On the first Thursday in September, several hundred people gathered outside Holyrood carrying banners against AI data centres. They had come from around fifteen local campaigns, Larbert to the Borders, Fife to Inverclyde, and their message to John Swinney was blunt: stop approving these things until there is a strategy, and until then, listen to the communities already saying no. Larbert alone has drawn 7,000 objections. Auchtertool’s proposed Cato development, at 600 megawatts reportedly the second-largest data centre on earth, would sit inside a Fife village smaller than the campus itself. In the Borders, the Duke of Roxburghe has been offered a private briefing with every Scottish Borders councillor to make the case for his own £2 billion scheme on the Roxburghe Estate, a meeting leaked emails describe the council’s own chief executive arranging and encouraging planning committee members to attend, against a petition that has by now passed 22,000 signatures. Edinburgh’s council has already thrown one scheme out, at the former RBS headquarters, for failing to show its green credentials. The Scottish Greens tried to force a moratorium at First Minister’s Questions before summer recess. The SNP’s own National Council backed one too. The government has said no to all of it so far.

Every one of those campaigns is right to fight the site in front of it. Police Scotland has already warned it may need what it calls “robust security” if the Larbert scheme goes ahead over local objection, which is itself a measure of how far this has travelled from an ordinary planning dispute. The Larbert site would put 200 diesel backup generators within 50 metres of a 56-bed hospice for the terminally ill and within 400 metres of Forth Valley Royal, an 860-bed hospital. Action to Protect Rural Scotland, the charity that has done most to knit these fifteen-odd local groups into something resembling a national campaign, now publishes an interactive map of every hyperscale proposal in the country, precisely so that a resident in Cockenzie or Dunbar or Bishopbriggs can see they are not fighting alone. What none of them can do alone is answer the question underneath all twenty-four proposals now in the planning system, which together would draw over 150 per cent of Scotland’s peak demand: why is this landing in the Central Belt and the Borders at all, when Scotland spends hundreds of millions of pounds a year paying wind farms further north to switch off?

The Duke’s own developers, to their credit, say the quiet part out loud. Their pitch for the Roxburghe scheme argues the site can help prevent some fifty million pounds a year of wasted wind energy, because it sits near turbines the grid regularly switches off. That is the correct diagnosis wearing the wrong politics. The waste is real. The fifty million pounds it could capture should not become one aristocrat’s private return on a family estate that already runs to fifty thousand acres, a castle, a golf course and a hotel.

Start with the waste, because the waste is the argument. Generators in Scotland’s congested transmission zones, principally the B4 and B6 boundaries in NESO’s own terminology, are routinely told to reduce output, and the system pays for both sides of that decision: for the generation turned down, and for the gas fired up elsewhere to replace it. NESO recorded £1.7 billion in thermal constraint costs for 2024/25, up 64 per cent on the year before. Widen it to every category of constraint and the total climbs to £1.9 billion, 71 per cent of Great Britain’s whole balancing bill. Gas dominates the replacement side: £959 million in gas offer costs in winter 2024/25 alone, much of it covering exactly the shortfall Scottish constraints create. This is not a technical footnote. It is public money spent unmaking electricity that has already been produced, on a scale NESO expects to keep climbing toward £8 billion a year by 2030.

The obvious answer is more pylons, and National Grid is building them, slowly, at a pace that would make a Bolshevik weep. But that’s not quite right either. Electricity is expensive and contested to move over long distances. Data is not. So don’t move the electrons south to the compute. Move the compute north to the electrons.

Britain has done something like this before, once, in Manchester. The National Computing Centre opened on Oxford Road in 1966, one of the visible products of Wilson’s ‘white heat’ of scientific revolution, built to put scarce computing time within reach of industry when computers themselves were the bottleneck. By the 1980s that scarcity had gone, so the state let the Centre wither into a membership body and then sold its commercial arm into what is now NCC Group, a cybersecurity firm on the FTSE 250. The lesson is not the technology. It is that the state built serious public computing infrastructure once, and handed it to the market the moment the scarcity that justified it moved somewhere else.

Scarcity has moved on again, from silicon to electricity, and the shape of the answer is a national compute utility: not a single site but a grid of publicly owned compute campuses, sited where curtailed renewable power already sits. That is not official policy. It is an idea some policy people are starting to float, quietly, in the places where the mismatch between generation and demand is worst, and it is worth noticing that the people floating it are not, on the whole, socialists.

Which is where the moratorium campaign meets its harder question. Every one of the twenty-four sites now working through Scottish planning, Cato in Fife, Rufus in East Ayrshire, Aurelius in North Lanarkshire’s new AI Growth Zone, the schemes at Larbert, Hermiston and the Gyle, sits in or near the Central Belt because that is where the fibre, the grid connections and the skills base already are. None of it is sited to relieve a single constraint. A properly sited national grid of compute campuses would look nothing like this map. It would sit north of the Central Belt, on the curtailed capacity these very same communities’ wind farms are already producing and being paid to switch off, and it would be owned publicly, not by ILI Group or whoever comes after them.

That is a harder demand than a moratorium, because a moratorium only has to say no. A compute utility has to say what compute is for, who owns it, and where the profit that a hyperscaler or a duke currently extracts from a stranded grid connection would go instead. Public ownership of the racks means nothing if the models running on them are still licensed from the same handful of firms that own the training data and the chips. Nationalising the plug socket while leaving the extraction in place is exactly what happened to Oxford Road once its own scarcity ran out, and it is not obvious that a government which would not take Thames Water into public ownership when the case was overwhelming will treat compute any differently, or that a council chief executive arranging private briefings for a duke will treat the next landowner’s scheme with any more scrutiny than the last.

There is a version of this that ends with a call for the moratorium campaign to become a nationalisation campaign, computing sited for the grid and not the shareholder, and that ending would not be wrong. The harder truth is that fifteen local groups fighting fifteen separate planning applications are not yet the same thing as a movement with a positive answer to what should replace the map they are rightly rejecting, and turning one into the other is the work still to be done.

Duncan Chapel is a member of Anti-Capitalist Resistance and the editor of RedMole.org

Map of Proposed Data Centres reproduced from the Action for the Protection of Rural Scotland website is available here

The following is a briefing note prepared by the Cymreig/Welsh ecosocialist organisation Cymru’n Codi (Cymru Rising) on the environmental and social impact of hyperscale data centres. It was originally published on their Substack and is reproduced here with their kind permission. For more information about the situation in Scotland, Action For the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS) have a comprehensive guide and list of useful resources on this dedicated webpage

Background

Data centres are physical buildings that house computational equipment for storing, processing and sharing data, a server is a typical example. Services they provide fall into two main categories: AI computation and cloud computing, data storage and processing.

