Environmental activist Greta Thunberg has signed up to guest edit the Today programme.

The 16-year-old is one of five people who will take over the BBC Radio 4 show during the Christmas and New Year period.

Supreme Court president Lady Hale, who delivered the ruling that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful, has also signed up.

Strikes

Artist Grayson Perry, rapper George The Poet and Charles Moore, a critic of the BBC, will also guest edit the high-profile news show.

Each programme will include an interview with the guest editor.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta, who has spearheaded a global movement and school strikes around the world, will speak to leading climate change figures and hear from indigenous, frontline activists.

She has commissioned reports from the Antarctic and Zambia and an interview with Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England.

Lady Hale gives the programme a tour of the Supreme Court and has asked Today to explore the issue of coercive control – extreme psychological and emotional abuse.

Poet

Previous guest editors have included the Duke of Sussex, Angelina Jolie, John Bercow, Sir Lenny Henry and Professor Stephen Hawking.

Spoken word artist George The Poet will report from Uganda and explore issues around identity.

Turner Prize winner Perry will examine stereotypes and Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, will focus on freedom of expression.

They will each guest edit the programme between December 26 and 31.

The Today guest editors are part of the BBC Radio and Sounds Christmas line up, which is fully unveiled on Monday.

This Author

Sherna Noah is the PA senior entertainment correspondent. Image: European Parliament. 
 

The Conservatives have pledged £9.2 billion to improve the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals, as they make a pitch to voters concerned about the environment.

Funding will include £6.3 billion to install energy saving measures to cut bills in 2.2 million homes, with a focus on social housing and people in fuel poverty, the Tories say.

The plans are part of efforts to meet the legal target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero overall by 2050 to tackle climate change.

Free markets

The target is a less ambitious goal than other parties have set out, with the Lib Dems promising net zero emissions by 2045 and Labour pledging to deliver the substantial majority of greenhouse cuts by 2030.

But the 2050 net zero target, which became law in the summer, is backed by the Government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change as feasible – though the committee has warned the UK is off track to meet existing carbon-cutting goals in the 2020s and 2030s.

The manifesto seeks to highlight a different approach to tackling climate and environment crises from Labour, saying the Tories believe “free markets, innovation and prosperity can protect the planet”.

Deal

It pledges to work with the market to deliver two million jobs in clean growth in a decade.

The Tories say their first budget will prioritise the environment, with funding for research and development, cutting carbon and an extra £4 billion for flood defences, as well as a national plug-in network for electric vehicle charging and a “gigafactory” for building the batteries those cars will need.

After bringing in a moratorium on fracking following tremors in Lancashire where the controversial process was taking place, the Tories also say they “will not support fracking unless the science shows categorically it can be done safely”.

And there is support for a range of clean technologies, including for 40 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 – a significant increase on the 30 gigawatts set out with the industry in a sector deal earlier this year.

Fact-checker Full Fact has accused Boris Johnson of being economical with the truth after the unveiling of his election manifesto.

Trust

Chief executive Will Moy said the Conservative Party could “do more to meet the standards we expect” after investigating its pledges on paving the way for 50,000 new nurses and limiting day-to-day spending increases to only £3 billion, despite promising a litany of public services investment.

Full Fact said the Tories had not been upfront about the full cost of their initiatives in the 59-page document, titled Get Brexit done, unleash Britain’s potential.

“While the Conservatives plan to increase annual current spending by £3 billion compared to what’s already been announced, the Conservatives plan to spend a lot more than £3 billion extra per year than we spend today,” said Full Fact.

“For example, the Conservative manifesto spending list omits its headline pledges on school funding, the NHS, and (creating 20,000 more) police officers.”

Mr Moy said voters deserved information that was “accurate and honest” before making their minds up on December 12. “Candidates and parties are asking voters for their trust for the next five years, and like the other main parties, the Conservatives can do more to meet the standards we expect,” said the Full Fact boss.

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent. Patrick Daly is the PA political correspondent. 

Hundreds of thousands of people have signed up to a mass tree-planting campaign to tackle climate change, the Woodland Trust said.

