programmes to address any gaps, including fully-funded skills and training programmes.

Crucially, workers, trade unions and community groups should be placed at the heart of the decision-making that will shape their future livelihoods and communities.

If we want to see a better, greener, fairer Scotland we must seize this moment for real change. And with the Scottish Parliament elections in May and the UN Climate Summit Glasgow in November 2021, we also have plenty of political opportunities to keep the pressure on in coming months.

#BuildBackBetterScot Learn more about the campaign at www.foe.scot/recovery

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We must create a caring economy

By Dr Gemma Bone Dodds, Trustee, Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland We are at a pivotal moment in human history.

Across the world, humanity is going through a shared experience like never before. We have all felt fear, despair, and bewilderment at the vast transformation of our lives as this virus has spread rapidly across every continent.

But this period has also been experienced very differently and those for whom the economy was not working before the crisis have suffered the most from it. Women. Ethnic minorities.

Precarious workers. Inequality causes deaths, and Covid-19 exacerbates this. Poor housing, cold, damp and overcrowded. Insufficient income to

provide enough food, medicine, heat and power.

Insecure jobs, dangerous and unsanitary conditions. All of these factors have put the most vulnerable on the front line of this pandemic.

Our economy has been consistently telling some people “You are unskilled, you are undeserving, you are low paid”. Yet during this crisis, this ruse – this false vision of the world and of worth – has been unmasked. Instead, with a fearful cry: “You must go out to work. Keep the economy going. We need you. You are our key workers.

You are our heroes.”

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The basis of humanity is care.

This crisis has proven it to be so.

Our response to this crisis has been centred on care. We care for each other by staying at home.

Our NHS workers, cleaners, doctors, porters, nurses, paramedics, GPs and receptionists have stepped up, as they always do, to care for those who fall ill, often at great cost to themselves.

Our care workers, often some of the lowest paid and least valued workers in society, have stepped across the thresholds of our care homes, knowingly entering a dangerous place, to care for our most precious loved ones.

Our communities have set up mutual aid groups, caring for our neighbours and each other.

The basis of humanity is care. This crisis has proven it to be so. But our economy, far from recognising this fundamental need we have, to care and be cared for, seeks to create conditions which make care difficult. Long working hours.

Insufficient parental leave. Low wages and high living costs. A manufactured drive to consume.

Quantity over quality.

Enough. There is another way.

What if our economy could celebrate, recognise and enable the conditions for us all to care and be cared for? What if we could explicitly design an economy that enables us all to thrive and live on a healthy planet?

We can. And we must.

We at Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland work to show that there is another way.

We believe that it is possible to design and create an economy that works for both people

and planet. End discrimination and precarious work. Work less and have more time to care.

Ensure sufficiency for all. Live within our planetary means.

This is not a utopian ideal (unlike endless growth on a finite planet). We can see the shape of the world we can create in the present.

There is much that already exists that we can build upon, especially in Scotland. These are the foundations upon which we will build back better including: basic income, circular economies, just transition, community wealth building, the Scottish National Investment Bank and more.

We have an engaged and innovative civil society movement full of ideas and the passion to make them happen. We have fantastic businesses and social enterprises who are already showing how to do business better. We have a Government that is willing to talk about the environment, inclusivity and creating a wellbeing economy.

But what is built back after the crisis will depend on how brave we are to let go of the old world, which may feel safe and normal and comforting.

We must be willing to ask radical questions and explore innovative solutions. We cannot collapse into old patterns. This can also be exciting – to create, dream and design. It is a journey for which we must prepare, but with the ultimate aim of getting to our destination: a caring wellbeing economy which works for people and the planet.

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If our destination has changed, we also need a different measure of progress, one richer and more illustrative of how we are doing as a society. For me, there is no more beautiful way to show the difference between the old and the new than the example used by my colleague Dr Katherine Trebeck. Rather than measure GDP, she asks, “Why not ask countries to measure the number of girls riding bikes to school?”

Where GDP gives us an idea of our economic output, girls on bikes tells us so much more.

For example, if girls are riding bikes to school then: girls are going to school, bikes are a

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common mode of transport, it is safe for children to cycle, there is likely to be less pollution, we are likely to be healthier, girls are empowered and unafraid – and if more girls cycle to school, then more boys will, too.

An economy that measures progress through girls on bikes would be a caring economy.

It would focus on creating the conditions we need to care for one another and the planet.