The resources used for these services are measured in terms of the maximum electrical power load required by the equipment using megawatts expressed as say as 1MW which would typically power 600 – 800 homes simultaneously.

In 2024 Cymru had the highest British data centre capacity outside London at 154MW and London at 1048MW. This is set to change rapidly. The UK Government has designated North and South Cymru as Artificial Intelligence Growth Zones (AIGZs) to accelerate the development of AI infrastructure, with the support of the Secretary of State for Wales and Adam Price AM the current Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity, and Energy. Planned growth is huge with two developments in Cardiff proposing 148 MW and 150 MW, one in Newport 200 MW, one in Bridgend around 600 MW and another on Anglesey 349 MW. Maps and other basic information on current and future data centres is included in this Senedd Research paper and a longer version here.

Control over this expansion is being driven very hard by Westminster. Planning is a devolved responsibility to the Welsh Government so support for the AIGZs was required from the Welsh Government. Approvals would have to fall within environmental and other Senedd laws. However, national security is a reserved UK level power, and as many data centres will be involved with civil and defence issues, who would have the last say could become a challenge. The UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill currently in the Lords is likely to strengthen this UK position.

Claimed economic opportunities and security interests are making the most of the investment, jobs, skills, and research opportunities projecting £10bn on investment in the South Wales AIGZ alone. Although the US experience indicates outcomes much less than originally claimed.

The toxic ‘land and expand’ process

These high powered signals of support for data centres is creating a legitimacy juggernaut for developers and opportunists to override any planning objections. The company applying for planning for the data centre in Pontylcun for example has never built one. They appear just interested in gaining approval and selling it on. Democracy for Sale has put their finger on the issue in relation to their work on Palintir with identifying a process they describe as ‘land and expand’, first you get your initial plans through then once started it is very difficult to stop future growth. Political legitimacy for data centres has lit this blue touch paper: we are faced with challenging this toxic ‘land and expand’ process, and for the following five reasons.

1. Soaring energy demand.

The AIGZs policy is on target for Cymru to hit 1000MW or 1GB by 2030 the equivalent of 13% of Cymru’s electricity capacity in 2024. The Cardiff East data centre alone will consume 150GW equivalent of all Cymru’s solar capacity in the same year. Currently 315 UK data centres are waiting connection to the grid and in Ireland in 2021-25 a moratorium had to be imposed on building new data centres around Dublin as power demands soared.

Expansion of this size will put the Welsh Government ‘ambition’ to achieve net zero by 2040 and legal requirement by 2050 under great pressure. It will be almost a question of running faster to stand still with nearly all new renewable capacity being used to enable data centre power. To counter the grid issues and fluctuating provision of renewable energy, data centre developers are installing their own generation or a private provider, usually gas fired, but also diesel, which if allowed would make hitting net zero increasingly difficult.

One issue that is largely ignored in UK discussions is who pays? Expansion of the grid costs and like nuclear power, is covered in current electricity bills. So not only are we as consumers potentially faced with paying for the generating investment but high levels of demand whilst power generation is in private hands will potentially mean higher consumer prices.

2. Local water supplies

Water is required as coolant in data centres. It appears most in Cymru will argue that they use water and air to cool equipment, but with rising are temperatures, water will be in demand. A mid-sized data centre could use up to 5m gallons (US) daily, as much as a small town. Development plans in Cymru have indicated that local supplies will need ‘reinforcing’ but that at this time it appears agencies and the Welsh Government have yet to address the issues. There are possible alternatives to public supplies and reusable systems but it is not at all clear if any the current or proposed developments in Cymru are considering these, and without a political lead and regulation, unlikely to happen.

Again who pays is rarely considered. And we know in Cymru our water bills are already some of the highest in the UK so if new investment is needed Dwr Cymru as a private provider only source of investment is again us as consumers.

3. Air pollution and climate

If electricity is not sourced renewably and onsite gas or diesel generation is used, net zero targets would be rendered harder to achieve. Such forms of generation in the US has led to intensifying local pollution with court cases being brought under clean air acts. Foxglove reported that just two new data centres will pump out more planet heating carbon emissions than Exxon Mobile. Alternatives exist, such as battery storage, combined with renewable public provision, but will require stronger proactive political regulation. After around six years it is expected that all the data centre equipment will have to be replaced. This has to raise important issues of recycling materials to avoid disposal.

4. Noise

Noise pollution has been cited as a main concern in the opposition to the data centre in Pontyclun. Local experience in the US has cited cooling fans and back up generation systems as a source of high decibel local pollution. The same in Australia. Alternatives exist but require strong regulation and effective local enforcement – the sort of provision that has almost been lost due to local government austerity cuts.

5. Land competition

So far in Cymru data centres have been sited around places that have access to good internet connectivity such near Cardiff and Newport, a process that reduces ‘latency’ in electronic communication, something which is apparently less important to AI focused data centres. Data centres occupy large areas of land, with the average data centre covering 100,000 square feet. AIGZ application sites must demonstrate access to at least 500MW of power capacity by 2030 and have a minimum of 100 acres of land available for construction of AI infrastructure by 2028.

Building such large buildings near local communities with constant strong lighting, security and noise is causing concern around the world and increasingly in Cymru such as the opposition in Cardiff and Pontyclun that has already been mentioned. There is also concern about the impact on local biodiversity as in the Senedd Environment Act. Data processing infrastructure and the inevitable involvement of security and defence possibly centered on a particular data centre but also involved in all, with modern warfare, increases the possibility of a community being a target.

What can be done?

Due to political support for accelerating planning through the AIGZs, coupled with security concerns, it is giving virtual legitimate free rein to the ‘land and expand’ profit driven processes that lay behind the expansion of data centres. As this excellent article from Friends of Earth suggests it is difficult if not impossible to row back from the use of the internet that has now become embedded in our society and culture but some very specific policies can be put into place to control the adverse consequences outlined in this newsletter and indeed in the linked article. Clearly there is a case for the construction, maintenance, and additional employment and development that will be derived from the data centre infrastructure. However, there is also the possibility that developments in software could start to render such large structures unnecessary and if we recognise the push to monetise and make a profit out of the internet as opposed to serving the needs of people, planet and peace, questions need to be raised about the direction and purpose of this investment.