The Trust launched its Big Climate Fightback campaign in September after what it said was repeated failures by the government to reach its tree planting targets.

Since the launch, hundreds of thousands of people have signed up to plant trees on or around November 30, the conservation charity said.

Footprint

Hundreds of community groups, businesses and schools have set up planting events, individuals have signed up to plant saplings in their garden and the Woodland Trust is also hosting events around the country.

In total, close to a million trees will go into the ground during the campaign, the Trust said.

Darren Moorcroft, the Woodland Trust’s chief executive said: “Since we launched the Big Climate Fightback the response has been remarkable. “

He said the Big Climate Fightback aimed to give people of all ages, wherever they lived, a simple way to make a difference on climate change by planting a tree.

“Trees are the natural solution – they soak up carbon dioxide and deliver oxygen. They are of course not the only solution though, every one of us could also do our bit by recycling more and reducing our carbon footprint.”

Inspire

He added: “When we see so many people coming together on November 30 to plant trees it will be a proud moment. Each one of the trees planted will contribute to make our country that bit greener and healthier.”

The campaign aims to reverse the low planting rates of new trees, with England seeing just 1,420 hectares (3,500 acres) of woodland created in the past year, against a Government ambition of 5,000 a year (12,000 acres).

The government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change has warned there must be dramatic increases in planting rates to help meet legal targets to end the UK’s contribution to climate change by 2050.

The Trust’s flagship planting event is at Mead, the site of the new Young People’s Forest, with around 15,000 trees planted on November 30 and more than 1,000 people taking part.

Former JLS popstar turned presenter JB Gill, who has been to the site and is backing the campaign, said: “I hope this campaign inspires people of all ages and backgrounds to take direct action and plant trees. Every tree counts.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

The Indian Prime Minister is no stranger to the art of doublespeak. Modi lauded conservation efforts in India as he launched the Status of Tigers in India Report in July this year, describing the country among the ‘biggest and safest habitats for tigers in the world’.

More recently – in an alternately loved and lampooned reality television show aired on Discovery Channel – the Prime Minister spoke eloquently of his love for nature and his government’s commitment to the environment and particularly to tiger conservation efforts

Yet, in May this year a Forest Advisory Committee at the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change granted approval in-principle to a proposal of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to ‘survey and explore’ uranium deposits over an area of 83 sq kms in the Nallamala forest, home to the Amrabad Tiger Reserve in the State of Telangana. Somehow this did not appear to weigh down on Modi.

Dissent

Neither did the multiplicity of dissenting voices from civil society organizations, political opposition, tiger conservationists, nor environmentalists against the proposed uranium exploration and mining deter the Government from staying the course.

If anything, there have been steady efforts to clamp down on dissenters and activists such as Prof. Kodandram, who was detained by the State Police while on his way to meet and express solidarity with the protesting communities.

But that has not deterred protestors who have come together to vehemently oppose the government’s plans. An online people’s petition to ‘Save Nallamala and Stop Uranium Mining’ has garnered over 22,000 signatures over the last two months.

In an important albeit fractional ‘win’ for the people’s resistance movement, the Telangana State Legislative Assembly passed a unanimous resolution on 16 September 2019 ‘urging’ the Central Government to revoke its approval for uranium mining in the Amrabad Reserve – the Resolution however, is little guarantee that the Centre, which is resolutely pursuing a massive expansion of India’s capabilities along the entire nuclear fuel cycle, will heed these voices on the ground.      

Nallamala forest is spread over seven districts across two contiguous States of India – Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and is home to not only the Amrabad Tiger Reserve – among the biggest in the country, but also the fast-dwindling Chenchu Tribe who live deep in the heart of the forest and have been designated a ‘Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group’ (PVTG) by the Central Government; the 2011 population census pegs their number at 47,315.

Diversity

This is not the first time that the Chenchus have been confronted with the prospect of eviction from their traditional lands. Litigations since the late 2000s in various High Courts and the Supreme Court of India by “retired forest officials, wildlife activists and conservation NGOs”, have challenged the constitutional validity of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, and have called for a revocation of the hard-fought forest rights of adivasis and other forest-dwelling communities, arguing that the recognition of such rights will be disastrous for both forests and the wildlife – a claim that activists argue is deeply flawed and empirically feeble. 

