We are delighted to have been part of what has to be the greenest Labour Party Conference ever with Labour now committed to new ambitious targets and SERA hosting a massive fringe programme which brought MPs, councillors, Labour members, trade unions, NGOs and industry together to discuss how Labour must rapidly respond to the Environment & Climate Emergency. 

We were especially pleased to have seen two motions on the Climate Emergency being passed - both of which SERA supported. In particular, we were encouraged to see support for this issue from across the Labour movement - including local government and the trade unions, support that SERA played a role in securing. The motions committed Labour to urgent action to reflect to crisis, including the immediate need for a climate emergency spending review assessing all expenditure through a carbon lens the introduction of departmental carbon budgets to get us rapidly onto the path to net zero, both of which featured in SERA's programme.

The motions (see below in full) commit Labour to lead the world in the race to meet the IPCC’s targets for keeping global average temperature rises below 1.5C, offers radical proposals for meeting those targets, including:

• Keeping with the Labour manifesto pledge for a complete ban on fracking;
• A repeal all anti-union laws, facilitating worker-led activism over social and political issues, including climate change;
• Resources for Young Labour to take a leading role in the Climate Strike movement;
• Progressive taxation, so that the costs of decarbonisation are borne by the wealthiest;
• Trade unions and communities must be at the heart of a reinvigorated industrial strategy, with energy workers playing the leading role in shaping a just transition to a low carbon economy;
• Remove legislation that requires UK Governments to maximise economic recovery of oil and gas, which is inimical with our Paris and net-zero targets;
• In collaboration with the trade unions and the scientific community, work towards a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030

Most importantly, the resolution also recognises the urgency of action, proposing an immediate ‘climate emergency spending review’ to assess all expenditure and projects through a carbon lens.

Outside the conference hall, SERA hosted a fringe programme covering sustainable food, fracking, uplands and national parks, housing, air quality, plastic pollution, net zero energy, Brexit and much more with over 115 speakers including senior Labour politicians Emily Thornberry, Diane Abbott, Sue Hayman, Barry Gardiner, Clive Lewis, Hilary Benn, Danielle Rowley, the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotherham, Mayor of Hackney Philip Granville and Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees. We worked with trade unions including Prospect on our Green Industrial Revolution Reception and hosted Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the TUC at the SERA Rally. We also engaged green groups including Greener UK, RSPB, Friends of the Earth, CPRE, Sustainability Hub and more. Most importantly we want to thank you for attending, we were overwhelmed by interest in our events with standing room only for almost all our fringes, engaging over 1000 of you. If you were unable to join us in Brighton you can watch all our events on demand here. 

Conference motions

Motion 16

Conference notes:

• We face a climate catastrophe; time is running out to ensure a sustainable future for our planet,
• Combatting climate breakdown is not just a moral issue, but an economic one for communities and workers across the UK.
• To prevent the worst effects of climate change, we must keep global temperature rises below 1.5°C.
• Over 1°C of warming has taken place, causing floods, droughts, heatwaves, pollution, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The poorest - particularly in the Global South - suffer most. Tackling climate change is thus indivisible from social, racial and economic justice.
• Just 100 companies are responsible for the majority of carbon emissions; and the Conservative government is deregulating the fossil fuel industry and cutting support for renewables.
• The Tory government’s failure to act on climate change – cutting support for green energy, pursuing fracking and failing to tackle air pollution
• Labour has supported millions of school students who have participated in the global climate change strikes. Young Labour must be given adequate resources to take a leading role in this movement.  

Conference believes:

• we must ensure the costs of decarbonisation are borne by the wealthiest through progressive taxation and investment - not household energy bills
• With the right industrial strategy and political will, decarbonisation can produce vast numbers of well-paid, skilled jobs in communities held back and left behind through large-scale investment in renewables
• Trade unions and communities must be at the heart of a reinvigorated industrial strategy, with energy workers playing the leading role in shaping a just transition to a low carbon economy 
• A Green New Deal is therefore now a demand we must make.

Conference therefore calls on the Labour Party to include a Green Industrial Revolution  in the manifesto a state-led programme of investment and regulation, based on public ownership, public investment and democratic control, for the decarbonisation and transformation of our economy that reduces inequality and pursues efforts to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5°C.

In power Labour will:

Have a comprehensive  plan that leads the world in bold climate  targets to the latest IPCC expert advice to keep global average temperature below 1.5c.

In collaboration with the trade union movement and the scientific community, work towards a path of net zero carbon emissions within keeping of the IPCC advice including to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5C by reinstating subsidies for renewable energy industries and rapidly phasing out fossil fuels in keeping with the Labour manifesto pledge of a complete and immediate ban on fracking.