What we clearly face is a state sponsored profit driven bonanza. With controls only on the initial planning approval stage, investors can tick all the boxes and once up and running the ‘land and expand’ process will increasingly put the power of decision making over the expansion of data centres in the hands of those who develop now and over all the five social and environmental issues listed above.

There is a weakness in the Friends of the Earth proposals in that they have an expectation that private companies will give serious consideration to their proposals. We don’t think they will and will drive forward a ‘land and expand’ profit driven strategy unless checked by collective opposition and government action. Consultation with energy generators and water suppliers not enough they need to pay for extra energy,water and recycling investment needed. state and consumers must not be forced to face increased prices to subsidise data centres. Real control only if data centres are seen as a basic utility and are developed under public ownership and control

Cymru’n Codi proposed demands and action

Stop the political open door.

• Support all opposition to data centres locally and propose supporting the following demands both for local council planning meetings and the Welsh Government.
• Demand a Welsh Government moratorium until all proposals accepted as follows:
  • Energy is renewable, infrastructure paid for by investors, electricity cost neutral, positive effect on Cymru net zero targets.
  • Additional water use is restricted as far as technically possible, where required infrastructure and charges paid by investors.
  • No additional air or noise pollution.
  • Brownfield land use only, special attention to avoiding any adverse bio diversity impacts.
  • Recycling of materials used as part of planning and investment requirements.
  • Annual reporting and Welsh Government statutory inspection established to ensure planning approval adhered to.
  • Local community views and assemblies to have enhanced standing in all planning considerations and have open access to inspectors and have the right to accompany them.

In recent years, we have seen a spectacular rise in reactionary, authoritarian and/or fascist far-right movements across the globe. They already govern half of the world’s countries, including Trump (USA), Modi (India), Orbán (Hungary), Erdogan (Turkey), Meloni (Italy), Netanyahu (Israel), and, recently, Milei (Argentina). Elsewhere, they have recently governed Brazil (Bolsonaro) and are serious candidates for power with the National Rally (France), the AFD (Germany), the Republican Party’s Kast (Chile), etc. And Putin’s regime in Russia is not very far from this model.

In each country, the far right has its own characteristics: in many cases (Europe, the United States, India), the ‘enemy’—i.e. the scapegoat—is the Muslims and/or the immigrants; in some Muslim countries, it is some religious minority (Christians, Jews, Yezidis). In some cases, xenophobic nationalism and racism predominate; in others, religious fundamentalism, or hatred of the Left, feminism, and homosexuals.

Despite this diversity, there are some common traits shared by the majority, if not all: authoritarianism, integral nationalism—‘Deutschland über alles’ and its local variants ‘America First’, ‘O Brasil acima de tudo’, etc; religious or ethnic (racist) intolerance; and police/military violence as the only response to social problems and crime. The characterisation as fascist or semi-fascist may apply to some, but not to all. Enzo Traverso uses the term ‘post-fascism’, but I believe that neo-fascism is the best term to describe both the continuity and the novelty of the 21st-century far right.

Neo-fascist not ‘populist’ 

The concept of ‘populism’ is used by some political scientists, the media and even part of the Left. But it only serves to sow confusion. While in Latin America from the 1930s to the 1960s the term corresponded to something relatively precise—Vargasism, Peronism, etc.—its use in Europe since the 1990s has become increasingly vague and imprecise.

Populism is defined as “a political position that sides with the people against the elites”. But this applies to almost any political movement or party! This pseudo-concept, applied to far-right parties, leads—intentionally or unintentionally—to legitimising them. It makes them more acceptable, if not sympathetic—who is not for the people against the elites?—while carefully avoiding terms that cause offence: racism, xenophobia, fascism, far right. ‘Populism’ is also used in a deliberately misleading way, by neoliberal ideologues, to conflate the far right and the radical Left. They are characterised as ‘right-wing populism’ and ‘left-wing populism’, since they are opposed to liberal policies, ‘Europe’, etc.

Climate change rejected

One common element in most of these neo-fascist governments or movements is negationism—the refusal to acknowledge the ecological crisis and climate change. In spite of the overwhelming scientific evidence, they persist in denying, or simply ignoring, the reality of global warming. Donald Trump is only the most vociferous and vulgar proponent of this trope, which is not only an ideology but an ecocidal praxis. 

This is illustrated again by Trump, who is totally devoted to the unlimited development of fossil fuels. These suicidal politics represent the interests of the fossil oligarchy—the capitalist sectors linked to the production of oil, coal, gas, chemicals, plastics, cars and airplanes, etc. Their short-sighted perspective is exclusively focused on immediate opportunities for profit and accumulation.

Back to the 1930s?

History does not repeat itself; we can find similarities or analogies, but current phenomena are quite different from past models. Above all, we do not—yet—have totalitarian states comparable to those of the pre-war period. The classic Marxist analysis of fascism defined it as a reaction by big capital, with the support of the petty bourgeoisie, to the revolutionary threat posed by the labour movement. One may wonder whether this interpretation truly accounts for the rise of fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s. In any case, it is not relevant in today’s world, where there is no ‘revolutionary threat’ anywhere.

There are other significant differences with the fascism of the past: neo-fascist regimes are devoted to neoliberalism, not to corporate-national economies. And they are involved in ecocidal activities on a much larger scale than in the 1930s.

What is the explanation?

It is difficult to offer a general explanation for such diverse phenomena, which are the expression of contradictions specific to each country or region of the world.

One ‘explanation’ that should be rejected is that it is linked to waves of migration, particularly in the US and Europe. Migrants are a convenient pretext, a useful tool for xenophobic and racist forces, but they are by no means the ‘cause’ of their success. Moreover, the far right is thriving in many countries—Brazil, India, etc.—where immigration is not an issue.

The most obvious and undoubtedly relevant explanation is that capitalist globalisation—which is also a process of brutal cultural homogenisation—produces and reproduces, on a global scale, forms of ‘identity panic’ (a term coined by Daniel Bensaïd). This leads to nationalist and/or religious intolerance and fosters ethnic or religious conflicts. The more nations lose their economic power, the more they proclaim the immense glory of the ‘Nation Above All Else’.

