Put People First

After 35,000 people joined the March demonstration calling for decent jobs, public services for all, the end of poverty and inequality, and a green economy, Put People First held a ‘counter conference’ while the G20 met in London. The conference had a large number of speakers focusing on the banking failure, promoting the ‘Green New Deal’, and creation of jobs. The first session looked into the failure of a paradigm with links to the financial crisis and climate change. Session two focused on alternative ways of working followed by a breakout session looking into how to mobilise people. Plenaries I attended were chaired by Jesse Griffiths (Bretton Wood Project), Bhumika Muchhala (Third World Network), Sargon Nissan (New Economic Foundation), Glen Tarman (BOND) and Owen Tudor (Trade Union Congress).

The financial crisis has undoubtedly effected employment rates, green economic plans and increased inequality within society. The crisis has transformed from being a private sector disaster to a public finance catastrophe. Diane Elson (University of Essex) talked about the need to re-regulate the financial market as cutbacks made in public expenditure are being fuelled into saving the banking industry. A bail out of £35 billion has gone to banks who will continue to invest in arms trade and fossil fuel industries, with an addition £6 billion rewarded in bonuses which is unfair and unjust. Ellie Smith (People and Planet) revealed that an astounding £54 billion was invested solely by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in extracting fossil fuel. Public cutbacks are being felt mostly by women, particularly migrant women who work in health services, care homes, social services and the like. agreed that a new economic paradigm for global market is needed, where rules on deregulation is not written by corporate elitists. John Hilary (War on Want)Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation) commented that we currently have a finance system that wrecks the “triple crunch” of climate change, food insecurity and the finance crash itself. Out of the £35 billion being given to banks, the UK government have only invested £1.4 billion to climate change projects.

To control levels of climate change, the carbon market was formed to help industries regulate their emissions by selling, buying and trading pollution rights across countries. However, Larry Lohman (Corner House) concluded that this scheme has turned into the new ‘cash cow’ particularly for energy traders and hedge funds that are losing focus on actually caring for the environment. Fund managers are said to be “obsessed” with short-term price movements which can potentially put long-term climate projects in danger. With that in mind, Catherine Howarth (Fair Pensions) believes that business investment in climate change could potentially trigger the next financial crunch if the carbon market continues to operate the ‘Cap and Trade’, and ‘Carbon Offset’ system. Owen Epsley (Friends of the Earth) pointed out that the carbon market was built by bankers for bankers, and such climate finance will one day “burst” if it continues in this current route. According to Billy Hayes (Communications Workers Union), progressive taxation is required on rich corporations to meet public expenditure demands and third world debt should be cancelled to help developing countries grow.

Lidy Nacpil (Jubilee South) said that the impact of climate change is felt more when in poverty as the lack of money creates food shortages. In a globalised world, food staples are being imported more and more whereby rice eating countries are producing staples to export to rich countries leaving them with no food. Localising food production will solve a lot of problems such as transportation that creates CO2 emissions. However, there needs to be a reorientation of consumption and production in order to create fair use and equality in funds and materials. As a great influencer of European capital markets, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (ex-Danish PM) stated that looking into countries GDP is not a good way of measuring well-being – a system which is in place by many global governing bodies. Vimbai Mushongera (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) agreed that GDP does little to highlight countries growth. People in poor countries like Zimbabwe are silenced by their government and cannot empower themselves to make vocal contributions. 80% have no platform to speak when undertaking economic survival and have no input to government policies that can potentially help people meet their basic needs.

With the lead up to COP15, Bronwen Smith-Thomas (WWF) reminded us that we need a legally binding treaty that sets out long-term goals for investors that can be backed by the government. Jonathan Stevenson (Climate Camp) listed a series of events that Climate Camp will engage in during the COP15 negotiations, highlighting the necessary need for active citizen participation. As a way of taking alternatives forward, Deborah Doane (World Development Movement) suggested the D-Day method: “Demonstrate, Differentiate, Democratise” as a way to make our voices heard. Also, pressure needs to put on banks to act responsibly with government monitoring.