The Amrabad Tiger Reserve, spread over 2,800 sq kms across the districts of Mahabubnagar and Nalgonda of Telangana, had earlier been part of the ‘Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger reserve’. However, following the bifurcation of the State of Andhra Pradesh, the northern part of the reserve fell under the State of Telangana and was renamed the ‘Amrabad Tiger Reserve’.

The Reserve is reported to include “around 70 species of mammals, more than 300 avian varieties, 60 species of reptiles and thousands of insects, all supported and nourished by more than 600 different plant species”. With over 18 tigers and a spectacular variety of wild animals such as, the panther, sloth bear, wild dog and herbivores like the spotted deer, Sambhar, wild boar etc., the news of the proposal to mine this pristine forested area, has understandably, caused much concern.

Apart from the rich diversity of flora and fauna in the forest, activists argue that the area is also of significant archaeological import – ‘the remnants of the ancient Nagarjuna Viswa Vidyalayam run by the great Buddhist scholar Nagarjunacharya (150 AD), relics of the fort of Ikshwaku Chandragupta, ancient fort of Pratap Rudra and several others’ dot the banks of the Krishna river. 

Exploration

The proposal for uranium exploration and mining in the area is not new to the central Government in India, which has been toying with the idea for several years now.

In a written response to a question in the Upper House of Parliament in 2015, the Central government had stated that the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD) had ‘located significant uranium deposits in parts of Nalgonda District, Telangana’.

In 2017, in its 41st meeting, the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) – purportedly India’s apex wildlife conservation body – had approved the proposal for uranium exploration and mining in the Amrabad Tiger Reserve.

The NBWL enjoys notoriety for fast-tracking and clearing a record number of ‘developmental’ projects in designated Protected Areas, particularly under the new BJP-led government which is now in its second consecutive term.

Impacts

In 2016, the Field Director of the Amrabad Tiger Reserve Circle had conducted a field inspection to assess the potential impact of the proposed uranium exploration on the forest. In his report, the Field Director minces no words in stating that mining will result in “erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water by chemicals from mining processes.

“Besides creating environmental damage, the contamination resulting from leakage of chemicals also will affect the health of the native wildlife. In these areas of wilderness, mining may cause destruction and disturbance of ecosystems and habitat fragmentation”. 

The report goes on to recommend that permission ‘may not’ be given to the ‘user agency’. It is no less worrying according to environmentalists and activists that the proposed mining will be in violation of the Wildlife Protection Amendment Act of 2006, which disallows “any ecologically unsustainable land use such as, mining, industry and other projects within the tiger reserves”, as well as the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) which recognises and protects the rights of forest dwelling communities, such as the Chenchu Tribe, and requires their approval before any developmental activity can be undertaken in areas which fall under the PESA. 

The stated objective for seeking environmental clearance for the exploration of uranium deposits in the region by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) is to ‘augment uranium resources and locate new uranium deposits’ for the ‘quantum jump’ that India is set to take “in harnessing electricity through the nuclear route”.

For the exploration, it is estimated that nearly 4,000 deep holes will need to be drilled, which conservationists argue will not only annihilate already endangered species of plants and animals but also contaminate the surface and groundwater.

The fact that the area identified for carrying out the mining survey is a stone’s throw away from the catchment area of the Krishna River – on which the Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam reservoirs are built – and that the exploration will contaminate the river with radioactive pollutants is a key concern for environmentalists. 

Pollution

The people of the region however, are no strangers to the devastation caused by uranium mining. In Andhra Pradesh from which the State of Telangana was carved out in 2014, the underground Tummalapalle uranium mine has been in operation in Kadapa District since the earlier part of the decade, and its environmental and health impacts have become too stark to ignore.

Panduranga Rao, former Sarpanch from Nalgonda District, worries that the health impacts of uranium mining including, cancers of various kinds, reproductive health issues in adolescent girls and women and crop failure – akin to that documented around the Jadugoda uranium mines in Jharkhand in Central India – are now being seen in the villages around the Tummalapalle facilities, causing immense fear and resentment among local communities. 

