In his message to the mass climate lobby Keir Starmer forgot transport (the biggest sector for emissions) and how his government has just funded 33 roads, increasing CO2 emissions by millions of tonnes
How is that "unwavering commitment to climate action"?
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Labour committed in its manifesto to increase rail freight to reduce congestion, improve road safety and journey reliability. Yet it now appears to be actively undermining these outcomes and transport decarbonisation." - @ecochris.bsky.social transportactionnetwork.org.uk/labour-splur...
But biomass is a white elephant. It is still burning carbon!
Really important issue that is being ignored as ministers seem once again to be listening to vested interests
We won't be legally challenging the Lower Thames 'smart' motorway Crossing planning consent so National Highways will have no one to blame when its costs escalate as they surely will
Economics are likely to thwart the construction of this white elephant
transportactionnetwork.org.uk/tan-will-not...
Policy of new UK govt on decarbonising aviation is... the same as previous govt
And that tech can rapidly make aviation climate-friendly through new aircraft & "sustainable aviation fuel"
But some enviro groups say it's hogwash, and are making legal challenge
www.businessgreen.com/news/4411650...
🌍 Steve Reed wanted the Climate & Nature Bill to proceed. Ed Miliband promised to work on the #CANBill's objectives. Mary Creagh pledged to deliver “binding nature commitments”.
🚨 Labour Ministers are speaking out.
⏳ What’s the delay for new, joined-up, science-led climate and nature legislation?
Young people should protest for the planet more, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said.
Britain is THREE TIMES more likely to arrest climate activists than other countries
And if you think that’s bad watch this
youtu.be/lhI7cZ0kPiY?...
We need a step change in funding away from bigger roads to looking after the roads we already have.
Also, why not try some traffic reduction? See @lowtrafficfuture.bsky.social 😎
#potholes
www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/ALARM-2025-B...
🚨 Press Release!
Our response to Dame Kelly’s downfall
The stepping down of Dame Bernadette Kelly, the Department for Transport's (DfT) Permanent Secretary, offers the chance for a reset of priorities and a change in approach...
transportactionnetwork.org.uk/tan-response...
Time to put this dinosaur out of its misery and replace it with something better:
⏩ better for the economy
⏩ better for opportunities
⏩ better for people
⏩ better for the NHS
⏩ better for the environment
Time for our Essex-Kent Superlinks!
transportactionnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/u...
Whichever way you look at it the Lower Thames Crossing just keeps getting more expensive
A drain on the UK's finances at a time we can ill-afford wasteful and damaging projects
www.ft.com/content/917d...
Why would we build the #LowerThamesCrossing which will choke the south east with more traffic and will only provide 5 years traffic relief at Dartford?
No one is questioning its cost or effectiveness or why a new rail link was never seriously considered
@bbcnewsnight.bsky.social
Extract from Private Eye showing a 12% fall in GDP for every degree of warming compared to 0.43% potential increase from Heathrow expansion
Private Eye on the money as usual
Anyone championing building high carbon infrastructure to boost growth such as #Heathrow, #Gatwick or the #LowerThamesCrossing should be aware they could be stimulating an economic downturn
"Everyone will end up paying the price if the Lower Thames Crossing goes ahead with private finance." - @ecochris.bsky.social
transportactionnetwork.org.uk/lower-thames...
Trying to green a hugely damaging road scheme is like putting green lipstick on a pig. Not a pretty sight.
transportactionnetwork.org.uk/lower-thames...
“Heathrow expansion just keeps on rising like a zombie from the grave. People keep disinterring it. Rachel Reeves is like: ‘I’m fresh out of ideas, so give me a spade and I’m going to dig this up...’ It just smacks of desperation,” said @crisortunity.bsky.social 👇
www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...
If UK news shows are going to give Nigel Farage a platform to spout this absolute boll**** about Brexit & the vaccine rollout (unchallenged) I’ll happily come back every week to correct it
We cannot allow them to rewrite history.
If you agree share this FACT CHECK widely
youtu.be/MUrf7addcTA?...