Some of these explanations are useful, but they are insufficient. We do not yet have a comprehensive analysis of a phenomenon that is global and is taking place at a specific moment in history.

How can we fight back? 

Unfortunately, there is no magic formula. Bernie Sanders’ call for a Global Anti-Fascist Front is an excellent proposal. At the same time, we must build broad coalitions in defence of democratic freedoms in every country affected. This is also an ecological imperative: prevent the rise of negationist and ecocidal governments, or when they are in power, resist their destructive politics.

But we must also take into account that the capitalist system, especially in times of crisis, constantly produces and reproduces phenomena such as fascism, coups d’état and authoritarian regimes. The root of these tendencies is systemic, and the alternative must be radical; it must be anti-systemic. In 1938, Max Horkheimer, one of the leading thinkers of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, wrote, “If you don’t want to talk about capitalism, you have nothing to say about fascism.” In other words, a consistent anti-fascist is an anti-capitalist.

This is more relevant than ever today, when the active destruction of the environment and global warming are the inevitable consequences of the expansive logic of the capitalist system. If we want to avoid ecological catastrophe, the only way is to look for anti-systemic proposals, such as ecosocialism.

Ecosocialism the way forward

Ecosocialism is an attempt to provide a radical, civilisational alternative, based on the basic arguments of the ecological movement and of the Marxist critique of political economy. It counters capitalism’s destructive idea of ‘progress’ with an economic approach guided not by money or economics, but by social needs and ecological balance. This dialectical synthesis is attempted by a broad spectrum of authors (including Joel Kovel and John Bellamy Foster). It is at the same time a critique of ‘market ecology’, which does not challenge the capitalist system, and of ‘productivist socialism’, which ignores the issue of natural limits.

Ecosocialism has the potential to bring together social and ecological movements, peasants, indigenous peoples, youth, women and workers, in the resistance against neo-fascist negationism and environmental destruction.

An ecosocialist transformation is impossible without public control over the means of production and planning; that means public decisions on investment and technological change. These must be taken away from the banks and capitalist enterprises to serve society’s common good. Socialist planning is grounded in democratic and pluralist debate, on all levels where decisions are taken: different propositions submitted to the people, in the form of parties, platforms, or other political movements, and delegates elected accordingly. However, representative democracy must be completed—and where necessary corrected—by forms of direct democracy, in which people directly choose among options on major issues at the local, national, and, later, global levels.

The passage from capitalist ‘destructive progress’ to socialism is a historical process, a permanent revolutionary transformation of society, culture and ways of thinking. This transition would lead not only to a new mode of production and an egalitarian and democratic society, but also to an alternative way of life—a new ecosocialist civilisation, beyond the reign of money, beyond consumption habits artificially produced by advertising, and beyond the unlimited production of commodities that are useless and/or harmful to the environment.

Such a process cannot begin without a revolutionary transformation of social and political structures, and the active support of the vast majority of the population for an ecosocialist programme. The development of socialist consciousness and ecological awareness is a process in which the decisive factor is people’s own collective experience of struggle, from local and partial confrontations to the radical change of society.

Michael Löwy is a Franco-Brazilian sociologist. Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research), Paris, and author of, amongst others, Ecosocialism: A radical alternative to capitalist catastrophe.

First published in Amandla, 16 March 2026

As the dust settles after COP30 in Belém, the scale of the failure becomes impossible to ignore. The world is on a path toward catastrophic warming, ecological systems are collapsing, and millions across the Global South face annihilation, not in the distant future, but today. The world’s political and economic elites arrived in the Amazon to negotiate when the 1.5°C target had already slipped out of reach, and they left with little more than symbolic gestures. No binding emissions cuts. No serious plan to phase out fossil fuels. No meaningful climate finance for adaptation. No accountability for the destruction already unleashed.

The gap between official international climate policy and the lived reality of a warming world has never been wider. In Belém, that gap became a chasm.

The world is heading towards roughly 2.8°C of warming by the end of the century. This is not a scenario compatible with human dignity — or even, for many, with life itself. Rising seas, extreme heat, drought, and flooding are eroding food security, displacing communities, and driving inequality to historic heights. The economic costs of climate disasters are skyrocketing, but the social and human costs are immeasurable: lives lost, livelihoods shattered, ecosystems irreversibly damaged.

These worsening crises play out in a world shaped by neoliberal austerity and debt dependency. Countries battling climate shocks are forced to cut social spending, privatise public goods, and surrender sovereignty to creditors. Governments continue pouring billions into militaries, fossil fuel subsidies, and the enrichment of corporate elites. The current political economy accelerates both warming and war.

The growing irrelevance of the COP

COP30 offered no mechanisms for enforcement, no firm deadlines, and no clear pathways to keep warming below 1.5°C. Nor did it include a fossil-fuel phase-out; oil-producing nations blocked binding language, and the final deal focused on voluntary road maps instead. What it did offer was an expanded space for corporate actors, carbon traders, and mining interests seeking to greenwash extractivist projects.

What is staring society in the face — and what too few scientists are willing to acknowledge — is that the climate-crisis regime cannot be separated from the logic of capitalism. So-called “green transitions” simply open new arenas for profit while remaining embedded in the same global system of accumulation. Renewable energy may be expanding, but it does not replace fossil fuels; it merely adds to an energy expansion rather than driving a real transition.

Climate summits have become a “safety valve” for capital. They offer the illusion of action, while allowing the core exploitative relations to continue. For workers and communities already suffering climate breakdown, it is indisputable that the COP has failed them.

The Just Transition heist

COP 30 adopted the Belem Action Mechanism for a Global Just Transition (BAM) — a proposed new institutional arrangement under the UNFCCC designed to address the current fragmentation and inadequacy of global just transition efforts. Trade unionists and workers should have no illusions about this mechanism. It has no finances or concrete plans to protect workers and communities affected by energy and other decarbonising initiatives. There are no resources for a re-industrialisation in harmony with the protection of nature. So workers and other vulnerable sectors will simply be left behind. Words and policies in COP statements are a dime a dozen. Reality is harsher.

Why mass movements matter — and why institutions don’t

If COP30 cannot deliver the mechanisms for decarbonisation or social protection, then the hope must lie in movements of people: workers, peasants, indigenous people, women, youth, and the urban poor. Outside of a global mass movement rooted in national realities, the necessary steps to confront the climate crisis will not occur. Yet such a movement cannot be built if it fails to address the immediate needs of the working classes and the poor. The fight for climate protection and ecological justice must therefore begin with the fight for life itself — for clean water, decent housing, jobs, food, and security against the elements.

