The case for carbon rationing

Last weekend, at the party’s special conference, the SSP voted resoundingly in favour of making the establishment of a carbon rationing scheme, based on the principles of people not profit and the equal distribution of resources, one of our key pledges at the forthcoming elections in May. Here, Roz Paterson presents the case for carbon rationing and attempts to tackle some of the most frequently asked questions
In 1939, the British government introduced food rationing, at very short notice.
Food was suddenly scarce and there was no question that market forces could be allowed to control how much each person had, or the poor would have starved.
Everyone was issued the same allowance, redeemable with a ration book, and in general, it worked well and was an equitable solution.
Sure, there was a bit of a black market in foodstuffs, and if you had money, and contacts, you could get a bit more than your fair share once in a while.
But this was a small glitch in an otherwise pretty good solution to a pressing crisis.
We are in crisis again.
The planet is heating up at an alarming rate. If we go on like this, we could see average global temperatures rise 2º Celsius or more above pre-industrial revolution levels.
If this happens, we achieve the ‘tipping point’ at which global warming accelerates of its own volition and nothing we do can then stop it.
Let’s not go there, eh?
The cause of global warming is, for the most part, human activity. There are still a few remaining climate change deniers out there, but their voices are being drowned out by crashing ice shelves and rising seas. We are causing this horror story, through our use of fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide. To halt the process, we must slam the brakes on our carbon emissions.
Meantime, cheap oil - the stuff that pours out of the Saudi Arabian sands - is running out.

Peak oil
We are almost certainly about to achieve peak oil, at least in the sense of the cheap stuff, after which the world will need to get by on a continually shrinking supply.
Soon, the big oil companies will be having to strain oil out of tar sands, or scoop it from deep, remote reserves in the North Sea.
Hugo Chavez knows it’s running out; that’s why his government is working so hard to ensure that, when Venezuela’s golden goose stops laying, they will have a thriving agriculture to keep them economically stable.
If we do nothing in the face of this looming oil change, we’ll get a form of carbon rationing. It will be called higher prices. Petrol will become dear. So too will the cost of heating our homes.
If we do nothing, people on low incomes will be unable to run cars. Or heat their homes. Or keep the lights on. Perhaps the NHS will need to save on electricity too, and close a few more hospital wards. You get the picture.
But we can do something, and both blunt the impact of peak oil and reduce our carbon emissions in a way that is fair, and actually a bit more than fair in that it has an inbuilt measure of wealth redistribution.
Carbon rationing, in other words.
The SSP’s policy calls for the establishment of an audit commission to develop this idea. It is important that an independent body should do this, to help erase as many business interests as possible, and ensure that the people on board are looking to the long-term, not the next election.
The first task would be to establish a target carbon emissions total for the whole country, with a view to reducing this year on year.
Environmental journalist and campaigner George Monbiot, author of Heat: How To Stop The Planet From Burning proposes dividing that total 60/40 between industry and people, this being the proportional usage currently.
Industry including hospitals, schools, public transport etc, as well as private business.
The public sector would receive a substantial portion of the 60 per cent, the rest being auctioned off to private business.
As for individuals, the 40 per cent would be divided per capita, to give a personal allowance, redeemable through either a smartcard system or even a ration book. Individuals would need their smartcard to purchase petrol, pay energy bills, and buy airline or cruise ship tickets.
When it came to things like imported foods, the carbon ration would already have been ‘spent’ by the business selling them, which could mean that there were more locally produced foodstuffs on our shelves and fewer imports.
It’s not the case that richer people could buy their way out of reducing their carbon usage as they would receive the same ration as everyone else, and could only purchase more if they found someone willing to sell.
In fact, people on lower incomes who didn’t run a car, or didn’t take foreign holidays, could do well out of the scheme as they could sell some of their unused ration
An important caveat is that the government would need to provide 100 per cent grants to anyone living in an energy inefficient house, to bring it up to a certain standard.
Otherwise those in poorly-built housing would tear through their rations simply through trying to keep their house from being cold.