It will be hard for us to get there, and we will need to plan our journey as we go, but we all know we need to make it. There is too much at stake to do anything less.

Learn more at: www.wellbeingeconomy.org/scotland

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The Impact of Coronavirus We asked groups working on the recovery to discuss the impact of coronavirus on the people they work with and their hopes for the future. This campaign can only be won by working together in a broad movement that acknowledges the interconnectedness of our struggles, amplifying our calls for a fairer, greener Scotland.

Children Coronavirus is having multiple impacts on children and families, but particularly those on low incomes. As part of the End Child Poverty Campaign we’re calling for family incomes to be boosted. A Resolution Foundation study found that UK youth unemployment could rise above 1 million this year so sustainable employment for young people must be a priority. As the economy reboots, emissions will likely return to pre-lockdown levels, despite evidence of air pollution’s dire impact on child health.

These may look like separate issues. But what connects them is inequality and, in the bigger picture, the need for progressive climate change policymaking. Across the world, those most affected by inequality will be most negatively affected by climate change. Young people we work with identify climate change as a top concern. Moving towards post-virus renewal, let’s view it as a social justice issue – and a common cause.

Chris Small, Communications Manager at Children in Scotland, the national charity working to improve children’s lives. www.childreninscotland.org.uk

Children in Scotland staff members at the Edinburgh Climate Strike March, September 2019.

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Women We can’t have climate justice without gender justice. Covid-19 has exposed just how much our society relies on the unpaid care of women, why those ‘unskilled’ jobs predominantly done by women of colour are indispensable, and why we need social security. It raises vital questions about how we can rebuild our economy with equality at its heart.

The link between the fights against climate change and the patriarchy is well documented, and so when we look to the future, we must keep both of these things in mind. In calling for climate jobs, we must ensure that these provide work for

women as well as men. In calling for a rethink of the way we use urban space, we must include the urgent need to cut down on unnecessary private vehicles and invest in accessible public transport. A better economy is one which works for women, as well as the planet.

Alys Mumford, Communications and Engagement Manager at Engender, Scotland’s feminist policy and advocacy organisation. www.engender.scot and @EngenderScot

Disabled people Covid-19 has supercharged the existing inequality disabled Scots face and made new inequality likely. Inclusion Scotland’s survey of 822 people uncovered a mental health emergency for disabled Scots in lockdown.

Services that support daily living for disabled people, already stripped to the bone by austerity, have been removed completely in some cases, leaving some disabled people bedbound, unable to access food and medicine, wash or feed themselves, or suddenly reliant on family carers, without training or support.

Painting at times a very disturbing picture of personal and collective despair during lockdown, the research also provides intriguing glimmers of hope for what could come next, if disabled people’s voices are actually heard during and after the crisis.

Solutions once deemed ‘impossible’ are now becoming a part of the picture. Social care support is getting much needed ring-fenced investment, flexible and remote working is now part of the mainstream – all things disabled people have fought tirelessly for.

As we face the combined challenges of responding to the climate emergency and recovering from Covid-19, there has never been a more important time for disabled people to have a voice in building a resilient recovery that ensures and promotes our rights and wellbeing.

Susie Fitton, Policy Officer at Inclusion Scotland who work to achieve positive changes to policy and practice, so that we disabled people are fully included throughout all Scottish society as equal citizens. www.inclusionscotland.org

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People on low incomes Going into this crisis, one in five people in Scotland were already struggling to stay afloat.

Women, disabled people and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are much more likely to live in poverty. While many of us are struggling, people living on low incomes have been disproportionately affected, and others have been plunged into poverty for the first time.

The shutdown has particularly impacted sectors of the economy where people are in precarious, low-paid jobs. Research has shown that people living on low incomes have had to turn to expensive forms of debt, while those on higher incomes have actually built up savings during lockdown. With three million people now

experiencing how hard it is to survive on Universal Credit, we can no longer ignore the reality that our economy, labour market and social security system are in urgent need of redesign.

Frances Rayner, Communications Officer at Poverty Alliance, Scotland’s network of organisations and individuals working together to end poverty. www.povertyalliance.org @PovertyAlliance

Black and Minority Ethnic people The pandemic has highlighted the existing inequalities in our society especially when we see the disproportionate numbers of Black and Minority Ethnic people being affected and dying from coronavirus. Factors such as health inequalities, housing – overcrowding and lack of green space, employment – high risk, low paid jobs, have all contributed to this disparity and shown gravely how in Britain and around the world the most vulnerable and poorest are not being protected. This shows how we are not “all in it together.”

