ACOD Ghent University welcomes the movement of youth and students who are protesting weekly on the streets to demand an ambitious climate plan. Their motivation, persistence and critical attitude has made that in our society, a debate has started on the disastrous consequences of the way our economy is organized. They showed that through collective action, including skipping school and going on strike, manifestations and organizing themselves, support can be built for social change. It is not a coincidence that this movement leads to enthusiasm, also by those who are no longer (school)-students.
We are very pleased with the fact that this movement specifically focuses on the fundamental societal changes that are needed to combat climat change, and that those measures need to be based on social justice. In the past, a lot of the consequences of “green” measures have been paid by ordinary working people, while polluting multinationals and large corporations have not taken up their responsibility.
As it turns out, the 100 largest fossile fuel-producers in the world are on themselves responsible for 70% of all greenhouse gasses in the world, since the creation of the Intergouvernemental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The Climate Plan of the City of Ghent, that by 2019 foresees a reduction of CO²-emissions of 20% compared to the reference year 2016, only includes companies that are not implicated in the European System for trade in emission cerficats (ETS). When those companies are added, they are responsible for 89% of all CO²-emmissions in Ghent. The huge majority of those emissions come from one single industrial company: the Arcelor Mittal Steel Plant in Ghent. A climate plan that doesn’t take into account this pollution is doomed to fail.
On the other hand: we also have to take into account the interests of the many people whose jobs directly or indirectly depends on companies like Arcelor: a climate plan that doesn’t take up the protection of jobs and working condition for these workers will never be a social just plan, and is unacceptable for us as a trade union.
Besides this, some aspects of climate change are only resolvable by collective measures, and by investing in good public services: public transport, research and education,… The “schoolstrikers” correctly call for a real action plan. As a trade union, we want to reply to this by giving a first attempt to formulate such a plan in which our priorities on social justice are taken into account.
The scientific consensus that climate change is real, and is caused by human activity, is almost unanimous nowadays. The famous scientific journal Nature recently published an article showing that the hypothesis that “human activity is causing disastrous climate change” has reached the so-called “5-sigma” level. This is the same level of certainty that was used in 2012 to confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson, and means that there is now only 1 chance in 3,5 million that climate change is not caused by human activity. In comparison: you have more chance to correctly guess all 5 numbers in the Euromillions lottery…
Our program
Mobility
We call for a massive public refinancing of public transport, investment in new lines and environment friendly public transport vehicles. Public transport needs to be of decent quality, coverage has to be expanded, and needs to be free for users. Bicycle allowances needs to be increased, and additional investments must be done in safe cycling infrastructure and public initiatives for rental bikes and bike repair shops. When there is really no alternative transportation possible then the use of personal vehicles, an affordable and public system of carsharing must be set up. This way, private car use can be drastically lowered, without hurting the mobility of people. Tax reductions for company cars need to be abolished. Instead of them, we want equivalent salary increases, including all social contributions.
Let’s use those subsidies that are nowadays going to companies like Ryanair and Easyjet to invest in public railroad infrastructure: we want a renationalization of all railways, and a return of decent international train connections as an alternative to polluting aircraft. We need the abundance of small private package and courier services who employ people with bad labour contracts. We demand a public postal service that can organize the distribution of packages in a more efficient way, with less vehicles, and with priority to alternative transportation like bycicles etc. Drivers need to have decent working conditions and salaries.
Finally, we also need to rethink goods distribution. A lot of companies try to save money by using just-in-time and zero-stock principles. This has led to an explosion of the number of trucks and vans who, often with small loads, are flooding our roads. It is much more interesting to replace this by a more coordinated form of transportation that ensures that less but larger transports can happen, especially by railroad and barges. One barge can replace about 40 trucks on the road.
Reconversion of polluting industries
A lot of polluting industrial processes today have environmentally friendly alternatives, or technologies are under development that can reduce emissions drastically. Our universities, including Ghent University, research these technologies on a daily basis. As such, technologies exist that make it possible to produce CO2-neutral steel. Despite this, Arcelor Mittal in Ghent continues to emit tons of CO2. These ecofriendly technologies are often not taken up because large companies refuse to use them on a large scale: shareholders of polluting multinationals demand their share of profits, and don’t want these profits to be invested in ecological reconversion.
We demand the introduction of a large industrial plan that can transform Belgian industry in a few years towards the most ecofriendly technologies that exist. Theoretical models developed at our university or at other research institutions need to get the chance to be used in a large-scale industrial setting. Companies must receive binding objectives on the reconversion of their production, waste management, emissions and packaging. Profits need to be invested in those new technologies. During and after the reconversion, a full interdiction on job losses and relocalisation must be enforced. Workers need to receive the training and education to adapt themselves to those new production processes. Effective measures must be taken against companies that refuse to submit these obligations.
Energy under public control, investing profits in renewable energy
The past few months, private energy companies have shown they are no longer capable to organize energy production in Belgium in an effective way, let alone that they are ready to a massive reconversion towards renewable energy. The cracks in Belgian nuclear plants, the postponement of the closure of these plants, the lack of investment in renewable energy sources: they are all signals that demand for a renationalization of the energy sector under public control. A publically controlled energy sector would use the profits to make electricity affordable again, and to invest in renewable energy.
Also, a “National Insulation Plan” needs to be introduced, to insulate all buildings on short or medium term. People who cannot afford these insulation measures must be given public funds to do so.
Investment in research and education, passive and qualitative school buildings
Scientific research is a crucial elements in finding solutions for ecological reconversion. Public financing of fundamental and applied research need to be increased. At the same time, the rat race in current academic careers need to end: researchers need to be able to work in a stable and certain environment, so that they can focus their research on the long term. This will not only increase the quality of life of these researchers, but also the quality of research.
Also in education, the lack of public funding needs to be stopped. A good education is crucial to develop the critical spirits we find with todays’ schoolstrikers for climate. It also ensures that people will be able to understand and cope with the challenges of the coming period. Besides this, additional funding for school infrastructure must be foreseen: universities in the Flanders Region only receive about ¼ of the funding they need to maintain their buildings. A massive investment plan in educational infrastructure is needed, with the focus on building climate neutral buildings.
Collective problems ask for collective solutions
Climate change is a societal problem. Therefore in all our proposals we plead for collective solutions: we have no faith in flight taxes, bullying measures against motorists who do not have an alternative, or taxes on forms of packing for which there is not yet an alternative. Our call is to invest in alternatives: decent international railway connections instead of over-subsidized cheap airplanes. Alternatives for privately owned cars, of a sufficient quality to effectively limit private car ownership. A prohibition on the production of unnecessary plastic packing, without any costs for this being passed through in the price of the end consumers.
By organizing these solutions in a collective manner it is possible to think much further than the individual responsibility of people. E.g. when there are problems of mobility, shouldn’t we think of providing sufficient decent and cheap houses close to the working place? Shouldn’t we make sure that there are sufficient schools and public daycare centers to avoid people having to move too long distances with their children? Is a reduction of working hours no way of reducing commuting, or of distributing it in a better way?
The Belgian syndicate of big enterprises (VBO) recently proposed to abolish the automatic indexing of the salaries to make people feel the environmental measures and force them to change their behavior. However preserving the automatic indexing of salaries is essential. We do not want environmental measures to be paid by the modest income of people living of wages or dole. We want those measures to be paid by the gigantic profits of multinationals. We think this is the only way to achieve a climate plan that is not only efficient but that is also socially correct. Only this way we can obtain massive support for it, convince people that have not yet been convinced, and reduce the stubborn climate deniers to an absolute minority!