Does Starmer Care About the Climate?

Michael Walker sat down with Dale Vince, Carla Denyer and Dominique Palmer at at Massive Attack's Act 1.5 Climate Accelerator to talk about Labour's climate pledges, new oil and gas licenses and whether Just Stop Oil helped or hindered the climate movement.

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[Ashley.D]

I don't know why I should care what Dale Vince has to say about the environment when his concept of the best government for the environment was one with Thangam Debbonaire retaining her seat instead of Carla and her three Green colleages getting into government. A few extra seats in Labour's massive majority wouldn't have done anything for the environment they can't already do, but having four Green MPs means we do have a better chance to get people thinking about the climate

[edpoole]

Extraordinary that Dale Vince absolutely ignores everything Carla says and just responds by parroting Labour misinformation. I've not seen anyone so on a promise of a lords seat in a long time.

[DileepaRanawake]

Greens are the only party that is democratic and championing the change we need

[MountainDew]

I see Dale is still hoping for his future position in the house of lords.

[RojiVerdeVgn]

The Green Party is growing in influence and its leading representatives are impressive. Radical politics is both socialist and Green. No climate justice without social justice. Eco-socialist solutions to capitalist crisis is needed no more than ever. Vote Green, join the Green Party.

[anarchords]

This Dale bloke seems a bit long in the tooth to be this naive. I mean, if you're still giving Starmer the benefit of the doubt on literally anything at this point, I suggest you've been ignoring A LOT of other shit.

[DileepaRanawake]

Novara please can you interview Dominique Palmer about people power. We live at a time when so many people don’t feel empowered. It would be great to hear her thoughts on how we can be empowered.

[HPsauce]

The problem of using the "economic growth" argument is that you're relying on exactly the same logic and approach which causes climate change and environmental destruction in the first place.

[jvfzumt]

Interesting panel discussion. The pylons issue raised a tension in the climate / green movement between decarbonisation and the biodiversity/ ecological crisis that wasn’t properly explored in the discussion. It would be good if Novara media covered the ecological crisis in more depth as the presenters are often pro-house building, pro-HS2 and have been dismissive of ecological concerns. The climate crisis and biodiversity crisis are equal existential threats yet climate and decarbonisation gets more attention.

[Dunrig]

Just so you know the 1.5c limit is impossible to hit now. We will hit it by 2028.

[Human_Herbivore]

Pushing beef consumption is certainly lowering the bar too.

[EEC]

This Dale Vince guy seems like he's been put here to be an apologist for the Labour government, I don't agree with most of the points he is making.

[EileenHall-jf]

Starmer only cares about himself. He will simply bend with the wind, or allow whoever, to pull his strings. I hope I’m wrong.

[benharris]

Growth doesn’t make ordinary people richer. The value of money is relative, not absolute. The wealth of ordinary people is being destroyed by growing wealth inequality, not by lack of growth. More growth without tackling inequality will make people poorer not richer

[mariogaeta]

And how is there no option to report bot account on YT? Almost like they’re happy to host all the bots 🤔

[judithmatthews]

So we have 3 comments from channels all joined 6 hours ago all with the same logo and all saying the same theme. Legitimate? Yeh right. Why bother?

[Midland_Wolf_]

Hmmm, mixed messages here I feel. I voted GREEN for the first time in my life (after a lifetime of voting Labour I simply couldn’t stomach a vote for Starmer based on what I’ve seen of him). Dale has obviously thrown his lot in with Labour and to a degree it’s understandable (after 14 years of Tory BS, he realises he can get “some” stuff done with Labour, I get it…

However Carla is right, she also understands that Labour will do “some” of what is required whilst bowing to established interests and for me she is correct to threaten holding them to account and forcing their hand. I feel the sniping from Dale, with his newfound Labour rosette on to be a little snide TBH, he should be drawing them together and not driving wedges between.

Seems Dale had provided funding to some Green campaigning in the election as well as the large scale support for Labour. It’s very confused from him I feel…. And yet so much of what he has to say on these issues is bang on the money.

[TheLukeLambert]

Wow the bots already at it, YT is so done 😂😂

[Adamb]

The Greens need eco-socialist real living working class MP's from poorer communities to grow their voter base,

Love to you all alwyas

[howmanybeansmakefive]

I have my criticisms of Dale, but I don't think Carla came off too well either, esp responding to the Pylon issue. She recited the procedural intricacies of the issue in what felt more like a way to obfuscate, instead of as a way to engage with the issue of "Building vs NIMBYism" head on. She framed it as an issue of decentralization and disinformation (which may be the case) but you still have to address the underlying anxiety/tension it exploits (also something that they should have seen coming in this situation). That's important if you want to lead a mass political party and want people to trust your ability to govern/lead/campaign.

I understand the decentralized nature of the policy making, but at some point there needs to be at least some rhetorical accountability/leadership, and rightly or wrongly, pointing to the decentralized party processes every time there is a divisive political issue will start getting stale very quick. This is only going to become more of an issue as the Greens gain MPs, and has the risk of turning every political issue in one of internal party politics/divisions.


I didn't really get any new insight from Dominique, but an activist should be advocating for the maximalist position, so that's understandable.