Tag: campaigners

Scotland prepares to join Global Climate Justice Day of Action

Campaigners will today march through Edinburgh as part of Global Day of Action for climate justice during the UN Climate Conference COP27 in Egypt.

The March will demand action on the cost of living that also helps address the climate crisis. The route through the capital will highlight the banks, polluters and governments who are driving climate breakdown, as well as the resulting impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people around the world.

Organisers say the event will draw attention to the importance of upholding human rights in responding to the climate crisis, here in the UK and world-wide, as the issue of brutal repression of civil society in Egypt comes under the spotlight.

The family-friendly march through the city will be one of over 40 events across the UK and Ireland on a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice.

Mary Church, Friends of the Earth Scotland commented: “As world leaders gather once again to negotiate the future of humanity, thousands of people are marching to demand solutions to the climate crisis that put people and the planet first.

“The solutions to climate change are within grasp and only require the political will to deliver them urgently. Governments need to stop prioritising the demands of big polluters and start listening to the people instead. Putting an end date on oil and gas well within the decade, with a just transition to reliable, affordable renewables will help tackle the cost of living crisis as well as slashing emissions.

“There can be no climate justice without human rights, yet governments around the world including here in the UK are clamping down on civic space.

“We stand in solidarity with those already experiencing the impacts of climate breakdown and with the people of Egypt who are being denied their human rights by a brutal regime.

“We support the call of the Egyptian human rights movement for the release of all those who are being unjustly detained including British citizen and human rights defender Alaa Abd El Fattah who is on hunger strike in prison.”

Global Justice Now will join the march with protests outside HSBC bank, drawing attention to the bank’s role in charging high interest rates for debt repayments from African countries.

Countries in the Global South are currently spending 5 times more on unjust debt repayments than they are addressing the impact of the climate crisis.

Liz Murray, head of Scottish campaigns Global Justice Now said: “This profit-driven system is hurting us all – here in the UK and around the world. And countries in the global south are getting hit particularly hard.

“They’re suffering some of the worst impacts of climate change, despite having played almost no part in causing it, and they’re additionally burdened by enormous debts. Banks here in Scotland are implicated in that – with companies like HSBC and BlackRock making big profits from the interest on those debts and refusing to cancel them.”

Natasha Ion, climate campaigner at Banktrack, said their organisation would be outside Santander bank on Hanover Street highlighting the fact that world’s largest banks have pumped $4.6 trillion dollars into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed.

Natasha commented: “The climate march will tell banks that they must go beyond burning, and stop financing the extractivism that is wrecking the planet.

“The fossil fuel industry is one of the main drivers of climate change, and has been implicated in endless human rights violations, primarily against Indigenous communities and those on the frontlines of extraction in the Global South.

“Commercial banks also finance major companies guilty of mass deforestation in regions such as Latin America. The highly polluting meat and dairy industry, with massive business like JBS at the centre, has consistently encroached on indigenous lands and been active in illegal deforestation.”

Campaigners are demanding an end to new fossil fuels projects and will be focusing on the UK Government who are currently considering approving the vast new Rosebank oil field.

Mary O’Brien, a grandmother of 10 who is involved in the Stop Rosebank campaign said: “Given the urgency and seriousness of the climate emergency, it is unbelievable that we are even having to fight against new oil and gas fields like Rosebank.

“But thousands of people across the UK and around the world are coming together to stop these climate-wrecking projects and to build that better future.

“I’m doing this for my grandchildren and for future generations, so that they can have a liveable planet. Join us on the march as we demand a rapid and fair transition away from fossil fuels to reliable, affordable renewables.”

March starting point is at 12pm, Saturday 12 November at St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH2 2LL.

The route of the march will pass six points that highlight different demands for climate justice:

1. St Andrew Square – Make Polluters Pay

There will be a large installation of the ’scales of justice’, a performance by the Extinction Rebellion ‘red rebels’ as well as some stalls run by migrant/global justice groups.

2. HSBC Bank, 76 Hanover Street –  Cancel all Debt to Global South Countries

There will be several people on stilts dressed as bankers who are robbing Africa, as well as banners with key messages around debt.

3. Santander Bank, 31 Hanover Street  – End Fossil Finance

The theme is banks financing destructive projects across the world – specifically large scale cattle farming in the Amazon. There will be large trees and people dressed as cows.