The trouble began in 2017 when agriculturists in the area around the Tummalapalle mine, dependent on drip irrigation, noticed that their banana plantations had been steadily drying up and were yielding little to no produce. Dr K Babu Rao, a retired senior scientist from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), who has been closely associated with the farmers’ movement, told me that after a sample of the water was tested by the local centre of the State Agriculture Department it was surmised that the water was ‘unfit for farming’.

In addition, bore wells in the area had begun to run dry and in some places, even drilling up to 1000 meters yielded no water. Moreover, some water samples collected from the bore wells had revealed an increase in the percentage of uranium and other minerals. 

Contamination 

Following this, the farmers made several representations to the District Collector and local political representatives regarding groundwater contamination due to mining activities as well as the dumping of waste in the tailing pond at Kottalu village which is roughly at a distance of about 8 kms from the project site.

In response, expert committees have been instituted on various occasions and water and soil samples from the area taken for testing. However, Dr Rao argues that there has been no genuine effort on the part of the local administration or representatives of UCIL to address the people’s concerns.

Instead, consistent attempts were made to rubbish their claims and deny them an equal voice by refusing permission to experts such as, Dr Rao to represent the farmers, even as the UCIL brought in scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to argue on its behalf about the ‘safety’ of the mining project.     

The charge that UCIL operations had caused ground water contamination and resultant sickness and infertility of agricultural land is not one that the UCIL faces for the first time. There have been countless instances of tailing pipe bursts and leakages, dumping of radioactive waste in unmanned, unlined and uncovered ponds, from where it leaks into local water bodies used by communities for fishing, drinking and bathing, and enters the ground water and the food chain.

The UCIL and larger nuclear establishments continue to remain in abject denial of the devastation that uranium mining has wrought on those living in the vicinity.

One of the members of the expert committee that was formed following the directions of the Jharkhand High Court in 2016 to examine ‘the effects of uranium radiation in Jadugoda’ is also the former director of the Radiological Safety Division of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). He is reported to have said that the diseases afflicting the communities of Jadugoda could be attributed to “economic backwardness, smoking habits and malnutrition” – not radiation.  

Vindication

Dr Rao doesn’t expect any better from the recent ‘committee of experts’ set up on the initiative of the newly elected State Government of Andhra Pradesh to look into allegations by communities around the Tummalapalle uranium mine.

The committee is comprised of government scientists and ‘experts’ from the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), as well as the Mines, Geology, Groundwater and Agriculture Departments of the State government and academics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Tirupati. This committee can hardly be expected to make an impartial assessment, argues Rao.

It is this lived experience of the people that keeps them on the edge as the government moves in to open up newer fronts in its interminable quest for uranium and rides roughshod over environmental and health concerns and democratic processes in pursuit of its nuclear dream.

However, a recent survey by the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) has revealed dangerously high and concentrated levels of uranium in groundwater samples in the Lambapur-Peddagattu region of Nalgonda district in Telangana, where the Uranium Corporation proposes to set up an open pit and three underground mines.

This has come at a time when communities in Telangana are up in arms against the proposed uranium exploration in the famed Amrabad Tiger Reserve, and as communities in the neighbouring State of Andhra Pradesh fight a forlorn battle to get the state government to acknowledge that their ground water has been contaminated by the Tummalapalle uranium mine – the AMD report is perhaps an important even if unfortunate vindication.  

This Author

Sonali Huria is a PhD research scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. Her research is focused on the people’s resistance in India against nuclear energy and the post-colonial state’s repressive responses.

Image: Choconaz, Wikipedia. 

The global, women-led reforestation charity TreeSisters is launching its ‘Grow Your Own Forest’ campaign as over 11,000 scientists warn that ‘planet Earth is facing a climate emergency’ and that an ‘immense increase’ in efforts is needed to combat the climate crisis.

The critical steps recommended by the collective of scientists to prevent climate meltdown – as published in the journal Bioscience on 5 November – include increasing reforestation “at enormous scales”. Their statement echoes a widely endorsed report published in the journal Science in July, affirming wide-scale global reforestation as the most effective way to tackle the climate crisis.  