By understanding these issues, we can better support the capacity of vulnerable populations in emergencies – be it climate change or coronavirus.

The Black Lives Matter movement has further highlighted the systemic and institutional racism and the need for changes in our institutions in their practices, outcomes, and representation.

Now is the time to go beyond non-discrimination approaches and move from No Racism to Anti Racism. Those with privilege and access must actively bring people around the table, listen to and foreground their needs, and recognise the further diversity within these groups.

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Zarina supporting #BuildBackBetterScot Day of Online Action

There must be social and climate justice at the heart of Scottish Government’s Recovery Plan ensuring the existing inequalities in society are identified, addressed and tackled, with vulnerable and marginalised people in Scotland being protected, equally valued and part of an inclusive society.

Zarina Ahmad, Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) Climate Change & Environment Officer and FoES Board Member. www.cemvoscotland.org.uk @cemvoscot

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Transport choices in a coronavirus world

By Gavin Thomson, Air Pollution Campaigner

Transport has been profoundly impacted by Covid-19. As the restrictions begin to relax, the Scottish Government has some big decisions to make: how many of the changes to the way we move around do we want to remain?

How can we make that happen?

Due to the massive reduction in road traffic since early March, there has been a corresponding reduction in air pollution.

We’re walking more than we used to, and many of us have taken up cycling for the first time (or the first time in a very long while).

Reallocation of space With so many of us working from home and staying within our local area, the roads have been empty. This has prompted many councils to think about temporary reallocation of road space. We need to stay 2m apart from one another, and yet almost all of our pavements are less than 2 metres wide. This creates slight difficulties when you pass by someone, but creates bigger problems outside places like schools and supermarkets. So fundamentally

we need more space, very quickly. Roads are quieter and pavements need to be wider so there is an obvious solution.

The Scottish Government has made £30m available to councils for these temporary measures. Pavement widening, pop-up cycle lanes, traffic lights which change automatically, and 20mph zones are just some of the measures we’re starting to see being rolled out.

These changes won’t just protect us from coronavirus; they’ll make it easier to walk and cycle, improve mental and physical health, reduce accidents, and help local economies.

Councils need to be pushed to have some ambition, a vision of a healthier future, and the Government need to support this with more than the initial £30m.

Public transport The most concerning change has been the plummeting use of public transport. Considered a site of risk of infection, the authorities have urged extreme caution in using buses or trains.

This could cause a long-term reputational risk for public transport, when a strong public transport network is essential to meeting our climate targets.

As governments are thinking about what an economic recovery from Covid-19 might look like, transport needs to be at the centre of these plans.

It’s important to keep in mind, around a third of households across Scotland don’t have access to a car – with the figure much higher in our biggest cities – so many people, especially on the lowest incomes, have no option but to use public transport.

The Scottish and UK Governments have sustained the bus and rail industries through huge bailouts, delivered with no conditions and no additional scrutiny. Even though the industries are currently close to 100% subsidised, there is no accountability for how they are run.

At what stage does it make sense for the Scottish Government to simply bring public transport into public ownership, so it can be run as an essential service just like our schools and hospitals?

Build back better?

As governments are thinking about what an economic recovery from Covid-19 might look like, transport needs to be at the centre of these plans. Councils need to be funded to make our public spaces safer and better able to support local businesses. Huge spending on new roads, while many people won’t be commuting to work for a long while, needs to be recognised for the dangerous absurdity that it is, with the cash spent instead on broadband provision. Finally, the Scottish Government needs to recognise the numbers don’t add up on public transport, and it needs to be brought back into public ownership.

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How we win a fairer, greener Scotland

By Kate Whitaker, Activism Organiser Activist educator Daniel Hunter describes politicians like balloons tied to a rock.

Campaigns that only try to influence politicians can blow them so far in either direction (if they can compete with winds blowing against them) but they cannot fundamentally change the position of the balloon without moving the rock.

In this metaphor the rock is the things that make people get up and take action – known as the public’s ‘activated social values’. Hunter explains that by moving the rock of public values, we automatically move all the politicians towards us.

When we call for climate and environmental justice, we are calling for a systemic transformation of our economy, social, cultural and political landscape. We can’t get there by just trying to reach politicians. We need to fundamentally shift the public mood so politicians have no choice but to act. We saw this happening last year as the school strikers and Extinction Rebellion, among others, made waves in the media, in communities up and down the country and in the halls of Westminster and Holyrood.