4. East Market St – Solidarity with Egypt: Free All Political Prisoners

The street will be lined with posters and banners calling on the Egyptian government to free political prisoners, and for the UK Government not to come home without British citizen Alaa Abd El-Fattah.

5. UK Government building on Sibbald Walk – No New Fossil Fuel Projects

The theme is no new oil and gas/ and Stop the Rosebank oil field. There will be big banners and large and small roses decorating the square in front of the building.

6. Scottish Parliament –  End the Cost of Living Scandal – Just Transition Now

The theme is cost of living/ energy price crisis. When the march arrives at Parliament attendees will be given placards with related demands and encouraged to form a ring around the Parliament.

March ends 2:30pm.

Scottish planning reform campaigners take their case to the United Nations

Environmental and community campaigners have urged a top UN body to intervene in Scotland’s planning system, after repeated calls for equal rights of appeal have been ignored by the Scottish Government.

Campaigners from Planning Democracy, Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, Friends of the Earth Scotland and RSPB Scotland, have submitted a formal complaint to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC), a UN body tasked with upholding environmental rights.

The complaint argues that planning appeal rights in Scotland are not ‘fair’ and therefore in breach of international law on access to justice for the environment.  They point to a ruling by the Committee in Northern Ireland concluding that a lack of equal rights was in breach of the Convention, and argue that similar recommendations must now be applied to Scotland to spur reform.

The appeal to the UN follows over a decade of civil society campaigning and the passage of two planning bills, both of which failed to address the issue. An amendment proposing to introduce equal rights of appeal under the 2019 Planning (Scotland) Act was voted down by SNP and Conservative MSPs.

Currently, only applicants (usually developers) enjoy appeal rights if planning permission is refused.

Members of the public and NGOs do not enjoy equivalent rights to appeal if a development is approved, even if the development will negatively impact on health and the environment, or if the decision-making process was flawed.

The only option available to affected communities and individuals is to go to court via a judicial review, which the Convention’s governing bodies have already ruled is ‘prohibitively expensive’.

Campaigners are calling for the Scottish Government to introduce legislative reforms to achieve equal rights of appeal.

Clare Symonds, Chair of Planning Democracy, said; “Giving communities rights of appeal is about justice and fairness.  It should be a given that decisions that fundamentally affect our future and the environment can be contested by those who will be most affected.

“It is clear that the Aarhus Compliance Committee’s Northern Ireland ruling agrees with our perspective that for developers to have right to challenge a decision at no cost, when communities have no such privilege, is unfair and a breach of international law on environmental decision-making.

“The situation regarding appeal rights in Scotland is the same and we expect the ACCC to find in our favour and hold the Scottish Government to account.”

Benjamin Brown, Policy & Advocacy Officer at Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, said: “As it stands, Scotland’s planning system is rigged in favour of developers.

“Through ignoring calls to introduce Equal Rights of Appeal in planning decisions, the Scottish Government has missed a vital opportunity to empower communities and protect our environment. It must now act to reform the planning process, so that communities impacted by poorly considered planning decisions can have their voices heard.

“As we work towards including the right to a healthy environment in the new Human Rights Bill, equal rights in planning cannot be forgotten.”

Mary Church, Head of Campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “It’s an absolute scandal that communities and NGOs can’t appeal against developments that harm the environment, while developers can wage a war of attrition through appeals and repeat applications if their proposal gets knocked back.

“This lack of equal rights undermines the planning system and leads to decisions that are bad for people and planet. The Scottish Government shouldn’t wait for the UN to rap its knuckles again, but should take action to level the playing field as part of its agenda to enshrine human rights in Scots Law.”

Aedan Smith, Head of Policy and Advocacy at RSPB Scotland, said: “It is essential that individuals and communities have the ability to challenge harmful decisions, especially those that would make the nature and climate emergency worse.

“We would hope that this ability would not need to be used very often, but it is important that decision makers can be held to account in a way that is fair.”

Council lied to justify destructive development, claim Silverlea campaigners

Community campaigners fighting to save the Silverlea woodland, wildlife and heritage site from a housing development have condemned as “Council lies” the claim that the site is a “barren” flytipping site  of “low landscape value and low recreational value with few quality trees”.

A meeting of the City of Edinburgh Council development sub-committee on 10 August flouted the Council’s own policy by approving the building of 142 houses on the green belt in the Muirhouse and the Salvesens area in north-west Edinburgh.

