Climate Breakdown Shakedown

The meeting we had planned jointly with Extinction Rebellion Sutton on the climate emergency in March had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

In its place we are staging an online event:

on 7 July  at 7 pm

Via Zoom, bookable at eventbrite.

Details to follow.

 

 

Putting the urgency in the climate emergency

Sutton for Peace and Justice and Extinction Rebellion Sutton invite you to a public meeting:

Wednesday 25 March 2020, 7.30–9.30pm, doors open at 7.00.
At Sutton Quaker Meeting House, Cedar Road, Sutton, SM2 5DA.

The climate emergency has reached the top of the news and political agenda.

In July 2019, in response to an Extinction Rebellion ePetition, Sutton Council became one of around 270 local authorities across the UK to declare a climate emergency and agreed to do what they could to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. But they have said achieving it is conditional on money from central government

Having recognised this as a climate emergency, fine words are not enough and action cannot be put off or left to someone else. Councils like Sutton must, and can, take more urgent and practical action to match their rhetoric.

Come and hear from expert speakers and join the debate.

• Why the need for real practical action is urgent.
• What councils across the UK are already doing.
• What more Sutton Council should be doing.
• And what can we all do in our own lives and communities to help tackle
  the climate emergency.

With:

Ted Burke – London Campaign Organiser at Friends of the Earth, building a network of climate action groups to campaign with their councils for ambitious Climate Action Plans.

Dr d’Reen Struthers – Citizens Assembly facilitator and trainer for XR, a teacher educator and lecturer in education at UCL-Institute of Education and a Resilience and Mentor Trainer.

There is no entry charge, donations will be taken.
Please book your place by email to sutton4peace@gmail.com
or by text message to 07740 594496.

Why Local Authorities should oppose TTIP

Local Authorities should officially oppose TTIP – and many have

By Mike McLoughlin

TTIP will be damaging to local authorities and their democratic rights. It will force local authorities to open their procurement processes to US corporations. Such interference will have profound effects on how local authorities operate – from lowering of service standards to lowering of staff pay. Councils committed to paying a living wage i.e. a wage higher than that which Mr Osborne thinks can be called a living wage, will be prevented from so doing in their outside contracts. The procurement process will be undermining as it forces the councils to sign contracts which go against decisions made by the democratically elected representatives of the council.

The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism will undermine an important role of local councils, that of boosting the local economy. At the moment local councils can, for example, choose to favour local produce and local suppliers. However, with the threat of ISDS litigation (which could be very expensive a local authority cannot afford) they could be forced to forgo that “favouritism” as it will be considered an unfair advantage to local farmers, one that excludes producers from across the EU and US. Such a change will have a crushing effect on attempts to build resilient communities. The EU negotiators are particularly keen on this aspect of the deal as they wish to get rid of the “Buy American” local campaigns in the USA. Therefore any Government assurance that this will not happen cannot be relied upon.

The trade deal is negotiated in secret. And that fact alone is enough for aware people to be against it – the lack of any information on the negotiations, other than what has been leaked, means we cannot trust any official comments about it.

TTIP is a vehicle for corporations to strengthen their hold on the economies of both the EU and the US. This trade deal is, on principle, a threat to our democracies since the power is all in the hand of corporations and its overarching aim is to increase their profitability. It is not about increasing employment opportunities, nor is it about helping small to medium manufacturers to export their goods. It is about corporate profits. Health, workers’ rights, the environment, even the local economy – all are of no account as long as the big companies in the US and EU can turn an even greater profit. That is why this deal should be rejected by anyone who cares about our communities, anyone who wants to live in a thriving, healthy local community.

A total of 46 Local Authorities, 36 in England & Wales and 10 in Scotland, have considered or are considering becoming TTIP-FREE zones. Of these only 4, all conservative controlled, have rejected a motion in some way condemning TTIP or wishing to distance themselves from it. 37 have passed a critical motion calling on the Government to abandon or modify the present state of TTIP and 5 more are actively considering such a motion.