• Oversee a just transition, increasing the number of well-paid, unionised green jobs in the UK through public ownership of energy, creating an integrated, democratic system large-scale investment in renewables
• Ambitious actions to reduce emissions in building and waste and low-carbon energy.
• Repeal all anti-union laws, facilitating worker-led activism over social and political issues, including climate change.
• Ensure the costs of decarbonisation are borne by the wealthiest through progressive taxation, not working people and their families through household bills;
• Take transport into public ownership and invest in expanded, integrated, free or cheaper green public transport that connects Britain
• Tackle fuel poverty and assure everyone’s basic rights through the provision of universal services;
• Invest in skills through a proactive education and skills strategy to meet the needs of the low-carbon economy;
• Build and retrofit council housing and public buildings to a zero-carbon target
• Remove legislation that requires UK Governments to maximise economic recovery of oil and gas, which is inimical with our Paris and net-zero targets.
• Introduce Committee on Climate Change-advised and Treasury-overseen, departmental and cross-departmental carbon budgets, and conduct a climate emergency spending review assessing all expenditure and projects through a carbon lens, that delivers zero-carbon and bringing systemic change.
• Affirm that Local Government has a vital role to play in this global challenge from building sustainable council housing to improving air quality, ensuring recycling levels to stopping the use of herbicides in valued greenspaces and much more; 
• Adopt an internationalist approach to tackling the climate emergency, and cooperate fully with our European neighbours to win this battle;
• Support developing countries’ climate transitions through free or cheap transfers of finance, technology and capacity;
• Welcome climate refugees while taking measures against the displacement of peoples from their homes;
• Measure all emissions, not just those produced on UK soil.

Create a National Climate Service embracing energy democracy and new public sector climate jobs in sustainable public transport, retrofitting, training, renewable energy, agriculture and waste recycling.

Motion 17

Conference notes:

• To prevent the worst effects of climate change, we must keep global temperature rises below 1.5°C.
• Over 1°C of warming has taken place, causing floods, droughts, heatwaves, pollution, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The poorest suffer most.
• Just 100 companies are responsible for the majority of carbon emissions; and the Conservative government is deregulating the fossil fuel industry and cutting support for renewables.
  Labour has supported the youth strikes for climate and Extinction Rebellion, pushing the climate emergency up the national agenda.
• The UK has accrued wealth since industrialisation through disproportionately high emissions, while the poor, the global south, and women suffer the greatest climate impacts. Domestically and internationally: Social, economic and gender justice is inextricable from climate justice.
• Combining decarbonisation with a progressive restructuring of the economy gives us the possibility to both create green jobs and fight the threat of climate chaos.

Conference believes:

• The cost of decarbonisation must be borne by the wealthiest not the poorest.
• Decarbonisation could produce thousands of well-paid, skilled jobs in renewables and the supply chain. This will be based on public ownership and democratic control.
• In a workers-led ‘just transition’ from high-emission jobs to alternatives; public investment guaranteeing communities and living standards.
• A Green New Deal is therefore now a demand we must make.

Conference therefore calls on the Labour Party to include a Green New Deal in the manifesto: a state-led programme of investment and regulation, based on public ownership and democratic control, for the decarbonisation and transformation of our economy that reduces inequality and pursues efforts to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5°C.

In power Labour will:

• In collaboration with the trade unions and the scientific community, work towards a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030, guaranteeing an increase in good unionised jobs in the UK, and the cost of which would be borne by the wealthiest not the majority; and implementing this target into law if it achieves a just-transition for workers.
• Introduce a complete ban on fracking.
• Oversee a just transition, increasing the number of well-paid, unionised green jobs in the UK through: public ownership of energy, creating an integrated, democratic system; public ownership of the Big Six; large-scale investment in renewables and low-carbon energy.
• Repeal all anti-union laws, facilitating worker-led activism over social and political issues, including climate change.
• Address regional economic imbalances and areas of deprivation.
• Ensure the costs of decarbonisation are borne by the wealthiest through progressive taxation, not working people and their families.
• Take transport into public ownership and invest in expanded, integrated, free or affordable green public transport that connects Britain, including: rail electrification; continued support for high-speed rail, because of the additional capacity that it will create for rail freight on the West Coast Mainline, removing polluting HGVs and other vehicles from roads; the transition to sustainably powered rail freight; creation of rail freight interchanges; o community transport; investment in electric buses that can reconnect local communities; integrated public transport timetabling; local schemes that make walking and active travel safe, attractive, environmentally sustainable options, benchmarked against European practice; o a radical car scrappage scheme to increase electric vehicles.
• Tackle fuel poverty and assure everyone’s basic rights through the provision of universal services.
• A radical programme to up skill the UK workforce to develop, manufacture and manage the greening of the UK.
• Building and retrofitting of zero-carbon social and council housing and public buildings with lowest possible embedded carbon in construction.
• Support developing countries’ climate transitions through free or cheap transfers of finance, technology and capacity.
• Welcome climate refugees while taking measures against the displacement of peoples from their homes.
• Promote the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, resources and services to learn from and help other countries achieve a Green New Deal.
• Implement a programme of ecological restoration to increase biodiversity and natural carbon sequestration.
• Measure and tackle consumption emissions, not just those produced on UK soil.
• Work collaboratively with farmers to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.
• Press for heavy UN penalties on “ecocide” damage to climate-sensitive habitats internationally.