Belfast South - Climate

In the Socialist Party's view, in order to tackle the climate crisis, radical action is required. We do not agree that this should take the form of hand-outs to big business, as has occurred with RHI etc. We can't control what we don't own and incentivising big business to change is at best insufficient and most of the time ineffective. We say: it is necessary to bring energy and other key sectors of the economy into democratic public ownership under the control of the working class, rather than trying to incentivise big business to make change. This is also an essential step to control prices which are currently skyrocketing while large energy companies continue to make record profits. We would back all necessary economic supports for workers, farmers and small business to make a just transition to a post-carbon economy. While the Socialist Party would have welcomed the passage of Clare Bailey's climate bill as a step forward, we feel it still does not go far enough in terms of targets or concrete proposals. Serious and immediate action is required, including emergency public investment in free public transport to reduce reliance on cars and massive investment to improve energy efficiency of houses to reduce energy costs, which would also create jobs.

Explotation of natural resources and capitalist overproduction are two of the major causes of environmental crisis