Councils of many different political make-ups are included; in England mostly Labour controlled, but 11 have no overall control. In 7 the second party after Labour is the Lib-Dems. There is one conservative controlled council that has passed a critical motion.

 

Councils against TTIP

The following Councils have declared themselves TTIP-Free zones (April 2016):

BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL

BRADFORD MDC

BRIGHTON & HOVE CITY COUNCIL

BURY COUNCIL

CAMBRIDGE CITY COUNCIL

CRAWLEY BOROUGH COUNCIL

EXETER CITY COUNCIL

GWYNNEDD COUNCIL

HARTLEPOOL BOROUGH COUNCIL

HASTINGS DISTRICT COUNCIL

LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

LANCASTER CITY COUNCIL

LEWISHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL

NORTH SOMERSET COUNCIL

NEWCASTLE CITY COUNCIL

NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COUNCIL

NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL

NORWICH CITY COUNCIL

OLDHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL

OXFORD CITY COUNCIL

READING BOROUGH COUNCIL

SEFTON COUNCIL

SHEFFIELD CITY COUNCIL

SOUTHAMPTON CITY COUNCIL

SOUTHWARK BOROUGH COUNCIL

STROUD DISTRICT COUNCIL

WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Bin Veolia

Sutton for Peace and Justice is urging the South London Waste Partnership (SLWP) Joint Committeeyou to exclude Veolia from the shortlist of companies bidding for the SLWP waste treatment infrastructure contract, due to the company’s involvement in activities in illegally occupied Palestine.

South London Waste Partnership (SLWP) is a joint initiative between Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton and Sutton councils to the handle household waste from the four boroughs and minimise the amount sent to landfill. SLWP is currently carrying out a process to award a 25-30 year contract to develop waste treatment infrastructure, worth £990 million. Veolia is bidding for the contract.

Through their activities in occupied Palestine, Veolia companies  are supporting and helping to entrench Israel’s illegal occupation, aiding discrimination against and grave abuses of the human rights of the Palestinian population, making themselves complicit in breaches of international law, and profiting from  this illegal and unethical activity.

Specifically:

·      Veolia Transport, a subsidiary of Veolia Environment, is a leading partner in the consortium building the light rail tramway system linking West Jerusalem to illegal Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, that will cement Israel’s hold on occupied East Jerusalem and tie the illegal settlements even more firmly into the State of Israel.

·      Veolia owns and operates the Tovlan landfill site in the occupied Jordan Valley, that processes refuse from illegal settlements.

·      Veolia runs two bus services 109 and 110, operated by its local company Connex, that link illegal settlements to Israel by a road on which until recently West Bank Palestinians were forbidden to travel, as well as two other bus services serving illegal settlements in the West Bank.

·      Palestinians’ ability to carry out their lives and to move between their homes and places of work and education have been severely restricted and their property has been expropriated by the Israeli authorities in and around the illegal settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

·      Numerous UN resolutions and the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the wall have confirmed that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the annexation of East Jerusalem are illegal under international law and that Israel as an occupying power is bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

·      In April 2010 the UN Human Rights Council declared the tramway and its operation – which Veolia is contracted for – to be illegal, with the UK, along with all EU members of the Council voting in favour.

·      The London session of the Russell Tribunal, investigating international corporate complicity in violations of human rights and international law perpetuated against the Palestinian people, concluded that: “It is clear from the evidence of witnesses that this conduct is not only morally reprehensible, but also exposes these corporations to legal liability for very serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

·      Veolia and Alstom are currently being prosecuted through the French Courts by the Association France Palestine Solidarite (AFPS) for violations of the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, that states that “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” “any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons… is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations”.

Veolia as a company is responsible for its subsidiaries and contractors and is therefore complicit in activities that breach international law and violate human rights.

We believe that our local authority and our elected representatives could be brought into disrepute by being involved with, and financially supporting through their contracts, a company whose actions are clearly illegal and unethical.

The SLWP should therefore exclude Veolia from their tendering processes, as  other local authorities have already done .