Right-wing climate denialists exploit the desperation of the poor to drive a wedge between ordinary people and climate action. They present environmentalism as a threat to livelihoods rather than the path to survival. To win the majority, our movement must link ecological transformation with social justice. We must demand the redistribution of wealth and power away from the billionaire class, big tech, and ruling elites who plunder the planet for profit.

By Brian Ashley, First Published in Amandla!, 25 November 2025

Brian Ashley is a member of Zabalaza for Socialism and serves on the Amandla! editorial collective

The election of Trump represents the coming to power of a neofascist leadership in the main imperialist country of the world, who is actively fuelling the genocide of the Palestinian people. This represents a further shift to the right in the international balance of forces, and strengthens the Orbans, Modis, Melonis, Bolsanaros and others. 

Since assuming office on January 19, 2025, after winning a close election with a plurality of the popular vote, the Trump presidency has pursued a deeply reactionary agenda, threatening democratic rights in the US and aggression for the rest of the world. Trump also represents a particularly virulent threat to the US working class and oppressed communities throughout the world. One of his main fronts is his attacks on LGBTIQ*, particularly trans people, which is in line with large parts of the international far right including Putin. This is part of Trump’s general reactionary social agenda with vicious attacks on racialized minorities, women’s reproductive rights, migrants, climate change denial, hostility to democratic rights, readiness to use violence, a contempt for democratic processes and checks and balances, and a drive for total power.

The generalization of trade tariffs is an ideological obsession of Donald Trump, and this announcement was a show of imperial force from the first days of his mandate. But fears of internal economic impacts and announced retaliations, notably from the BRICS, made Washington step back and contributed to the crisis of hegemony of US imperialism. The 50% tax on Brazil’s imports in US, with openly political purposes “punishes” the Brazilian government to pave the way for Bolsonaro and others coup plotters to escape lawsuits. Contradictorily, the measure opened a new and positive political moment in the country.

His drive for total power aided and abetted by the Republican party and a section of the US judiciary makes him a would-be authoritarian and neo-fascist, and strengthens the hands of the far right worldwide. While opposition has not been banned and democratic rights not completely eliminated -indicators of neo-fascism- the tendency in that direction is clear.

The US has long been the biggest abuser of fossil fuels. Under Trump the US has left the ineffectual COP international climate change association, has given the green light to oil companies to increase fossil fuel extraction and use, and US regulatory documents have been scrubbed of all reference to climate change.

The Trump administration has launched a particularly cruel police-military campaign of persecution and deportation against millions of migrants, mostly Latin Americans and South Asians. With its cynical rhetoric equating all immigrant workers with criminals, it has turned El Salvador into a Guantánamo for hire. This campaign emboldens the most reactionary white supremacist forces.

Trump’s attacks against elite US universities cynically accuse them of antisemitism for insufficiently cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests. This repression has chilled the Palestine Solidarity movement and the rights of free speech. The labelling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations as antisemitic serves to cover up the real antisemitism nourished by Trump’s racist speech and policy.

Trump and his allies recently passed a reactionary budget giving enormous tax benefits to the ultra rich paid directly by cuts to Medicaid, a program of government health insurance used by seventy-one million people, and food stamps for the poorest.

Trump’s open threats to annex the Panama canal, Canada, and Greenland represent a return to naked nineteenth century imperialism. On Ukraine, Trump is seeking a predatory deal with Putin (with whom he shares many far-right ideological ideas) to share out areas of influence at the expense of the people who are the victims of the Russian state’s colonial war.

After the political shock in the European powers faced with the disengagement rhetoric from Trump on NATO, this alliance recovered its historical place – the scenario of European subordination – when Trump used it to show European obedience to US orders for the increase of arms expenditure.

While the America First policy guides Trump’s bellicosity to its allies, the recent attack on Iran reminds us that the US will not hesitate to use military force where its interests are threatened.

Trump continues Biden’s and all US presidents’ military and political support for Israel. His threat to empty the Gaza strip of its inhabitants and turn the area into a luxury resort would be a crime of world historic importance.

The Democratic party has shown itself to be totally ineffective in opposing Trump. This is mostly because the Democratic party serves the same 1% as the Republicans.

The huge and enthusiastic rallies of AOC and Bernie Sanders reflect the depth of anti-Trump sentiment. The recent victory of Mamdani in the New York City Democratic Party primary also represents a challenge to the Democratic Party establishment and his progressive social agenda shows the potential to elect progressive and anti-capitalist public officials A mass anti-Trump movement in the streets has arisen over the last few months. Millions have participated in thousands of anti-Trump demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns across the country. Immigrant workers have been at the forefront of this resistance. These demonstrations encourage those resisting far-right governments around the world.

The Bureau of the Fourth International solidarizes with the growing anti-Trump movement.

Down with the Trump regime!

Down with all US threats to other countries and peoples!

Hail the heroic protests in Los Angeles!

Stop US fossil fuel expansion!

Stop the war on migrants!

Self-determination for Ukraine!

Stop US support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza!

Executive Bureau of the Fourth International

13 July 2025

“For the Earth to Live” is a compelling and essential read for anyone seeking a radical and comprehensive understanding of the interconnected ecological and social crises facing our world. Written by Allan Todd, with a foreword by Professor Julia Steinberger, it emerges as an unapologetic and passionately argued case for ecosocialism.

The book distinguishes itself by its direct and unwavering commitment to ecosocialist principles, boldly asserting the necessity of uniting ecological concerns with socialist solutions. In an era often characterised by cautious and diluted discourse, “For the Earth to Live” offers a bracingly clear analysis and position, advocating for a political direction that is uncompromisingly pro-ecology and pro-socialism. It actively seeks to combine “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will,” drawing on the wisdom of Antonio Gramsci to provide both a stark awakening to the realities of our situation and a powerful call to action.

A significant strength of this work lies in its well-informed and thoroughly cited analysis. Todd presents a treasure-trove of political, historical, and scientific evidence to contextualise the climate, biodiversity, and health threats we face within our prevailing political and economic systems. The book is structured logically, building from an exposition of ecological dangers to examining political and economic threats, culminating in a powerful argument for revolutionary ecosocialist politics as the necessary response. The extensive referencing provides readers with an excellent foundation for further exploration and independent understanding.

