Activists held protest in Harrods, the British Museum and Scottish Power headquarters today (3 December), as part of national demonstrationsagainst surging energy bills and fuel poverty.
Don’t Pay UK, Fuel Poverty Action, Just Stop Oil and others groups held a series of what they describe as ‘warm-up’ protests.
Activists entered the British Museum’s great hall – the largest indoor public square in Europe – where they also protested against the Bloomsbury venue’s sponsorship links with oil giant BP.
…
Just Stop Oil supporters cosy up at Harrods on Fuel Poverty Day of Action
Image: Just Stop Oil, Rich Feldgate
Just Stop Oil supporters have occupied beds and sofas in Harrods to demand that the government Just Stop Fuel Poverty by insulating homes and ending our reliance on expensive, dangerous and dirty fossil fuels.
At around 1pm, 4 Just Stop Oil supporters briefly occupied beds and sofas in Harrods department store on Brompton Road in central London and displayed signs reading “Just Stop Oil, Just Start Insulation”, “Just Stop Fuel Poverty” and “Oil Equals Death”. They were rapidly escorted out of the store by around 20 security guards.
Image: just Stop Oil.
Just Stop Oil supporters are acting today in solidarity with Fuel Poverty Action’s Energy For All campaign and the Don’t Pay UK campaign. The action is one of several Warm-Ups taking place across the UK in towns and cities including Glasgow, Liverpool, Bristol and London in support of the Warm This Winter coalition’s Day of Action on fuel poverty.
A spokesperson for Just Stop Oil said
“This government is allowing ordinary people to starve and freeze this winter as greedy energy companies squeeze every last penny out of us. The health service is in crisis, workers’ wages are being squeezed, and nurses are using food banks. Austerity is a political choice and the cost of living crisis is an unprovoked attack on ordinary people.
“Worse still, rocketing energy prices are funding the companies who are torching the climate. Rishi Sunak’s government plans to allow over 100 new UK fossil fuel projects. They are signing our death warrants. New oil and gas is criminal, an act of genocide against billions of people in the poorest countries on earth, and an act of war against the young.
“If the government really cared about ordinary people, as they keep claiming, we’d see an emergency response to the climate and cost of living crisis. Everyone would have their basic energy needs met and bills would be shrunk through insulation, renewables and free public transport, paid for by the fossil fuel companies and the rich.”
National Energy Action estimates that as a result of rising energy costs, around 2.2 million more people have fallen into fuel poverty this year in the UK raising the total figure to 6.7 million. The chancellor’s decision to further raise the energy price cap in 2023 could see the number of households in fuel poverty rise from the current 7 million this winter to 8.6 million households by next April according to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition.
Dozens of climate and energy justice campaigners call for a stronger windfall profits tax to fund home insulation and renewable power generation from inside the U.K. Parliament in London on October 24, 2022. (Photo: Suzanne Plunkett/Greenpeace)
[The situation on fracking has changed since this article was published 3 days ago. The new UK government under Rishi Sunak has made clear that fracking is not permitted in UK.] Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Delay has cost lives. Chaos costs lives. And it will cost more lives this winter and every winter,” campaigners say. “No one benefits except the oil and gas profiteers.”
Hours after lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party voted to make Rishi Sunak the United Kingdom’s third prime minister this year, more than 30 climate and energy justice activists occupied the lobby of Parliament to demand that the government fund home insulation and renewable power generation through a more robust tax on oil and gas corporations’ windfall profits.
Almost seven million people in the U.K.—nearly a quarter of the country’s population—are facing fuel poverty as winter quickly approaches. Meanwhile, heavily subsidized fossil fuel giants are raking in record profits, which they use to block policies that would facilitate a green transition and rein in their destructive industry.
Greenpeace campaigners, armed with sky-high utility bills from across the country, read the testimonies of people struggling to make ends meet amid a historic cost-of-living crisis that Sunak’s right-wing predecessors—Boris Johnson and Liz Truss—and Tory colleagues have, according to progressive critics, exacerbated through adherence to neoliberal orthodoxy.
Stressing that “chaos costs lives,” activists made the case for simultaneously addressing soaring energy prices and the worsening climate emergency by taxing fossil fuel profits and using the revenue to invest in better residential insulation and expanded clean energy production.
Today 30+ Greenpeace activists occupied parliament, bringing energy bills and reading out testimonies from people across the country just as @RishiSunak is announced as the new Prime Minister. He must deliver a proper windfall tax to insulate homes. #ChaosCostsLivespic.twitter.com/ecVytnsqYc
“Thanks to spiraling gas prices and the oldest, coldest housing in Europe, millions of people are being pushed into fuel poverty,” Greenpeace U.K. noted in a blog post. “People across the country have waited for government after government to provide enough help to lower their energy bills—but mostly what we’ve had is political chaos.”