We are seeing it happen now in the campaign for a Just and Green Recovery from coronavirus.

Huge numbers of people have already been involved in community organising to provide support to those in their area that need it. Polls show overwhelming support for a move forward to a more equitable society, rather than return to a business as usual that was already devastating for both people and the planet.

We can’t get there by just trying to reach politicians.

We need to fundamentally shift the public mood so politicians have no choice but to act.

To win what we need from a recovery plan to tackle inequality and deliver on Scotland’s fair share of climate action, we need to move the rock a lot further. And it will take all of us to share that load.

We need this conversation to be happening in every village, town and city across Scotland.

We need people to be coming together to think about what they need from a recovery plan in their area. We need posters in every window, posts on every social media profile and letters in every politician's inbox.

We need a diversity of tactics: community mutual aid groups supporting each other; people in Zoom calls with politicians explaining specific policies; people in the street taking direct action; art that helps to communicate what a truly just and green recovery could look like; nurses, teachers, train drivers and school children organising together. We need to be making noise, loud enough that politicians can’t ignore us.

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On the Just and Green Recovery campaign page on our website you will find a petition to sign, print out posters for your window, your local library, school and coffee shop, a local organising guide with tips for bringing your community together and more.

If you can't do this, you could instead speak to three people about what a just and green recovery means to you all. Tell them what

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you’ve read in this edition of What on Earth about how different people have been impacted by coronavirus, and how we have an opportunity to make real and lasting changes to our society. Together we can move the rock.

Find out how you can get involved www.foe.scot/recovery

Workers must be protected now and as we transition to a low-carbon economy.

By Stephen Smellie, Depute Convenor of UNISON Scotland As we begin to come out of the lockdown we start to think of the kind of world we are heading into. Our recent experience of coming out of a crisis, the financial one in 2008, was not good. Working people paid for the rescue of banks through years of austerity, wage freezes, cuts in public services and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. There was no justice for working people in that.

After the pandemic, UNISON believes we need a different approach. We need a fair response to this crisis. One where those workers who worked through it to protect people, the vulnerable and our cherished NHS, are entitled to a Just Recovery.

Whilst millions of workers stayed home during the lockdown ‘key’ workers kept our NHS running, cared for older people in their homes and care homes, kept the shops open or delivered the essential supplies we needed and kept our energy system functioning.

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As a trade union we will fight to make sure that the key workers are not forgotten.

During the crisis the key workers were applauded and proclaimed as heroes.

In the previous crisis it was those key workers, carers, nurses, shop workers, posties, who paid the price with cuts in living standards and the services that they and other working people rely on. So far, applause is all they have had, apart from the higher incidence of deaths that the virus has inflicted upon them, with black and minority ethnic key workers hit the worst.

As a trade union we will fight to make sure that the key workers are not forgotten.

Public services, the NHS, care services, refuse collection, energy services, were critical throughout the pandemic and they will be vital as we recover from it. As will other public services such as education. That means that instead of austerity we need investment in

Key workers took part in a socially-distanced protest outside the Scottish Government HQ in Edinburgh.

Photo: Colin Hattersley/ FoES

our NHS, in education and housing. Not just to ensure the key workers are looked after but because decent public services are crucial for creating a fairer and more just society.

They are also critical for shaping the better, cleaner and low-carbon future that UNISON believes is essential. We have been keen supporters of the Just Transition movement, where jobs in clean industries are developed to replace jobs in high carbon sectors as they are phased out. In September 2019 we held a Green UNISON Week where branches across the UK organised activities to highlight issues around climate change in the run up to the school students’ led Climate Strike. We were participating in the preparations for COP26 which was due to be held in Glasgow in November this year.

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That is why UNISON supports not only a Just Recovery, but that it also has to be a Green Recovery.

One of the fears about how our governments, and the rich corporations who have much invested in the status quo of the high carbon economy and who wield great influence with governments across the world, will respond to Covid pandemic is that, like COP26, action on climate change will be cancelled or delayed.

To some of these interests, getting the economy restarted will be interpreted as going back to what we had before, including supporting those activities that have threatened our climate, our environment and our health.

That is why UNISON supports not only a Just Recovery, but that it also has to be a Green Recovery.

We will argue that the tax-dodging, offshore companies that run many of our care homes, where failures to provide adequate PPE and refusing to pay wages to staff who were isolating has contributed to the failure to care for the most vulnerable in their care, should not be bailed out by governments and that the care of older people should be a public provision.

if they are genuinely transitioning their business model to the needs of a carbon neutral future.