“For the Earth to Live” makes a significant contribution by aiming to articulate a majoritarian perspective for ecosocialism. It moves beyond the notion of ecosocialism as a fringe ideology, presenting it as the potential “political home of the majority of humans on planet earth” and of the rest of life on Earth. This book offers a more accessible pathway for arguing for ecosocialism as a vital project for the 99 percent.

Furthermore, the book actively seeks to counter the understandable despair that can arise when confronting the severity of the ecological and political challenges. By promoting Gramsci’s “optimism of the will,” it encourages readers to see “horizons even in the darkest night,” fostering the determination needed to continue the struggle for a better future. It explicitly states that ecosocialism offers the “best hope for replacing today’s ‘old order’ with a new one”.

The author doesn’t shy away from highlighting the dire warnings from climate, ecological, and pandemic-health science reports, illustrating the interconnected crises facing our environment and the failures of current political responses. The book also touches upon the historical context of humanity’s relationship with nature, including the more harmonious approaches found in Indigenous societies, suggesting important ways forward.

In conclusion, “For the Earth to Live” is a vital and inspiring contribution to the literature on ecosocialism. It combines a rigorous and well-researched analysis with a passionate and hopeful call to action. By directly confronting the crises of our time and offering a clear and compelling alternative, this book will likely be an essential resource for activists, scholars, and anyone seeking a pathway towards an ecologically sustainable and socially just world. It encourages readers to embrace “optimism of the will” grounded in a clear understanding of the challenges, ultimately arguing that our best chance for the Earth to live lies with ecosocialism.

Reviewed by Duncan Chapel, “For the Earth to Live” is published by Resistance Books and is available here.

Allan Todd is an ecosocialist/environmental and anti-fascist activist. He is a member of Anti-Capitalist Resistance and Extinction Rebellion North Lakes (Cumbria), and is the author of Revolutions 1789-1917 (CUP), Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary (Pen & Sword), Ecosocialism Not Extinction (Resistance Books), and Che Guevara: The Romantic Revolutionary (Pen & Sword).

Allan will speaking about the book at a free event in Glasgow at 7pm on 21st May 2025. For further details of the event and to reserve a copy of the book see Mount Florida Books 

The latest issue of Rising Clyde, the Scottish climate justice show hosted by Iain Bruce is now available on YouTube thanks to Independence Live.

The Show looks at the Circular Economy Bill now under discussion in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood.  Iain talks to the Scottish Government’s Circular Economy Minister, Lorna Slater, MSP for the Scottish Green Party, as well as Kim Pratt of Friends of the Earth Scotland (FOES) and  Franciele Sobierai of Edinburgh & Lothians Regional Equality Council (ELREC).

Rising Clyde examines the key issues and the big challenges facing the struggle for climate justice in Scotland. After the surprisingly big and hugely diverse protests in Glasgow during COP26, how can the breadth of that movement be held together, how can we build on its energy?

This month’s Rising Clyde programme is about the protest movement against the proposed coal mine in West Cumbria with a discussion with Cumbrian climate justice activist, Allan Todd, and interviews with Cumbrian activists at the ‘speakers’ corner’ events against the coal mine.

Rising Clyde is the Scottish Climate Show, presented by Iain Bruce, and broadcast on the Independence Live Channel. Previous editions can be found in the embedded video above, Episode 14, by clicking in the three lines in the top right hand corner and choosing from the video list.

Allan Todd is a climate and anti-fascist activist, and has been active with Greenpeace and XR. He participated in the anti-fracking protests at Preston New Road in Lancashire, where he organised the ‘Green Mondays’ from 2017 to 2019. Allan is a member of Anti- Capitalist Resistance and of Left Unity’s National Council. He is the author of Revolutions 1789-1917 (CUP) and Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary (Pen & Sword). His next book is Che Guevara: The Romantic Revolutionary.

The host of Rising Clyde, Iain Bruce, is a journalist, film maker and writer living in Glasgow. Iain has worked for many years in Latin America. He has worked at the BBC and Al Jazeera, and was head of news at teleSUR. He has written books about radical politics in Brazil and Venezuela. During COP26, he was the producer and co-presenter of Inside Outside, a daily video briefing for the COP26 Coalition.

On 20 August, at the same time they elect a new president and a new National Assembly, Ecuadoreans will be voting in one of the most important environmental referendums of modern times. They are being asked if the government should leave the oil beneath the Yasuní national park in the ground, indefinitely.

As Iain Bruce reports, this was one of the key themes of a recent visit by Leonidas Iza, Ecuador’s main Indigenous leader, to Europe to launch the English edition of his book, Uprising: the October Rebellion in Ecuador.

Winning support

In a week of meetings and events in Madrid, Brussels, Paris, London, Oxford, Glasgow and Grangemouth, Leonidas Iza and his co-authors, Andres Tapia and Andres Madrid, won support from MEPs, British MPs, trade unionists, peasants, climate justice activists, academics, migrants and many others, for a Yes vote in Ecuador’s August referendum.

Leonidas Iza and fellow authors meet with Scottish trade unionists including STUC Deputy General Secretary Dave Moxham and Unison Scotland Depute Convenor Stephen Smellie in Glasgow during the recent tour to promote “Uprising: the October Rebellion in Ecuador”.

Iza was a central figure in the Indigenous-led uprising of October 2019, triggered by the removal of fuel subsidies and therefore a sharp rise in the cost of living. He was then elected President of CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, the most powerful movement of its kind in Latin America. In that role, he led the follow-up national stoppage, or paro, of June last year. That closed down the country for even longer, 17 days in all, and expanded the list of demands. Alongside opposition to a broader range of neo-liberal policies, mandated by the International Monetary Fund, the Indigenous movement and its allies put at the centre of their struggle the need to halt oil drilling and mining on protected, sensitive and Indigenous land. On both occasions, they forced the government to negotiate and won significant concessions, but not enough.

This August’s referendum, which includes the question on stopping oil drilling in three oil fields known as Block 43, in the Yasuni, and another on limiting mining near the capital, Quito, is in effect a continuation of the 2019 and 2022 struggles. It brings together environmental campaigners with the Indigenous communities and other social movements that staged those insurrections, in a National Anti-mining Front. This combination is itself a significant, if tentative, achievement. The relationship of the Indigenous leaders and mass movement that led the insurrections, with the NGO left that has tended to dominate the environmental movement, has sometimes been difficult in recent years.

