A UNION leader has criticised the “irony” of the COP26 conference coming to Glasgow later this year, describing it as “our filthiest city” with “infestations of rats”.
Gary Smith, secretary of the GMB Scotland, was speaking at an online Westminster policy conference considering the next steps for climate change policy in Scotland, and our strategy for achieving net-zero carbon emissions.
He said he and the GMB had sometimes been accused of being climate change deniers, which was not the case. The union was a working class organisation which reflected the realities of what was happening in Scotland’s working class communities.
In his address to the conference, he turned to COP26: “Oh, the irony that an environmental conference is coming to our filthiest city – a city where the public realm is in absolute decay, where streets don’t get swept, we’ve got infestations of rats.
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“Ironically, our refuse and street cleaning and recycling vehicles are a minimum of 15 years old and they’re the dirtiest things on the road in Scotland.
“Working class communities have been abandoned in that city, and people are going to come and lecture them about climate change, with streets unswept, the libraries being closed down, the parks unkempt and overgrown. The whole city’s been allowed to go to rack and ruin and thousands of children every day go to school hungry.
“There is an utter indulgence about all of this and it does need to be called out.”
The event also focused on the potential for jobs and communities from renewables, but Smith said we had to deal with the off-shoring of manufacturing jobs, or the whole debate on climate change would be “bogus”.
He said: “We have cut emissions in UK by off-shoring jobs to China and if we continue to offshore work, allowing China to burn coal to produce goods that we then import on diesel-burning barges and ships, then the whole point of this debate will lead into a cul de sac.
“There is a transition going on, but it’s not a just one. The transition and the move to renewables has taken money from the pockets of the poorest in Scotland and put it in the pockets of big capital and the wealthiest.”
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He said it had been claimed Scotland had great potential with renewables work at BiFab in Fife and Lewis, but added: “We’ve got a few jackets, the crumbs off the table, and the new employers will be seeking to cut wages. They are actually seeking to cut wages for those workers in the BiFab yards at the moment … There is a massive opportunity around renewables and the just transition but it isn’t happening at the moment.
“We need proper planning, proper plans for jobs, proper debate about investment, but the current debate is mired in hypocrisy, dishonesty and, candidly political and corporate.”
Smith remarks came as Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for Net Zero, was launching a campaign promoting Scottish action in response to climate change.
He said: “The journey to net-zero will transform every aspect of our lives: how we live, how we work, how we travel. It presents huge potential for us to seize the opportunities that becoming a net-zero society presents – growing our economy, improving our health and wellbeing whilst protecting and enhancing Scotland’s iconic natural environment.”
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