There should be significant public investment in retro-fitting our homes to be more efficient energy users. We should use the public procurement processes to ensure that workers are treated fairly and that we contribute to local businesses, creating local jobs, and ensuring that public spending benefits local communities and drives forward a climate friendly agenda.

UNISON supports a Just and Green Recovery.

UNISON is the biggest union in Scotland and the UK and represents many key workers across the public, third and private sectors. www.unison-scotland.org

We will also argue that companies who were contributing to the causes of climate change should only be supported to recover from the pandemic

Key workers took part in a socially-distanced protest outside the Scottish Government HQ in Edinburgh.

Photo: Colin Hattersley/ FoES

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A global green and just recovery

By Liz Murray, Head of Scottish campaigns, Global Justice Now In so many ways, right now, we’re at a turning point. The decisions we make now as a society, the action we take in our communities and the pressure we put on politicians to ensure things change for the better will very likely shape our lives for generations. What comes from the coronavirus pandemic, the climate emergency and this important moment of growing outrage against systemic racism has to be something better and something more just.

The coronavirus pandemic is laying bare the inequalities that exist everywhere. A just and green recovery requires a fundamental

No Trade Deal with Trump stunt, London December 2019 Photo: Jess Hurd /Global Justice Now

economic reset to build a world which puts people and the planet ahead of corporate privilege and proďŹ t. And it also needs collaboration and co-operation, particularly with the Global South.

Because for so many of those countries, a history of being colonised and exploited, decades of structural adjustment and a global economy that is rigged in favour of the rich them has left them in a state of permanent crisis, onto which has now been added the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.

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What is needed more than ever is international cooperation and solidarity based on fairness, equality and absolute respect for the planet.

In recent years, the international development policy of the UK, resting on a false assumption that ‘the market’ will deliver, has helped ensure that investment in precisely what is needed now (public services and a welfare state) has been all but impossible for countries in the Global South.

At the same time, the UK and governments of other rich countries have led the world in putting corporate power and profit ahead of human rights and environmental protection in other ways too.

They’ve enforced unjust trade rules and the privatisation of basic services and utilities.

They’ve allowed a system of intellectual property rights and patents to give big pharmaceutical companies the ability to make profits on the back of the public money that goes into the development of new medicines – making them unaffordable to many. And they’ve let the global finance industry gain huge power.

What kind of changes do we want to see?

Where we need to begin is with unprecedented solidarity with the Global South. The first step should be unconditional debt cancellation. A radical redesign of aid is also required, to make it a system based on reparations, wealth redistribution and support for public services.

Fundamental changes to the global economy are also crucial, including the control of capital flows to protect economies from the chaotic and profit-hungry behaviour of international markets. And there has never been more need for a tax on financial speculation or clamping down on tax havens.

Global trade rules that give corporations huge power and profit-making abilities and undermine governments’ power to act in the interests of the public and the environment, need a radical rethink. Right now Scotland has to say no to a trade deal between the UK and the US.

So, as we look for ways to rebuild and recover from the pandemic, we must do it in the knowledge of our global interconnectedness and by being aware of the systemic changes that need to happen.

No Trade Deal with Trump stunt, London December 2019 Photo: Jess Hurd /Global Justice Now

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Global Justice Now campaigning for a Covid-19 vaccine for all.

Public money going into the development of new medicines must have conditions attached so that Big Pharma can’t sell those medicines back to patients at hugely inflated prices. The Scottish Government has something called a Crown Use License which it could use to stop the price inflation of medicines – and which would send a powerful international signal – and we’re calling on them to use that in the case of any Covid-19 treatments.

And alongside this, governments should prioritise ‘policy coherence’ – which put simply means checking that a policy in one area doesn’t undermine positive action or policies in other areas. So when Scotland is thinking about its economic policies,

for example, or its energy and transport policies, or its trade policies, it needs to be aware of what impact those policies are going to have on other things like climate change and inequality, and also whether they support or undermine the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

What is needed more than ever is international cooperation and solidarity based on fairness, equality and absolute respect for the planet, not big business bail outs and the cut-throat race to the bottom. Out of this crisis must come a future based on meeting people’s needs and prioritising a dignified life for everyone, everywhere, on a liveable planet.

For more info see www.globaljustice.org.uk/coronavirus-and-global-justice @globaljusticesc