The digital Grow Your Own Forest campaign, launched by TreeSisters this week, is a powerful call to the general public to recognise their capacity and responsibility to help restore the tropical forest belt that is so crucial for planetary cooling. This is a simple way for people all around the world to take direct action to mitigate climate change. 

Powerful choice

Clare Dubois, Founding CEO of TreeSisters, said: “We are all warming our world and watching climate chaos unfold as if we are helpless, and we’re not.

“If we stop waiting for governments to act appropriately and take matters into our own hands, we can collectively reforest our planet fast enough to make a significant difference.”

When you Grow Your Own Forest with TreeSisters, you’re making a powerful choice to restore groundwater, protect endangered species, reduce poverty, and sequester carbon to help cool our world.

You’ll be restoring forest in Kenya, Cameroon, Brazil, Mozambique, Madagascar, India and Nepal. Making this choice values the children of every species and the climate they will inherit. It says ‘I care’.

When you donate to TreeSisters, their system converts your donations into numbers of trees planted, so that you can track the scale of your impact whilst discovering fascinating facts about the projects you’re supporting. When you share your forest on social media, your friends can donate too and help grow your forest, extending your impact. Just set up your account and watch your forest grow.  

Climate emergency 

In a world finally waking up to climate emergency, TreeSisters wants to help create a transformation within human culture, where ecological restoration becomes as fundamental to every human life as consumption currently is.

Dubois said: “When you join Grow Your Own Forest, you are helping to create a new normal. Whether you’re a family, a community, an organisation or a business, you can give back to Nature and create a living legacy, starting right now.

“We should be looking back 10 years from now, astonished at what we achieved together and marvelling at the fact that it was ever normal to take from Nature without giving back!” 

In response to devastating fires and forest destruction, TreeSisters is now funding a food forest project in the Amazon, supporting the Ashaninka tribe to maintain their economy and traditional way of life.

Another project in Mozambique, assisting the restoration of decimated mangrove forests, will also sustain indigenous fishing communities and protect threatened ecosystems. 

Restores and regenerates

Instead of looking to technology to sequester excess atmospheric carbon, TreeSisters restores and regenerates the mechanisms Nature herself created to do the job perfectly: forests.

Empowering a global network of women, the UK-based charity has to date funded over 6.5 million trees through its projects. TreeSisters is aiming for a million trees a month by the end of 2020 as the next step on their path to plant 1 billion trees annually through monthly, one-time and partnership donations.

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest and Project Drawdown, said: “The work of TreeSisters is one of, if not the most, significant initiatives that can be undertaken by humankind to address the future of civilization.

“The world’s greatest land-based stores of carbon reside between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn in the form of forests. Their restoration is critical to reverse climate change and create a humane and livable future.

“Can women accomplish something that has failed governments and agencies for decades? I not only think so – I believe it may be the only way it can be accomplished.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from TreeSisters. 

Labour would hit oil and gas companies with a windfall tax of about £11 billion in order to finance plans to tackle the climate crisis by creating a greener economy.

Jeremy Corbyn announced the “just transition tax” as part of Labour’s “green industrial revolution” when unveiling his party’s election manifesto in Birmingham on Thursday.

If Labour wins the December 12 vote, the party plans to create one million green jobs and deliver the “substantial majority” of the emissions cuts needed to tackle the environmental emergency by 2030.

Consultation

Mr Corbyn hopes the windfall tax would provide a support package for nearly 37,000 oil and gas workers, 126,000 people in jobs reliant on the sector and their communities as the nation transitions to a clean economy.

The Labour leader hopes to use the key revenue raiser to deliver on his pledge not to hang the workers “out to dry” and ensure they have new, unionised jobs.

Labour says Scotland’s North Sea oil and gas production has had a net operating surplus of £273 billion, but has been leaving workers and their communities vulnerable since its decline from 1999.

The party argues that the benefactors should now help pay for the cost to transition into a greener economy.

The size and exact mechanism of the tax will be determined by a consultation, but Labour estimates it could raise about £11 billion after looking at schemes in Germany and Spain.

