Being Red and Green

  Rachel Reeves appears to be trying to persuade Ed Miliband and others that Heathrow expansion should be allowed on the basis that there will be a dramatic increase in the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Critics point out that widespread use of SAF is itself ‘unsustainable’. Half of the agricultural land in the UK would have to be given over to growing biofuels in order to create enough SAF to support current levels of flying.    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/23/rachel-reevess-bid-to-expand-heathrow-could-add-40-to-airline-ticket?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other     Going back a few years the ‘Director of Downstream‘(!) at Shell Oil set the ambition of producing 2 million tons of SAF by 2025.    https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/09/aviation-flight-path-to-net-zero-future/   A recent report by the IATA (the airline industry trade body) advised that the total amount of SAF produced in 2024 was less than 1 million tons, and points o...

The ‘Thin as Ice’ document is an important contribution from Compass and a welcome response to Labour Together’s triumphalism about the success of their ‘Red Wall focussed’ election strategy. This may have won Labour a huge majority, but it was with a low proportion of the vote and of the electorate and at the expense of losing supporters on its left.   Disappointingly lacking in ‘Thin as Ice ‘ is sufficient recognition of the growing severity of the Global Climate Emergency, which threatens to consume us all and is likely to be a central issue in the next General Election. There is also a lack of a strategy for achieving the ‘progressive coalition’, committed to electoral reform, which Compass correctly advocates.  In my opinion the climate crisis provides an opportunity to create such a coalition, possibly one which can last for two or three election cycles and certainly until proportional representation is implemented. The General Election of 2029 or late 2028 is onl...