Chapter One: Local elections and the climate emergency
The 2020 Bristol City Council election is to take place on 7 May 2020, alongside nationwide local elections.
Why is there nothing about the campaign in the news?
News outlets write more about the US elections than local elections... I wonder what we can do about these from here?
But, as this column says: "Local elections are key to climate action"!!
So let's act and vote - Opinion:
https://mancunion.com/2020/02/13/opinion-local-elections-are-key-to-climate-action/
Written by Sebastian Cousins, contributor
The world is on fire. The ice caps are melting. Yet, we have a government that is simply saying ‘we’ve done enough, let the market sort it out’.
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Other than joining the climate strikes, going vegan and not travelling by plane, what else can an individual do to effect change? Direct action works; the occupation of the John Owens building last year by People and Planet is evidence of that. An essential action that individuals can take is voting in local elections, particularly, voting Green.
It’s not a general election, nor does the result directly affect who’s in the government. But here’s the thing: local government affects you. They run local services, they provide spaces for the public to socialise in, they’re in control of green spaces. It’s not all just about bins!
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The campaigner adds that in Manchester, "public transport is a real issue."
So is it in Paris, London, and especially here in Bristol! Where only a few private, expensive and insufficient bus lines are helping us moving around.
I personally walk everywhere, and only take a bus when the journey exceeds 45 minutes. But it's not sustainable for everyone.
I chose to live near the centre, even if it means that I don't have my own place, but I did it so that commuting wouldn't be a problem, as I work with three different institutions, BIMM, UWE, and the Arnolfini, and write and report for diverse media still.
The trains are particularly inefficient in the region, not running often enough and connecting only a limited amount of places.
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Last summer, I spoke the the Green Party candidate for the mayoral election here in Bristol, Sandy Hore-Ruthven, and here is what he had to say. First, we talked about people's expectations in terms of fight against climate, for an article I wrote in French for the magazine Socialter. Then we talked about the Green Party's plans in an interview I was filing for the German international radio, DW.
"Extinction Rebellion has created a space for discussion but now we must act within this space," Sandy Hore-Ruthven told me. "We come to a time when it is time to move from protest to action."
"Here the Greens have had good results in all the last elections, throughout the south-west of England, in particular as a party for the European Union, but especially in Bristol," he added (then in July 2019). "But the real test will be the next municipal elections in May (2020). We want to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2030. We want to tackle three areas in particular: electrical energy, heating and transports."
The question is how to transform our current transport system?
"For now, it still relies heavily on cars; every day almost half of the inhabitants travel by car. The rest travel by bus, bike or walk. And we think that we must transform this situation so that a large majority of the population will soon be using public transport, by bicycle or on foot. So we have to develop a good transport system."
This doesn't exactly say how... But we talked about building a tramway, and most engineers stated many times that Bristol is not suited for an underground train system, its rocks are too hard to dig and its hills are a challenge for underground transports anyway. The size of Bristol is also much smaller than London so an underground system would take millions and years to build, which the city probably cannot afford.
Talking about energy, he said: "In terms of electricity, we want to continue investing in renewable energy: Bristol is one of the first cities in the country to have had wind turbines, but it has been caught up, we want to invest in wind energy and build off shore turbines, solar panels."
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The Green Party wants to make the city “carbon free” from 2030, by reducing individual transport, installing a congestion tax (like the one in place in London), by creating additional bus lanes, investing in wind turbines, cycle tracks, railway lines and pedestrian areas.
But these sectors are not always in the domain of the powers of the mayor and the municipal council, responded the Labour Party.
According to me, even though the current Labour Mayor Marvin Rees has declared a "climate emergency" (see here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/04/bristol-declares-ecological-emergency-over-loss-of-wildlife), the party's current and prospective measures in term of action against pollution and global warming are unclear and contradictory.
Luckily, the recent plan to expand Bristol airport was rejected after climate protests this week: Councillors voted against the plan endorsed by North Somerset council officers, in decision hailed as ‘historic’ (more here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/11/plan-to-expand-bristol-airport-rejected-after-climate-protests).
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This is just a post on my blog to start a discussion. Much more in depth articles on these issues are needed and I count on some media to start the conversation.
I could also draw examples and lessons from my hometown, Paris, and a few other places where I've lived, Prague, Miami or London, simply.
I'll try to work around it in the coming weeks...
Thanks for reading,
Melissa Chemam
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