‘A broken system’: campaigners urge Liz Truss to rethink energy plan

theguardian.com:

Climate justice activists, poverty campaigners and trade unionists have vowed to take to the streets and occupy key sites next month to oppose the UK government’s energy and cost of living plans.

Protesters say they are planning to step up their campaigns in an effort to stop Liz Truss’s government doubling down on oil and gas extraction, which experts say will do little to help the cost of living crisis while exacerbating the climate emergency.

Trade unionists and cost of living campaigners are due to march through London and other cities across the UK on 1 October, while direct action groups including Just Stop Oil saying they will “occupy Westminster”, with supporters prepared to risk arrest to block roads with “a wave of action including strikes and occupations” throughout the month.

Zarah Sultana, a Labour MP and a leading figure in the trade union-backed cost of living campaign Enough is Enough, said the energy crisis and escalating climate emergency had the same root causes.

“Truss is doubling down on the broken system that causes bills, billionaires and CO2 to soar while pay falls. People simply won’t put up with it. Enough is enough. From trade unionists fighting for decent pay, to climate campaigners, this autumn will see a wave of action to force change.”

Truss announced plans on Thursday to ramp up north sea oil and gas extraction and lift the ban on fracking. Experts say this would have minimal impact on the cost of living crisis and be disastrous for the UK’s legally binding climate targets.

Truss’s new chancellor, Kwasi Kwartang, wrote an article earlier this year stating that “no amount of shale gas … dotted across rural England would be enough to lower the European price any time soon”.

Hannah Martin, from the