London: corporate pressure versus climate action

Review by Simon Pirani of Breathe: tackling the climate emergency, by Sadiq Khan (Hutchinson Heinemann, 2023, 216 pages). First published by The Ecologist

If eloquence and humour were enough to tackle climate change, this book would take us a long way. But it’s very short on honest assessment of the problems, and unvarnished discussion of how to address them … and that, given Sadiq Khan’s reputation as a “climate leader”, is scary.

Khan, now half way through his second term as Mayor of London, traces the “beginning of my journey as a climate activist” to breathing problems he experienced after running the London Marathon in 2014.

XR march in London, January 2023. From Extinction Rebellion Huntingdon facebook page

A diagnosis of adult-onset asthma “made me think about many issues I had never really considered. Had the air we breathed always been this bad? How many people were affected? Was air pollution linked to climate change?” (page 10).

Previously, “I had never been particularly ‘green’”, had driven a Saab convertible and in parliament voted for a third runway at Heathrow. “Climate change had always seemed very far away – both geographically and temporally. […] Asthma made me think again.”

As Labour candidate for Mayor in 2016, Khan reversed his stance on Heathrow, attracting accusations “not just of inconsistency, but political opportunism”. The truth was, he writes, “I had been on a political journey” (page 82). He had met with groups such as the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (HACAN), who had pointed to the data: 10,000+ premature deaths a year in London from air pollution.

Khan claims credit for bringing together an “eclectic band of activists, local councils and stakeholder groups”, whose campaign against the third runway culminated in a Court of Appeal ruling in 2020 against the government’s decision to proceed. (The project is still on hold.)  

“What did each of us do to stop this nightmare?”

The final statement in court by Igor Paskar, a Russian anti-war protester. From Solidarity Zone

Download this as a flyer

On 31 May the Southern District military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Igor Paskar to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on charges of “vandalism” and “terrorism”. He was found guilty of burning a Z-banner [a pro-war symbol] and the symbolic firebombing of the FSB [federal security services] building in Krasnodar. The day before his sentencing, Igor gave his final statement in court. Here is a translation of his speech:

Igor Paskar in court. Photo from Solidarity Zone

Almost a year has gone by since I carried out this action. During that year, I pictured this moment time and again, the moment when I would be given the opportunity to make my final statement. I agonised over the words I would say, and the motives that drove me to act as I did.

During the last sitting, your honour, you asked whether I regret my actions. I understood that the extent of my professed regret would influence the severity of the sentence. But if I renounced my beliefs, I would be acting against my conscience.

On the contrary, during the time I have been in prison, I have seen first-hand the injustices perpetrated against the people who we call our brothers: both prisoners of war who have served in the Ukrainian armed forces and ordinary Ukrainian citizens.

The war – or whatever term we use to label it – came to their homes, destroying their lives as they knew them. No matter what slogans and geopolitical interests we use to varnish this, in my eyes it can not be justified.

Do I regret what has happened? Yes, perhaps I’d wanted my life to turn out differently – but I acted according to my conscience, and my conscience remains clear.

Communist Dissidents in Early Soviet Russia

Communist Dissidents in Early Soviet Russia: five documents translated and introduced by Simon Pirani, will be published in September 2023.

You can order a copy here from Troubadour bookshop. And once the book is ready, it will be available here on People & Nature – in English or Russian – as a PDF, free to download.

The book gives voice to Russian communists who participated in the 1917 revolution, but found themselves at odds with the Communist party as it consolidated its rule in the early 1920s. One Red army veteran demands action against corrupt officials; another mourns the dashed hopes of 1917 and the loss of friendship and solidarity; a “collectivist” group aspires to new cultural and technological revolutions; and other oppositionists denounce material inequalities, the return of workplace exploitation and creeping state authoritarianism. The five documents in the book are published in English for the first time.

□ More information and endorsements here. Photo: book cover by Brian Eley