Stop the planning free-for-all, says Hackney Friends of the Earth

"We want the government to take notice of local views and prioritise people and the environment, not just the economy," says Hackney Friends of the Earth

Whose planet is it anyway, asks Friends of the Earth Hackney and Tower Hamlets?

Presuming you can’t afford to jet off on one of Sir Richard Branson’s package holidays to the moon, like most ‘average’ humans, you’re pretty much limited to a life on planet Earth. We share its land, breathe its air, eat its produce and generally use much more of its resources than we should.

Yet too often, where we live affects how we experience the planet. In the rich North we don’t expect to drink dirty water, breathe in toxins or live in an environmentally dangerous place. We at Friends of the Earth believe everyone has the right to live and work in healthy places and share essentials like food and water. We campaign for equality in local communities like Hackney and across the world – otherwise known as environmental justice.

A thorn in the side of environmental justice is carbon trading, perhaps best known through its ugly sister, carbon offsetting. This essentially means rich countries can pay to keep on polluting, rather than actually reducing their emissions. The logical step of making real changes at home rather than offsetting abroad is forgotten in this absurd system.

Rich countries have made a packet out of polluting, but are yet to pay a fair price for that historical advantage. The knock-on effect is that with the threat of climate change looming, poor countries’ rights to develop have been threatened.

It’s ironic – in the tragic sense of the word – that poor countries and communities have caused the least destruction to the climate, yet often have the most vulnerable habitats and, as the climate changes, will be hit first and hardest. Countries where large populations live at risk of sea level rise, notably Bangladesh, are particularly at risk.

Impacts could include cyclones, soil erosion and flooding. We could help reduce these risks by investing in real climate change adaptation programmes, rather than dubious offsetting projects. So far, despite legally-binding targets, rich countries continue to not deliver appropriate action to match their responsibilities.

According to Labour leader Ed Miliband, the British public now understand the science but doesn’t think that climate change will affect us. The UK’s infrastructure and relative wealth does mean we’re likely to be better able to cope with the changing climate and its associated threats than many countries.

Yet despite our capacity to do so, we’re yet to embrace the safe and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel – renewable energies such as solar, wind and hydro – that would reduce the need to ‘cope’ in the first place. Sounds sensible? Not likely.

In local communities like Hackney, ‘justice’ can be conceived as community-level decision making. Friends of the Earth believes everyone should have the right to shape their community as well as get hold of information about what’s happening within it. We want the government to take notice of local views and prioritise people and the environment, not just the economy.

In a specific example of environmental injustice at home, our planning laws are stacked  in favour of developers and against us average folk, making it very difficult for local people to have a say about where we live. And the government is proposing giving even more power to developers who supposedly need a free reign to build what they like, where they like, when they like.

To stand up for our parks, shops, allotments and green spaces, I invite you to help stop the planning free-for-all and tell your MP about your concerns.