Feature

Time for Labour to deliver: environment

Labour’s first term was strong on public health and environmental rhetoric, but weak on action. Now it has another chance to be bold – so John Nicholson and Charles Secrett set out what’s on the agenda

Ever since President Bush came in for fierce criticism for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, right-wing apologists have been queueing up in the press to denounce environmentalists and environmentalism. A familiar theme of the ‘back-lashers’ is to suggest that evidence of harm caused by pollution and other environmental problems is grossly exaggerated and bears no scientific scrutiny.

Consider the following facts. Between 12,000 and 24,000 people in Britain may die early due to air pollution, mostly due to the cocktail of poisons belched from millions of exhaust pipes every day (the figure for Europe is an estimated 80,000). Some 120,000 people die in road accidents every year across the continent; and our congested roads remain the biggest single cause of ‘accidental’ deaths and serious injury for children in Britain. The number of deaths in the UK rises every winter by comparison to the summer months by between 30,000 and 60,000. Proportionately, the number of excess winter deaths in Sweden is around a third that for the UK. The difference is largely a result of poorly insulated and poorly heated UK homes.

And then there is looming climate change. We don’t know exactly how many people will die prematurely over the next century because of increases in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, sea level rise and atmospheric warming. But tens of thousands have already lost their lives from contemporary equivalents, as hurricanes have battered central America, Madagascar and other parts of the world. Disease threats from insects like malarial mosquitoes will similarly increase as atmospheric warming changes the breeding vectors and geographical range for insects, among other species. It will be poor people and vulnerable communities who suffer the most. Best estimates put the anticipated global death toll in the millions.

Even where immediate evidence of direct harm is harder to come by, there is often cause for concern. It appears that mobile phone companies have known for longer than they have been prepared to admit that there are health risks associated with heavy mobile phone use. The average diet of people in the UK contains more dioxins than the World Health Organisation’s recommended safe level. Government reports repeatedly show that much of our fruit and vegetables are contaminated with pesticides. Other synthetic chemicals enter our bodies from a wide range of household goods, with unpredictable effects. Hormone disrupters in everyday products include ‘bisphenol a’ (in can linings), some brominated flame retardants (found in carpets and electrical goods) and phthalates (found in toys and other plastics). Over 300 synthetic compounds have already been discovered in the human body, including PCBs in mothers’ milk.

We do not know enough to confidently say what safe levels are in relation to chronic exposures like these. But the history of scientists and policy-makers repeatedly lowering the supposedly ‘safe’ levels of exposure to ionising radiation leaves environmentalists believing that it is better to apply the precautionary principle to regulatory standards.

That’s enough evidence of harm to satisfy all but the most hardened ecosceptic. I think we should ignore the antigreen backlash and discuss instead what government should be doing about these environmental threats to human health.

Frankly, Labour’s record in its first term did not inspire confidence. It began by promising to cut the number of journeys taken by car. But the numbers rose inexorably, Labour caved in to fuel tax protests with cuts in fuel duty, and fought the recent election campaign promising to build 100 new bypasses. Meanwhile, the London tube and our railway system continued to decay through underfunding and mismanaged attempts to introduce market forces into the system. In Europe, Labour acted to frustrate attempts by the Swedes and others to introduce tougher controls on toxic chemicals. At home, waste policy is built around pathetically low recycling targets, and the presumption of scores of polluting incinerators around the country. Where Labour did act, it was often only as a result of external pressure. FOE, the Association for the Conservation of Energy and six other charities and unions succeeded in persuading Parliament to pass our drafted Warm Homes Act, which requires the government to take energy efficiency measures in 3.5 million homes in the next ten years – a first step to eradicating the fuel poverty affecting nearly 8 million homes in Britain.

This cynical inaction is a betrayal of Labour’s core vote. One of the key conclusions of FOE’s research is that pollution and other environmental damage is mostly felt by the poorest and most vulnerable in society. The UK’s most polluting factories, for example, are heavily concentrated in low income areas. In responding to our work, the Environment Agency concluded that ‘pollution certainly deepens social injustice’. Problems such as noise and heavy traffic are also felt most in poorer urban areas. Perhaps Labour’s failure to act on these issues helps to explain the appalling turnout in many core Labour seats.

Labour must act far more radically in its second term. First, drop the idea that building more roads is a solution to traffic congestion. We buried this idea in the early 1990s, and shoved a stake through its heart. But like Christopher Lee in an old Hammer horror movie, the roads lobby has risen again. Let’s spend the money on public transport instead, starting with a solution to the shambles of a privatised railway. Let’s see the precautionary principle properly applied in the planning process. Those who want to build incinerators next to houses and schools should have to refute the presumption that what they are trying to do is dangerous. Let’s see an end to the ‘back business at all costs’ approach that New Labour has taken in Europe. Chemicals must be more closely regulated, and toxic ones phased out by 2015. Company directors who sanction dangerous corporate polices and products should be made legally liable for the damage they cause to the environment and human health.

Finally, let’s see a joined-up government strategy to deal with poverty and environmental degradation together. Labour owes it to its core supporters, and to honour its many environmental promises, to see that they do not have to live with the dirty endproducts of our economic behaviour.

Greens are often accused of being gloom and doom merchants. But I am an optimist. Things can certainly get better. Governments can act to protect their citizens. But only if we campaign hard to push them into action.

Too much of modern politics is a game for the big battalions. Only united citizen action can give ordinary people – voters, constituents and consumers – the voice they need to make a difference.

FIND OUT MORE

UK Public Health Association

www.ukpha.org.uk

Friends of the Earth

www.foe.co.uk