As UK Chancellor George Osborne\u2019s mad policy makes plain, the key is tax.\u00a0 Last week the London Evening Standard<\/i> invited me to write a letter commenting on Greenpeace\u2019s epic climb of The Shard, Western Europe\u2019s tallest building, which they did to protest against Arctic oil exploration by Shell and others.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the piece they published.<\/p>\n
Here’s what I originally wrote (similar)<\/p>\n “Ken Livingstone once said \u201cyou can say anything you like in this country \u2013 so long as it doesn\u2019t have an effect\u201d.\u00a0 The Greenpeace Six scaled the Shard, and got arrested. Technically for \u2018criminal trespass\u2019 but politically, for saying \u2018the Emperor has no clothes\u2019. Or more accurately, the Emperor is insane.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Our Emperor is government.\u00a0 We elect it.\u00a0 We know climate change is real, dangerous and happening. Yet tax and laws encourage development of Arctic oil and gas when the climate is already overloaded with carbon pollution.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Greenpeace scaled the Shard, to say \u201cwake up: enough already\u201d.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Shell is\u00a0at the pointy end of lunacy and endangering your children\u2019s future. Statoil of Norway is another. The day of the climb I met Statoil – these guys were building windfarms but most investment still goes to oil.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the rub.\u00a0 As a Greenpeace Director in the \u201890s I met Shell and BP and they said \u201conce we get the signal from government that renewables (wind, solar etc) are more profitable (decided by tax rules) than oil or gas, that\u2019s what we will do\u201d. But the signal never came.\u00a0 Which is down to politicians, and hence us, and hence the Shard.”<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n So there\u2019s a simple demand that we could all make of politicians: that they should use tax policies to make it more profitable to invest in renewables than in fossil fuels.\u00a0 That would make investors move the money.\u00a0 In the UK the LibDem-Tory coalition is doing the exact opposite.\u00a0 The natural target with a General election coming up, is therefore the Labour Party, the main Opposition.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve just spent a week or so analysing another three values segmented national surveys for Greenpeace \u2013 this time in SE Asia: Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines.\u00a0 We see the same picture that we have<\/a> before in the US, India, Brazil, China and Argentina.\u00a0 Most people \u2018believe in climate change\u2019. \u00a0Even more say \u2018it\u2019s happening\u2019.\u00a0 And most want less investment in fossil fuels and more in renewables.\u00a0 So it should be natural to demand that tax policies should be used to make it more profitable to invest in renewables rather than oil, coal or gas.\u00a0 It\u2019s a straightforward, universally applicable demand.<\/p>\n Why would it work ?\u00a0 Because energy companies,\u00a0 invest in the highest return, lowest risk projects.\u00a0 There is project competition for finance inside energy companies, including renewables v oil, coal, gas etc.\u00a0 Their share price depends upon the future value of those projects, and CEOs are held to account by the markets on the quarterly results.\u00a0 If oil and gas look more profitable\u00a0 in the portfolio then that’s where CEOs will want the investment to go.\u00a0 Much more of this regime of risk and profitability is in the hands of government politicians than they may like to admit, which means it is potentially in the hands of their voters.<\/p>\n PS – the World Bank<\/a> seems to have finally got the point (after years of work by\u00a0 handful of campaigners).<\/p>\n Update 24 July 13:\u00a0 The woman has done as much or probably more than anyone to bring the World Bank to this point is Daphne Wysham.\u00a0 Read her remarkable story of persistence and 16 years of campaigning here –\u00a0 http:\/\/www.ips-dc.org\/blog\/shift_from_coal_financing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" or … A Simple Unifying Tax Demand to End Fossil Fuels Today the UK Government has set out (see BBC) to incentivise fracking through massive tax breaks, just as the Arctic plunges further into meltdown, the \u2018globe bakes\u2019 (see Washington … Continue reading ![\"Shard](\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Shard-letter.png\")
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