The group continued:
Rising energy bills and cold homes will cost lives. The U.K. already has the sixth highest rate of excess winter deaths in Europe. Higher bills also disproportionately impact disabled and older people, people of color, and those from impoverished communities. For instance, many medical and mobility devices require electricity. Meaning, on average, disabled people have much higher energy bills just for using equipment they need in their day-to-day lives. Political leaders have failed to put people first and provide sufficient support for the energy crisis.
It’s political choices that have caused the levels of inequality and fuel poverty we’re facing. If this government properly taxed record fossil fuel profits, it could help fund extra support for those in need, and help pay for a nationwide program to insulate homes. Instead, the last six weeks have seen u-turns on the Conservative manifesto pledge on fracking and new commitments to North Sea oil and gas, which will wreck our climate and won’t lower our bills.
Two months ago, the U.K. Treasury estimated that the nation’s energy firms are poised to enjoy up to £170 billion ($191.9 billion) in excess profits—defined as the gap between money made now and what would have been expected based on price forecasts prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—over the next two years.
A 25% windfall tax on oil and gas producers approved in July is expected to raise £5 billion ($5.6 billion) in its first year. However, the existing surtax on excess fossil fuel profits contains loopholes allowing companies to drastically reduce their tax bill by investing more in oil and gas extraction, which the industry claims will boost supply. The recently enacted windfall tax, which lasts through 2025, also exempts eletricity generators, even though Treasury officials attribute roughly two-fifths of the £170 billion in excess profits to such actors.
With winter energy bills projected to triple compared with last year, calls are growing in the U.K. to increase the windfall tax rate on excess fossil fuel profits and extend it to electricity generators benefiting from rising oil and gas prices.
While Truss vehemently opposed windfall taxes—asserting that they “send the wrong message to investors”—Sunak introduced the current windfall tax in May when he was Johnson’s chancellor of the exchequer.
According to Greenpeace, Monday’s action was meant to show Sunak that “he can’t ignore the almost seven million households facing fuel poverty.”
The life-threatening crises of surging utility bills and unmitigated greenhouse gas pollution are both caused by fossil fuel dependence, the group noted. Consequently, these problems have lifesaving solutions that are straightforward and aligned.
“To lower our bills long-term and reduce our emissions,” Greenpeace urged Sunak to do the following:
Commit to investing £6 billion [$6.8 billion] immediately to kickstart a street-by-street insulation program to keep bills low for good;
Shift to renewable energy, like wind and solar, which are cheaper and quicker to build than oil and gas; and
Properly tax oil and gas companies’ excess profits so they pay their fair share, given how much money they’ve made off these crises.
“It’s time we have a government that brings down bills for good and plays its part in tackling the climate crisis,” the group added.
On social media, Greenpeace encouraged people to sign a petition imploring U.K. lawmakers to “keep people warm this winer.”
“Delay has cost lives. Chaos costs lives. And it will cost more lives this winter and every winter,” the group emphasized. “No one benefits except the oil and gas profiteers. If the government were on the people’s side, the U.K. really could get on track to quitting oil, gas, and sky-high energy bills, forever.”
Enough is Enough is a mass movement resisting the cost of living crisis. It was launched earlier this year, and has grown rapidly. Over 500,000 people signed up to the campaign by the end of August and the group has held packed out rallies in cities across the country. On October 1, Enough is Enough held protests and actions in solidarity with striking workers in 50 towns and cities.
Enough is Enough has a set of five demands – delivering a real pay rise for workers, slashing energy bills, ending food poverty, ensuring decent homes for all, and taxing the rich. Recent polling from Survation found the group’s demands are popular with the public. Survation found 84 per cent support capping energy bills, 76 per cent support pay rising with inflation, and 72 per cent support increasing taxes on the rich.
Liz Truss has replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister of UK. The first obvious step intended to show the direction the new government intends was a budget presented by new Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday. Kwarteng fired the Treasury's permanent secretary in the preperation of this budget.
There is a cost of living crisis in UK driven by runaway inflation and massive increases in energy bills. Despite this, Truss and Kwarteng's budget benefitted the already stinking rich. The top rate of income tax of 45% for the highest earners was abolished so that the highest rate is now 40%. Clearly that's going to benefit the rich and the very rich most.
Despite denials, this is trickle-down economics with the idea being that the economy will be stimulated by the highest earners and that benefits will trickle-down to all. There is a simple, logical argument against trickle-down economics. It is that the rich already have money that they can spend to stimulate the economy and they're not doing it, if they're already not spending their wealth, why should they now start?
There is also an alternative, logical argument that to stimulate the economy it's best to instead help the poor. The argument is that the poor are desperate and that any money they receive to alleviate their wreched situations will be spent and therefore stimulate the economy.
It appears that Liz Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng are pursuing outdated, discredited and abandoned economic theories which are the exact opposite to what is needed. Markets responded poorly to the budget.