Gas workers

Labour officials do not anticipate the cost of the windfall would be pushed onto consumers at the petrol pumps, saying prices are determined by the global market.

At the manifesto launch at Birmingham City University, Mr Corbyn said: “The crisis demands swift action, but it isn’t right to load the costs of the climate emergency onto the nurse, the builder or the energy worker.

“So, a Labour government will ensure the big oil and gas corporations that profit from heating up our planet will shoulder the burden and pay their fair share through a just transition tax.

“North Sea oil and gas workers have powered this country for decades, often working under dangerous conditions. We won’t hang them out to dry.

“This fund will safeguard a future for their skills and communities with new careers and secure, well-paid jobs.”

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent.

Labour would hit oil and gas companies with a windfall tax of about £11 billion in order to finance plans to tackle the climate crisis by creating a greener economy.

Jeremy Corbyn announced the “just transition tax” as part of Labour’s “green industrial revolution” when unveiling his party’s election manifesto in Birmingham on Thursday.

If Labour wins the December 12 vote, the party plans to create one million green jobs and deliver the “substantial majority” of the emissions cuts needed to tackle the environmental emergency by 2030.

Consultation

Mr Corbyn hopes the windfall tax would provide a support package for nearly 37,000 oil and gas workers, 126,000 people in jobs reliant on the sector and their communities as the nation transitions to a clean economy.

The Labour leader hopes to use the key revenue raiser to deliver on his pledge not to hang the workers “out to dry” and ensure they have new, unionised jobs.

Labour says Scotland’s North Sea oil and gas production has had a net operating surplus of £273 billion, but has been leaving workers and their communities vulnerable since its decline from 1999.

The party argues that the benefactors should now help pay for the cost to transition into a greener economy.

The size and exact mechanism of the tax will be determined by a consultation, but Labour estimates it could raise about £11 billion after looking at schemes in Germany and Spain.

Gas workers

Labour officials do not anticipate the cost of the windfall would be pushed onto consumers at the petrol pumps, saying prices are determined by the global market.

At the manifesto launch at Birmingham City University, Mr Corbyn said: “The crisis demands swift action, but it isn’t right to load the costs of the climate emergency onto the nurse, the builder or the energy worker.

“So, a Labour government will ensure the big oil and gas corporations that profit from heating up our planet will shoulder the burden and pay their fair share through a just transition tax.

“North Sea oil and gas workers have powered this country for decades, often working under dangerous conditions. We won’t hang them out to dry.

“This fund will safeguard a future for their skills and communities with new careers and secure, well-paid jobs.”

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent.

Labour would hit oil and gas companies with a windfall tax of about £11 billion in order to finance plans to tackle the climate crisis by creating a greener economy.

Jeremy Corbyn announced the “just transition tax” as part of Labour’s “green industrial revolution” when unveiling his party’s election manifesto in Birmingham on Thursday.

If Labour wins the December 12 vote, the party plans to create one million green jobs and deliver the “substantial majority” of the emissions cuts needed to tackle the environmental emergency by 2030.

Consultation

Mr Corbyn hopes the windfall tax would provide a support package for nearly 37,000 oil and gas workers, 126,000 people in jobs reliant on the sector and their communities as the nation transitions to a clean economy.

The Labour leader hopes to use the key revenue raiser to deliver on his pledge not to hang the workers “out to dry” and ensure they have new, unionised jobs.

Labour says Scotland’s North Sea oil and gas production has had a net operating surplus of £273 billion, but has been leaving workers and their communities vulnerable since its decline from 1999.

The party argues that the benefactors should now help pay for the cost to transition into a greener economy.

The size and exact mechanism of the tax will be determined by a consultation, but Labour estimates it could raise about £11 billion after looking at schemes in Germany and Spain.

Gas workers

Labour officials do not anticipate the cost of the windfall would be pushed onto consumers at the petrol pumps, saying prices are determined by the global market.

At the manifesto launch at Birmingham City University, Mr Corbyn said: “The crisis demands swift action, but it isn’t right to load the costs of the climate emergency onto the nurse, the builder or the energy worker.

