Letter to Ruth Kelly - latest transport plan not good enough.
Ruth Kelly MP
House Of Commons
London, SW1A OAA
Wednesday, 1st November 2007
Dear Ms. Kelly,
I am writing to you to express my own and our groups dismay over your department’s latest transport plan.
Your statement that the Government is “responding to the economic challenge and the need to be green.” epitomises the lack of urgency and sincerity in the Government’s approach to tackling global warming.
What happened to the environmental challenge facing the world? Surely your department reads the scientific reports being published almost daily, which describes how time is running out. Climate change has not gone away and have certainly not diminished to a point where it can be ignored as done in your department’s disappointing transport plan.
You can publish as many reports on airport and road expansion as your like. And you can continue to argue that economic growth is paramount. But remember that if the political establishment do not get climate change under control quickly, we will end up with a planet that will not sustain human life. At that point there will be no-one to enjoy the extra runway at Heathrow or the extra lane on the M1.
Look through the window of your Westminster office. Everything you see will disappear forever under hundreds of feet of water, if climate change run amok. This may not happen in your lifetime, but does it not worry you that your children and my children may die because of lack of water, food and a planet that will no longer sustain human life as we know it?
What the UK and the world needs is political courage, guts and leadership to make the right decisions, which puts the environment first and which will safeguard our planets future. Capitalism has made us prosper and brought humanity to the brink of extinction. Hence, I fail to understand how Labour and your department can justify a “business as usual approach” as clearly expressed in your department’s thinking and planning.
Labour has had 10 years in Government, but has failed to deliver any real reduction in the UK’s CO2 emissions. It is wasted time. And with every year the Government wastes, we fall behind a very tight timeline with less and less opportunity to catch up with an escalating climate crises.
Gordon Brown’s comments that the UK must lead in the fight against global warming is little more than the usual spin. We do not need spin and ‘green’ promises, we need serious ‘green’ action. Both nationally and internationally.
As a group we no longer believe that Labour is fit to look after our common environmental interests and to take the action required at home and abroad. Your transport plan confirms this view. We are therefore lobbying our members and supporters, and actively asking them to vote against Labour at the next election.
Finally, please note that I do not want to receive a long letter in return for mine, lecturing me about all the things Labour have done. I am aware of the environmental debate and have heard it all before. My conclusion, no matter what you may write is that Labour has done far from enough.
The Government no longer deserves our support, but your latest transport plan does deserve a place in the recycle bin.
Yours sincerely,
Flemming Bermann
Management Committee Chairman
1st November 2007