Biodiversity hotspot

As Iza and his colleagues repeated many times on their European tour, the campaign for Yasuní is not just about saving one of the most biodiverse spots on the planet. Of course, it is that too. The Yasuni National Park comprises 9,823 sq. kms of rainforest (almost half the size of Wales) in the Ecuadorean Amazon, just 200 kms from Quito and bordering the eastern range of the Andes. Perhaps because it was one of the few places that never froze over during the last ice age, it is one of the most biodiverse areas in the world, possibly the most biodiverse. Botanists have recorded 685 species of tree in one hectare of the Yasuni. That is more than in all of the United States and Canada. The same hectare also contains about 100,000 species of insects, again similar to the total number for North America. The Yasuni National Park is also home to Ecuador’s two Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane. The pressure from oil companies operating on the edges of their territory has already resulted in three massacres, putting their survival in jeopardy.

Climate Justice activists at Climate Camp Scotland in Grangemouth send a message of solidarity “Yes to Life, Yes to Yasuni” July 2023

A novel initiative for mitigation

At the same time, the campaign for a Yes in the referendum has a broader international significance, because it revives one of the world’s most original proposals for mitigating climate change. The Yasuni ITT Initiative was launched by the progressive government of Rafael Correa in 2007, during its early, more radical phase. It was based on proposals coming from Indigenous communities in Ecuadorean Amazonia and some environmental NGOs. It proposed leaving in the ground the 20 percent of Ecuador’s oil reserves that had been identified in the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini oil fields, known as ITT or Block 43, most of which lay beneath the Yasuni National Park. In return, the rich countries would pay Ecuador for not exploiting those reserves. US$3.6 billion over 13 years was what the Correa government was asking for, in public and private sector contributions, when it took the Yasuni ITT initiative to the UN General Assembly in 2007, and to COP15 in Copenhagen two years later, where it formed a central plank of the proposals put forward by the ALBA alliance led by Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela. That amount was calculated as 50 percent of the money the country would make if it did exploit those reserves. This was emphatically not conceived as compensation or as any kind of offset, nor was the money to be obtained through any sort of carbon market, as Alberto Acosta, Correa’s first energy minister and an architect of the Initiative, repeatedly insisted. The idea was not to leave the oil in the ground beneath the Yasuni National Park in exchange for some northern polluters being allowed to continue their business as usual; on the contrary, the rich countries should pay as part of their responsibility to cut global emissions.

Towards a global just transition

As the ecosocialist theorist, Michael Lowy, suggests in his foreword to the English edition of Iza’s Uprising, the Yasuni ITT Initiative could have been an unparalleled example to other countries – an inspiration for how the global south and the global north, both producers and consumers of fossil fuels, could have engaged together in a just transition away from the carbon economy, in a way that would be fair for communities across the planet.

In the end, President Rafael Correa abandoned the Yasuni Initiative. By 2013, the international pledges amounted to only US$336 million, of which less than 4 percent had actually been delivered. At the same time, the right-leaning and often pro-oil developmentalists in his Citizen Revolution movement had gained ground, bolstering Correa’s own sympathies with the extractive industries – and his impatience with both the Indigenous and environmental movements, which he liked to refer to as “infantile”. Alberto Acosta and others on the radical left in his government had either left or been marginalised. Blaming “the international community” for failing in its response (quite correctly of course), Correa declared the Yasuni Initiative dead, and ordered the state oil company, Petroecuador, to press ahead with drilling. In 2016, oil began to flow from the ITT fields, but in lesser quantities than expected, given the slump in world prices. Nonetheless, Correa’s retreat from the Initiative sealed the already deep breach between his government and the bulk of the Indigenous and environmental movements.

The latter had argued that the oil should be left in the ground, with or without the international financial contribution. Already by 2014, a campaign called Yasunidos, launched by the environmental NGO Accion Ecolologica, had collected enough signatures to trigger a referendum. But the electoral authorities refused to recognise hundreds of thousands of them, and for a number of years the Yasuni question all but disappeared from the political agenda.

The Yasuni returns

It was only in May this year that Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled, somewhat unexpectedly, that the call for a referendum was valid. It set the vote to coincide with the snap presidential election on 20 August, called by Ecuador’s right-wing president, Guillermo Lasso, to avoid his own impeachment. Since then, the Yasuni question has burst back into the centre of Ecuador’s political life. In a context that has been changed fundamentally by the two Indigenous-led insurrections of 2019 and 2022, it has unleashed an unprecedented debate on what kind of social and economic development the Ecuadorean people want for their country. It is a debate that cuts through the middle of the electoral options on offer on the same day. It also reveals, once again, the profound contradictions that run through Latin America’s diverse experiences with progressive governments, and their complicated relations with powerful social movements, like the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador.

For the last decade or more, the left and progressive forces in Ecuador have been riven by a bitter, debilitating division. The supporters of former president Rafael Correa and his Citizen Revolution movement have been ranged against much of the Indigenous and women’s movements (the country’s two most important social movements) and most of the trade unions (much weakened from their high point of the 1980s), as well many environmental NGOs and a number of small far-left groups and currents.

Yasuni, elections and beyond

This split is playing out once again in the presidential election on 20 August. But whether as tragedy or as farce, it may be for the last time. On one side, the favourite to become Ecuador’s next president, possibly in the first round but more likely in a second round in October, is Luisa Gonzalez, the candidate of the Citizen Revolution movement. She has avoided taking a very explicit position on the Yasuni referendum, and her party has said its members will be free to vote as they choose. But like Correa himself, she has left little doubt about her opposition to leaving the oil in the ground. Both insist the country needs the money to build schools and hospitals. Most of the half a dozen candidates vying to represent a discredited right have maintained a similar ambiguity, and used the same arguments.

On the other side, Yaku Perez, who was the candidate of the Indigenous movement’s party, Pachakutik, in the 2021 election and came third, is the only presidential candidate this time to support openly a Yes vote in the Yasuni referendum. He still has the support of the old, right-leaning leadership of Pachakutik and some environmental NGOs, as well as parts of the anti-Correa left and centre-left. But this bloc has lost much of its credibility. In particular, the Pachakutik leaders who engineered his candidacy last time and who led the large group of Pachakutik members in the now-dissolved National Assembly, revealed an extraordinary capacity for opportunism. Putting their virulent anti-Correa stance above loyalty to any particular ideology or policy, they struck a series of deals with Guillermo Lasso’s right-wing government, in exchange for favours and positions. As a result, last April’s national conference of Pachakutik voted them out and elected a new leadership aligned with the positions and priorities of CONAIE itself. They appealed against their removal, and since the National Electoral Council had still not ruled on the dispute, Pachakutik was not allowed to give formal endorsement to any candidates at a national level in this election.