Public transport
A second caveat is that public transport would need to be improved, so that those in rural areas, who need cars simply to get to work, wouldn’t end up disadvantaged either.
Public transport would need to reach a sufficient level that private car use was a choice, not a necessity, which dovetails very neatly with our Free Public Transport policy.
Where cars were a necessity, there would have to be carbon allowances for certain circumstances - for instance, if a person was disabled and couldn’t achieve mobility any other way.
Over the years, the carbon emissions total would contract, as mentioned above.
If Scotland’s example sparked off similar schemes in other countries - and it is highly likely it would, through public pressure - we could see nations adopting the principle of contraction and convergence.
It goes like this.
The developed, or richer, world burns carbon at a vastly increased rate compared to poorer nations. The USA uses 25 per cent of the world total, for instance.

Emissions
Meanwhile, a number of nations are developing their economies, and their carbon usage is going up. However, despite the hype, China and India are using much, much less carbon than we are.
And other nations, particularly in Africa, are burning almost negligible amounts.
The idea of contraction and convergence is that the world works together on the issue of carbon emissions reduction, so that everyone, in every country, ends up with the same entitlement.
We contract our usage, year on year, until there is global convergence, and then we all reduce together, if that continues to be necessary.
So what will a carbon rationed life be like? It’s a good question.
We’re talking about a life without a car, without flights (unless you saved up carbon credits over a couple of years, or received them as presents from pals etc, to fly to Australia, for instance), with energy efficient homes heated to a degree or two less than the UK average, local food and goods, shops that aren’t overheated and overlit, negligible packaging, no plastic bags, etc.
This will have to happen if we are to avoid environmental catastrophe, and chances are it will.
But we have a choice on how it will happen.
We can let the market decide, which means people on lower incomes would find themselves simply unable to afford transport and heating and perhaps even food, while those on higher incomes could maintain their lifestyle.
Or we could do it fairly, and strategically, and ensure that everyone plays their part, and everyone gets through it.

International women’s day

For 150 years, women and men across the world have demonstrated on International Women’s Day - 8 March.
On that day in 1857 in New York, hundreds of women workers in the textile industry went on strike, protesting casual labour, low wages and poor working conditions. The women were attacked and beaten by the police - their stand was one of the reasons 8 March was officially recognised as International Women’s Day in 1910.
So why do we still mark the day now in the 21st century?
The multinational bank HSBC is a major sponsor of the ‘official’, or at least biggest, International Women’s Day celebrations in Britain now. The website internationalwomensday.com explains:
“Many companies have actively supported International Women’s Day... This is essential if they are to recruit and retain the best female talent, sell their products/services to them, and see more women investing in them.”
But for others, including the SSP’s Women’s Network, the reasons we march on International Women’s Day are the same as why the New York textile workers marched - because we are still fighting low pay, exploitation and oppression.
In Scotland today, despite those few women who’ve broken into the boardrooms of multinationals like HSBC, women in full time work earn on average 16 per cent less than men.
Still workplaces are divided into ‘women’s work’ and ‘men’s work’ - nearly 70 per cent of managers and administrators are men, while 74 per cent of clerical and secretarial workers are women.
And what is seen as ‘women’s work’ is undervalued.
We are the cleaners and the carers, the secretaries and assistants - and that means we are low paid. Two thirds of low paid workers in Scotland are women.
When Scottish Local Authorities were supposed to embark on a massive regrading exercise, which should have seen women compensated for decades of being undervalued and underpaid, they instead used it as an excuse to try to drag wages in general down to the lower level.
It’s perhaps not a surprise, then, to discover that only 22 per cent of our brass-necked, wage-slashing councillors are women.
Girls are doing better academically these days than boys, more of them leaving school with five or more Highers, and more going in to Higher Education.
But, nonetheless, it’s not doing them much good in the jobs market with female graduates earning, on average, 15 per cent less than their male counterparts in the first five years after graduation.
Lack of decent, affordable or suitable child care, the fact that the burden of care for elderly or disabled relatives is borne by women, and that women still take on the majority of responsibility for housework - 74 per cent of women say they are mostly responsible for cleaning, washing and ironing, compared to 9 per cent of men - means that there’s no time to put our feet up after a long day in our underpaid jobs.
Women overwhelmingly do a double day’s work every day - and half of it is unpaid.
As Venezuela is beginning to transform itself under its people’s Bolivarian Revolution, one of the major steps taken there to combat sexism is the recognition of caring work done in the home as a contribution to the economy, which should be waged.
It’s only an initial step, but 500,000 mothers living in extreme poverty now receive a ‘wage’ set at 80 per cent of the normal minimum wage.
For one in five women in Scotland, home is not only a place of work - at some point in her life it becomes a place of fear and violence. In 2005, the police recorded 45,796 incidents of domestic abuse in Scotland; 87 per cent of the incidents recorded men’s violence towards women. More than half were repeat incidents.
Capitalism thrives on the exploitation of women. And our oppression restricts and stunts men’s identity too.
Where caring work has to be designated ‘women’s’ to keep its value down, many men are forced to miss out on all the joy that comes with rearing children, as they’re shoehorned into the role of provider.
And 21st century culture which is obsessed with mainstreaming the sex industry, where women’s bodies are sold, bought and used, demeans all our sexual identities, women and men. The SSP, and its Women’s Network, stand for real equality and practical solidarity with women fighting for a fair world.
Within the party’s own structures we take measures to ensure that women are not discriminated against, so we are not prevented playing a full role in both elections and the internal life of the party.
The SSP is the only political party in Scotland that has more female members of the Scottish Parliament than male.
The Women’s Network exists as a space for women to organise themselves, to ensure that issues which affect women are taken seriously by the SSP as a whole, and to help women to get involved in campaigning and developing ideas to change the world, and as such is open to women who are not yet members of the SSP.
This year the SSP’s women will be marching again, at Cornton Vale, Scotland’s overcrowded women’s prison, where women are sent, overwhelmingly, for crimes of poverty.
So join us, and someday soon we’ll be marking International Women’s Day as a day of celebration, a day where we remember and all the women and men who have stood together throughout the centuries, and the victorious end of our fight for equality.