The Save Our Silverlea Campaign describe a photo of the site produced by the Council to justify the development as “totally misleading”.  

A SoS spokesperson said: “The photo showed a big pile of flytipped waste – but when a team from Save Our Silverlea visited the site days after the Council meeting, all we found was one white plastic bag and a dumped shopping trolley. The Council photo was either very old or taken elsewhere.  Councillors visited the site shortly before the meeting so they should have known the photo was ‘fake news’.”

Save Our Silverlea have produced photos of the site showing massive trees and a verdant and vibrant woodland. 

30-40 mature trees are to be felled to make way for the proposed scheme.

“We defy anyone – even a Councillor – to look at these magnificent trees and say this is a “barren”  flytipping site.  Clearly there has been some flytipping over the years – but if the site was sympathetically opened up to the community as a mini nature reserve with low impact paths and perhaps a children’s play area, then this increased footfall would act as a deterrent to flytipping. 

“The Council is effectively “saving” the site by destroying it.”

Freedom of Information request

The camapigners say the city council tried to justify the destruction of dozens of mature trees by claiming they were planting 131 saplings on the narrow strip of grass known as Silverknows Park. 

At the Council meeting Save Our Silverlea spokesperson Edward Murray described the real situation: “My flat overlooks Silverknowes Park and I watched them planting these saplings out in mid-February on a bitter cold day with the ground waterlogged,” he explained.

“The end result is the vast majority of these saplings never took root. They’re dead. Are we then to exchange 30-40 mature trees for row upon row of dead twigs in plastic tubes? That doesn’t strike us as a fair exchange.” 

On 16 August Save Our Silverlea submitted a Freedom of Information request asking how much the Silverknowes Park Tree Plantation cost.

At the Council meeting Edward Murray described Muirhouse, where he has lived for over 30 years, as “just a dormitory for workers to sleep in before going back to work again”. 

Mr Murray added: “Muirhouse is the size of a small town; it has no primary school, no park, not even a pub. It doesn’t even have a supermarket. In short, it is a deprived area. We have nothing down there. It’s one of the most deprived areas in Edinburgh.  

“And now, having taken practically everything, you want to take our last green space, the Silverlea site, for development, destroying a wildlife habitat and creating congestion and pollution along the Silverknowes/Muirhouse Parkway, described by Police Scotland as ‘the second most dangerous road in Edinburgh’.”

Save our Silverlea are continuing their campaign:  “As climate change threatens the future of humanity, we need to act to defend our green spaces.   This land should be used for the local community – not to make £millions for greedy property developers.

“We need much more council/ social housing – build council houses on the brownfield sites where they are now building 1000s of private houses.   The struggle to save our Silverlea continues.”

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Disability supporters urged to respond to Edinburgh's budget consultation

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Local Disabled People’s Organisation Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living (LCiL) has responded to the City of Edinburgh Council’s (CEC) budget consultation and is encouraging other organisations and individuals to do the same.

CEC budget consultation 2015-16-Nov. 14

The organisation’s full response (see above) , acknowledges the financial pressure under which local authorities are operating but highlights the risks associated with implementing savings proposals which directly impact disabled people, people with long term conditions or older people and/or the organisations supporting them.

Of the council’s 69 savings proposals 25 directly target these services, and taken together represent 32% of the total of the overall suggested savings – almost ONE THIRD.

LCiL argues that  In a tough financial environment disabled people, people with long term conditions and older people are the first ones to feel the impact on their quality of life and on their ability to remain active and visible in their community. Targeting cuts to the very services that support them to live independently, and to remain members of their communities, would just lead to more exclusion and marginalisation, and increase the gap between those who have and who have not.

LCiL’s Chief Executive Florence Garabedian said: “There is still time to change the views of those who have proposed these savings and for CEC to explore the negative consequences which these could have on disabled people – people with long term conditions and older people.

“We urge those who are part of this constituency, and their supporters, to make sure their voices are heard before the consultation ends on 19 December.”

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The City of Edinburgh Council has published a range of materials about the budget consultation which you can access on the Consultation and Responses Section of the E-library, including:

For further details you can access information on their website at: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/budget

For an overview of the budget proposals visit here: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20200/budget_and_finance/1136/budget_proposals_for_2015_2016

Deadline for responses is: 19 December 2014.