Taking him at his word we should take a lot of HGVs off the road as they don't pay their way and are heavily subsidised
Middle England and radicals join forces against Heathrow plans Adam Vaughan Environment Editor From protesters grounding planes on runways "climate camps" screaming helium balloons at aviation events, opposition to a third runway at Heathrow has rarely been boring. But it is arguably the unexciting alliance of "Swampies and Middle En-gland", combined with businesses, local authorities and MPs, that explains why campaigning against the airport's expansion has been so successful. "It was this diverse coalition that was terribly important," said John Stewart, who fought the runway for two decades. Stewart, 75, chaired the biggest and most organised local group Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Hacan) - from 2000 Hacan united local residents concerned about noise and homes being bulldozed, and still has thousands of members. They were backed by big, es-tablised environmental groups such as WWF but also by more radical activists such as the group Plane Stupid Leo Murray, who co-founded Plane Stupid, said opposition to a third runway had modelled itself on the anti-roads movement of the 1990s, including protesters against Newbury bypass. "The recipe for success was this alliance of grassroots and deep greens, Swampy types who are prepared to go and climb trees and chain themselves to things, and Middle Englanders who didn't want road expansion near them," said Murray, who thinks a similar approach would work on Heathrow. The Blair government backed the third runway in 2003, just as Murray was becoming more concerned about the consequences of climate change. By 2005, Murray said, "It was keeping me up at night. I was freaking out about the end of the world and looking for something to throw my weight behind." That something was opposition to airport expansion. There followed an intense period of non-violent action, intended to increase the financial and political cost of expanding airport capacity. In 2006, Plane Stupid shut down East Midlands Airport…
Lord Mandelson was "slimed" with green custard by a Plane Stupid activist in 2009, the year after Murray and colleagues had stormed the roof of the Houses of Parliament. "Gordon Brown was very peeved," he said. A week-long climate camp was held near Heathrow in 2007 in Sipson, a village which faced demolition if a third runway went ahead. Murray thought politicians after David Cameron, who opposed the expansion, alighted on the third runway when they ran out of ideas for growth. "Heathrow expansion just keeps on rising like a zombie from the grave. People keep disinterring it. Rachel Reeves is like: T'm fresh out of ideas, so give me a spade and I'm going to dig this up, see if I can resuscitate this corpse. It just smacks of desperation," he said.
It’s me, in the Times
"Heathrow expansion just keeps on rising like a zombie from the grave. People keep disinterring it. Rachel Reeves is like: I'm fresh out of ideas, so give me a spade and I'm going to dig this up, see if I can resuscitate this corpse. It just smacks of desperation"
🛫🧟
The government's narrative on planning is basically the same as the last government's. That's because it has the same intellectual progenitors, the ultra free market think tanks. I'm afraid it's likely to end in the same failure. My new blog -
greenallianceblog.org.uk/2025/01/30/w... 1/
Just want to take a moment to appreciate @london.gov.uk continuing his consistent pattern of being courageously right about things the present Labour Party leadership are egregiously wrong about www.london.gov.uk/mayor-london...
On #R4Today the UK Chancellor is making the case that Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a gamechanger for the environmental impacts of aviation at Heathrow and elsewhere
It's just not true. There's no basis for this claim
www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/three-m...
While we are disappointed to see the Chancellor supporting the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) today, it is far from a done deal.
Private finance has not been secured and the planning application is yet to be approved. 🧵
Flea treatments for cats & dogs mean their hair is full of toxic pesticide fipronil, or imidacloprid, both banned for agriculture
The hair is shed into wider environment, used to line birds' nests
There were more dead chicks in nests with high pesticide levels
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Shame presenters on #BBCNEWSCAST tonight have little understanding of what is causing delays to planning decisions
Focussing on removing planning constraints and reducing opportunities for legal challenge misses the bigger problems causing delays, such as poor developer proposals, or slow decision making, of which the government is as guilty as anyone else it cares to blame.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Our exciting new report calling for greater connectivity to the South West is out today. It is a viable alternative to building ever bigger roads and could be funded for a fraction of the cost of the scrapped #A303 #Stonehenge scheme
It recommends: 🧵
transportactionnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/u...
It was more to point out that the government claims it can't afford the compensation yet is willing to contemplate £10bn on a scheme that won't deliver what it's supposed to
