Green campaigners across the country have penned an open letter to Cumbria’s Labour MPs after the High Court quashed the decision to allow an offshore coal mine to go ahead.
Environmental campaigners, including George Monbiot, Extinction Rebellion and the Allerdale and Copeland Green Party, have issued an open letter, urging MPs – especially Josh MacAlister, who represents Whitehaven & Workington and Markus Campbell-Savours, who represents Penrith & Solway, to advocate for green jobs and industry for the area.
The letter says:
We welcome the High Court’s decision to rule that the Tory government’s approval of the Whitehaven coalmine was unlawful, thus confirming the new government’s recently-stated view that the original approval of the mine was illegal.
The science has been clear for decades that, in order to avoid exacerbating the climate crisis, we must rapidly shift away from extracting and using all fossil fuels – especially coal.
The people of Cumbria have directly experienced the impacts of global heating as a result of suffering three ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ floods since 2000.
Reducing fossil-fuel use clearly has significant implications for local people, communities and businesses, and, in particular, on jobs.
However, tackling the climate crisis and having decent jobs are by no means mutually exclusive.
The CAfs Report of 2021 – The potential for green jobs in Cumbria – produced in conjunction with Green House Think Tank and Opal Research & Consulting, presented clear proof that the transition to net zero in Cumbria will create a large number of good local jobs.
These would mainly be connected to generating clean and cheaper renewable electricity via an expansion of on-shore wind, off-shore wind, tidal lagoon, solar, and hydro schemes.
In total, around 9,000 net jobs could be created during a 15-year transition period, and 3,800 in the long term.
Around half of those jobs would be in West Cumbria (Allerdale and Copeland), because many of them would come from off-shore renewables, with both Workington and Whitehaven ports playing a key role.
In addition, a massive and rapid scheme of home insulation would further reduce home energy use – and thus bills – so taking almost 19,000 families in Cumbria out of fuel poverty.
In addition, improving rail links by upgrading the Cumbrian Coast Line, and a general expansion of cheap public transport, would also provide a significant number of well-paid local jobs. According to one estimate, such schemes would create around 3,200 jobs.
Furthermore, we need grants for struggling hill farmers to help them move to nature-supporting regenerative farming.
The new government has said that it wishes to take action straightaway to address the problems faced by ‘left-behind’ communities.
We thus call on Cumbria’s new MPs – especially Josh MacAlister (Whitehaven & Workington) and Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith & Solway) – to urge the Government to take immediate steps to put GB Energy funding into Cumbria to:
- Enable a rapid transition to clean and cheap energy
- The creation of thousands of good local jobs that would come with that transition, and
- Investment in training programmes that will equip local workers with the skills needed to grow those green sectors of the economy
In the meantime, we shall also be launching a petition to gather public support for urging the government to put significant ‘green’ money into Cumbria – in the very near future – to make that transition and the jobs a reality.
The letter has been supported by Julia Steinberger, professor of ecological economics, University of Lausanne, George Monbiot, environmental author and activist, Gail Bradbrook, Extinction Rebellion co-founder, Greener Jobs Alliance, Weald Action Group, UK Nanas (Against Fracking), Earth First! Gathering Collective, XR North Lakes, Anti-Capitalist Resistance (Cumbria), Red Green Labour, Allerdale & Copeland Green Party, Chinty Turnbull, of Chinty’s Eco Café & Shop, Keswick, Jill Perry, Green Party Cumberland councillor, Anti-Capitalist Resistance and Left Unity.