“So, a Labour government will ensure the big oil and gas corporations that profit from heating up our planet will shoulder the burden and pay their fair share through a just transition tax.

“North Sea oil and gas workers have powered this country for decades, often working under dangerous conditions. We won’t hang them out to dry.

“This fund will safeguard a future for their skills and communities with new careers and secure, well-paid jobs.”

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent.

Labour would hit oil and gas companies with a windfall tax of about £11 billion in order to finance plans to tackle the climate crisis by creating a greener economy.

Jeremy Corbyn announced the “just transition tax” as part of Labour’s “green industrial revolution” when unveiling his party’s election manifesto in Birmingham on Thursday.

If Labour wins the December 12 vote, the party plans to create one million green jobs and deliver the “substantial majority” of the emissions cuts needed to tackle the environmental emergency by 2030.

Consultation

Mr Corbyn hopes the windfall tax would provide a support package for nearly 37,000 oil and gas workers, 126,000 people in jobs reliant on the sector and their communities as the nation transitions to a clean economy.

The Labour leader hopes to use the key revenue raiser to deliver on his pledge not to hang the workers “out to dry” and ensure they have new, unionised jobs.

Labour says Scotland’s North Sea oil and gas production has had a net operating surplus of £273 billion, but has been leaving workers and their communities vulnerable since its decline from 1999.

The party argues that the benefactors should now help pay for the cost to transition into a greener economy.

The size and exact mechanism of the tax will be determined by a consultation, but Labour estimates it could raise about £11 billion after looking at schemes in Germany and Spain.

Gas workers

Labour officials do not anticipate the cost of the windfall would be pushed onto consumers at the petrol pumps, saying prices are determined by the global market.

At the manifesto launch at Birmingham City University, Mr Corbyn said: “The crisis demands swift action, but it isn’t right to load the costs of the climate emergency onto the nurse, the builder or the energy worker.

“So, a Labour government will ensure the big oil and gas corporations that profit from heating up our planet will shoulder the burden and pay their fair share through a just transition tax.

“North Sea oil and gas workers have powered this country for decades, often working under dangerous conditions. We won’t hang them out to dry.

“This fund will safeguard a future for their skills and communities with new careers and secure, well-paid jobs.”

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent.

Labour would hit oil and gas companies with a windfall tax of about £11 billion in order to finance plans to tackle the climate crisis by creating a greener economy.

Jeremy Corbyn announced the “just transition tax” as part of Labour’s “green industrial revolution” when unveiling his party’s election manifesto in Birmingham on Thursday.

If Labour wins the December 12 vote, the party plans to create one million green jobs and deliver the “substantial majority” of the emissions cuts needed to tackle the environmental emergency by 2030.

Consultation

Mr Corbyn hopes the windfall tax would provide a support package for nearly 37,000 oil and gas workers, 126,000 people in jobs reliant on the sector and their communities as the nation transitions to a clean economy.

The Labour leader hopes to use the key revenue raiser to deliver on his pledge not to hang the workers “out to dry” and ensure they have new, unionised jobs.

Labour says Scotland’s North Sea oil and gas production has had a net operating surplus of £273 billion, but has been leaving workers and their communities vulnerable since its decline from 1999.

The party argues that the benefactors should now help pay for the cost to transition into a greener economy.

The size and exact mechanism of the tax will be determined by a consultation, but Labour estimates it could raise about £11 billion after looking at schemes in Germany and Spain.

Gas workers

Labour officials do not anticipate the cost of the windfall would be pushed onto consumers at the petrol pumps, saying prices are determined by the global market.

At the manifesto launch at Birmingham City University, Mr Corbyn said: “The crisis demands swift action, but it isn’t right to load the costs of the climate emergency onto the nurse, the builder or the energy worker.

“So, a Labour government will ensure the big oil and gas corporations that profit from heating up our planet will shoulder the burden and pay their fair share through a just transition tax.

“North Sea oil and gas workers have powered this country for decades, often working under dangerous conditions. We won’t hang them out to dry.

“This fund will safeguard a future for their skills and communities with new careers and secure, well-paid jobs.”

This Author

Sam Blewett is the PA political correspondent.