n To get involved in the SSP Women’s Network, phone 0141 429 8200, or email: scottishsocialistparty@btconnect.com

Carolyn Leckie, SSP Central Scotland MSP:
In 2004, I was criticised for speaking out in the parliament about hypocrisy over breastfeeding. Yet double-standards in society, and among politicians, have to be challenged because we are living at a time when women are increasingly under attack.
In America, fertility and abortion rights have been almost obliterated. Worldwide, rape is being used as a weapon of war.
There are similarities between the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, and the kind of brutal and violent pornographic imagery that’s becoming commonplace on the newsagents’ shelves.
Increasingly, women are being objectified and pressurised to accept a definition of their sexuality which has nothing to do with intimacy, or their sexual needs, but has everything to do with a representation of sexuality which is about an abuse of power.
Young girls are under enormous pressure to portray themselves in a sexualised way, yet women raising these issues are accused of being moralistic and puritanical.
Too many men have a double standard over the behaviour they expect from women in order to obtain sex, and the behaviour they expect of women who are family members. This kind of injustice needs to be tackled in a political way.
Glasgow SSP MSP Rosie Kane was recently sent to Cornton Vale women’s prison for a week after peacefully protesting against nuclear weapons:
Many of the women in Cornton Vale women’s prison should not be there - 90 per cent of inmates have addiction problems, 80 per cent have a history of mental illness and over 60 per cent have a history of being abused.
Drug and alcohol addiction are often rooted in poverty, abuse and neglect.
If we spent less on courts and imprisonment, and indeed on nuclear weapons, we could supply those rehab and detox beds.
If cash was ploughed into social work, supported accommodation and youth work, our prisons would be practically empty, our streets safer and our communities thriving.