7 August 2023

Activists occupy tree outside Edinburgh offices in support of Torry community in Aberdeen. Press statement from This is Rigged.

Ironside Farrar, Environmental Consultants with offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester were commissioned by Energy Transition Zone Ltd (ETZ Ltd) to produce a ‘Masterplan’ for the industrial development of parts of St. Fittick’s Park, Gregness and Doonies Farm in Aberdeen. They were also tasked with obtaining Planning Permission for this development. Ironside Farrar’s plans were presented to the Aberdeen City Council Management Planning Committee yesterday morning (29^th June). The Council say they will adopt the ‘Masterplan’ as Planning Guidance.

On the same day, supporters of This Is Rigged went to the Edinburgh offices of Ironside Farrar and met with Julian Farrar, Managing Director of the company, to discuss the issues and request that Ironside Farrar withdraw from further work for ETZ Ltd, and that employees boycott all further work for ETZ Ltd for the following reasons:

St Fittick’s park is the last remaining green space in Torry, which is one of the country’s most deprived communities, where residents have a life expectancy ten years lower than people living in wealthier parts of Aberdeen. Commenting on the potential loss of the park, local doctors and nurses fighting to improve the health of the Torry community,  say that industrialising any part of St. Fittick’s Park will be devastating for the health of that community.

In addition to its positive contribution to human health, St. Fittick’s Park is an oasis for wildlife, including many species of migrating birds, and Gregness and Doonies Farm support this wildlife as green corridors. In a recent article in the Guardian, journalist Tom wall suggested the park’s wetland is “perhaps Aberdeen’s most unlikely beauty spot. Reeds flap and bend in blasts of salt-edged wind. Grey and blue light catch in watery beds, where ducks dip and preen. Birds shelter in a young woodland of oak, dark green pine and silvery birch trees.”

It therefore makes no sense to destroy this important habitat while Scotland is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. Furthermore, the wetlands and forest created 10 years ago in St. Fittick’s Park are already capturing carbon, and it is increasingly recognised that ecosystems like these even regulate local climate including rainfall.

The main purposes of the proposed Energy Transition Zone will be to develop carbon capture and hydrogen technologies, both of which are considered by leading scientists to be unproven and dangerous excuses for continued oil extraction and habitat destruction.

In yesterday’s meeting, Julian Farrar was warned that being complicit in destroying the wetlands and woodland, both of which are vitally important green spaces and biodiversity sites that have taken years and a tens of thousands of community man-hours to create, would be seen as an act of immeasurable violence.

Ishbel Shand, member of the Friends of St.Fittick’s Park campaign said,

“The proposed industrial development is simply a land grab by the oil and gas industry to fill the pockets of their shareholders and directors.”

After leaving the meeting with Julian Farrar, This is Rigged activists Mike Downham and Tom Johnson decided to occupy a small tree outside the Ironside Farrar offices, and are there awaiting a response.

Mike Downham, a retired paediatrician and children’s DR said,

“There is a high incidence of asthma in children in Torry due to particulate matter air pollution from the nearby incinerator and the South Harbour industrial development. Further industrial development in this community would have a serious negative impact on the health of children in Torry.”

Following the meeting, Tom Johnson, a painter-decorator and This is rigged supporter who knows St. Fittick’s park well said,

“If Ironside Farrar were to pull out of the project at this stage, it would have a huge positive effect on the wellbeing and health of the Torry community – disempowered folk who have lost so much already. I mean, Imagine losing an entire bay – your access to the sea. And now forests they planted 10 years ago are to be ripped up and concreted over with “green” factories.”

“Julian Farrar explained to me that Ironside Farrar have reduced the amount of harm to be done in the park, but if they now come out against any destruction WHATSOEVER of these spaces, that will be a really bold statement of solidarity, and an action that shows their real concern for the environment, and people. We understand it’s difficult for a company to do something like that in current economic and political contexts, but to me Julian did seem to be uncomfortable with what’s going on with the ETZ.”

Republished from ScotE3 -“Employment, Energy and Environment – Campaigning for climate jobs and a just transition”: https://scote3.net/2023/07/01/occupation-in-support-of-torry-community/

POWER TO THE PEOPLE! SOCIALIST ENERGY SUMMIT: SATURDAY 21ST MAY – GET YOUR TICKETS BOOKED NOW!

12noon-5pm  The Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow  G2 4JP (Directions)

This important event is being held by Socialists For Independence (SFI) in conjunction with European Left and Democratic Left Scotland.

It will be an opportunity to talk and most importantly, organise around how we can fight back against the huge energy prices rises that increases fuel poverty and the next stage for the COP26 demands to fight climate change.  The recent ScotWind sale by the Scottish Government has provoked important debate about what sort of energy system we need in Scotland, both before and after independence, and how it can benefit the entire population especially the poorest.

We can’t go on like this. Global warming is threatening the planet and energy prices are going into the stratosphere.

We need a drastic root and branch change. To do that we have to understand how we create energy in Scotland and who owns our energy. This summit is the first step in developing an energy plan where the people in Scotland own and control energy production and consumption for the benefit of the people who live here.

Speakers include:
⬩ Maggie Chapman – Scottish Green Party MSP
⬩ Stephen Smellie – UNISON Scotland Depute Convenor
⬩ Roland Kulke – Transform, European Left
⬩ Stuart Fairweather – Dundee Trades Council & Democratic Left Scotland
⬩ Alan McCombes

The event is open to anyone who has an interest in environmental issues and is concerned about how we in Scotland can effect positive change for both people and planet.

Tickets for the event are free and can be booked via Eventbrite – see link below:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/socialist-summit-on-energy-tickets-318976165297

The Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/379869394006488?ref=newsfeed

Come along and have your say!

You can follow Socialists for Independence on social media: Twitter: @socialists4indy  Facebook  Web:  https://socialistsforindependence.scot/ (Members also have a Slack channel for discussion and regular fortnightly meetings)