Women still fight for right to choose

by Pam Currie

As International Women’s Day 2007 approaches, a woman’s right to control how and when she has children is once again under threat.
Forty years after British women were granted abortion rights for the first time in the 1967 Abortion Act, Church and state are still trying to snatch those hard-won rights back.
Of course, the term ‘rights’ should be used loosely in this context. Unlike a majority of other European countries, British women have no automatic ‘right’ to an abortion - rather, they must convince two doctors that continuing with the pregnancy would be more harmful to the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children than having a termination.
Women can also seek an abortion if the foetus is at risk of being born with a serious disability.
Successfully labelling herself as ‘mad’ is not enough for a woman seeking an abortion, however - she must also find doctors willing to recommend the procedure.
One in ten GPs define themselves as conscientious objectors - while they should refer women on to other doctors, there is no legal obligation to do so, and no guarantee that this can be done without delay.
The current debate around abortion has focused on calling for a ‘review’ of the time limit for abortions - currently 24 weeks, although abortions are carried out after this limit where the mother or foetus’s health is endangered.
Some argue that a reduction in the time limit is necessary because medical advances mean that extremely premature babies now have at least a chance of survival.
The reality, however, is that these welcome advances have little to do with the debate around a woman’s right to chose.
Instead, these arguments represent an attack on abortion rights in general.
Nearly 90 per cent of abortions conducted in the UK take place before the 12th week of pregnancy - although NHS delays mean that a quarter of women seeking abortions are forced to pay for them privately.
No-one is advocating late abortions. Less than 1 per cent of abortions are carried out after 22 weeks; late abortion can endanger the mother’s health and is never an option undertaken lightly.
But listen to politicians such as Geraldine Smith MP, who promoted an Early Day Motion at Westminster last year to reduce the time limit, or religious leaders such as Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, and one might easily form the opinion that late abortions were a common practice brought about by reckless women.
A Daily Telegraph poll in 2005, following weeks of media hype, found that over half of those asked thought abortions should not take place after 20 weeks.
There are a whole range of reasons why women need to access legal, safe, late abortions.
Women may have been prevented from seeking medical help earlier by an abusive partner, by fear of family or community reactions to their pregnancy, or through mental health problems - such women are among the most vulnerable in society and need our protection, not condemnation.
The tragic case in Aberdeenshire last year of a young woman found guilty of smothering her newborn son highlights the awful reality for such women - 21-year-old Beverly West was denied an abortion at 20 weeks despite her highly vulnerable mental state.
Abortion rights may not be the top issue on the streets in this election campaign, but they are far too important for us to ignore. One in three women have an abortion at some point in their lives - that’s your partner, your sister, friend, colleague - or you.
Access to abortion affects all of us, because it speaks volumes about society’s attitudes towards women’s sexuality in general.
Forty years on from the Abortion Act, we have to continue the fight - for full abortion rights, for proper sex education in schools, and for full, free access to contraception.

Policies that Would make a real difference

Just some of the Scottish Socialist Party’s policies that would make a real difference to women’s lives:

n A national minimum wage of £8 an hour - two thirds of median male earnings.

n A basic state pension of £160 a week for all pensioners and the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings.

n A minimum 12 months maternity leave on full pay, for all workers, with the right to return part time if requested.

n Free, publicly funded nursery places for all pre-school children, including babies.

n Free after-school care for all primary and secondary school pupils.

n Nutritious free school meals with milk and water for all primary and secondary pupils and replace the private sponsorship of school meals with freshly prepared meals.

n Maximum school class sizes of 20.

n After-school, weekend and holiday clubs in every locality for school age children.

n Recognition of the indispensable role of Scotland’s half a million carers who contribute £5.3billion worth of care to the Scottish economy every year.

n The average worker’s wage for any parent, male or female, who chooses to care full-time for their children or any other dependants.

n Equal representation for women at all levels of government.

n Free environmentally-friendly sanitary protection for all women.

n Equal access for all women to abortion services regardless of where they live in Scotland.

n The ‘morning after pill’ to be available free of charge via NHS outlets, pharmacists and women’s centres.

n Abolition of the requirement to have the permission of two doctors in order to obtain an abortion.

n A zero tolerance approach to violence and abuse of children, women and vulnerable people.

n A Scottish-wide strategy to reduce domestic violence, including special domestic violence courts, domestic violence awareness training and rehabilitation programmes.

n All convicted sex offenders to be legally required to undergo a sex offender programme either within the community or within custody, depending upon the level of risk they pose.

n Increased police resources specifically dedicated to monitoring and supervision of sex offenders.

n An end to the practice which allows those accused of sex offences the right to cross-examine their alleged victims in court, and for these principles to be extended into civil litigation proceedings.

n Greater funding for Women’s Aid and other agencies which provide refuges, helplines and drop in centres for women who have suffered violence, abuse, rape and child sexual abuse.

n The expansion of initiatives such as ‘Routes Out of Prostitution’.

n The decriminalisation of women involved in prostitution and increased police resources to enforce a clamp down on kerb-crawlers in red light districts.

n The closure of saunas and massage parlours which operate as legalised brothels.

back to index