Letter for HMRC #EarthTaxStrikes #StrikeForLife
First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive
HM Revenue & Customs
100 Parliament Street
Dear Mr Harra,
The UK Government must show leadership and STOP FUNDING HARM. We are withholding the percentage of our taxes it spends destroying communities and our planet, until it agrees to stop.
This is to inform you that we intend to withhold 3% of our income tax payments, as an act of civil disobedience, in outrage that the UK government is spending our money on activities which directly lead to increasing carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. I believe the government is failing in its duty to protect us, the citizens of the UK, through its inaction on the climate emergency. It is also committing Crimes Against Humanity, through policies that add to our historically high volume of emissions and therefore contribute to the warming, which is already killing vulnerable people and could kill billions, especially in majority world countries.
The Bank of England recently estimated its policies to be aligned with a 3.5°C increase in global temperature, describing this as “not surprising” [1]. According to a recent article in the journal Nature , this temperature is understood to invite a “high” probability of a “cascade of abrupt and irreversible changes” in the climate system that would pose an “existential threat to civilization” [2]. Every year, fossil fuel-related air pollution is responsible for as many as 28,000 excess deaths in the UK [3]. This is happening at the same time as a “pervasive human-driven decline” of the “fabric of life that supports us all” [4].
The UK is bound by law to near-total elimination of fossil fuels in less than three decades [5], fundamentally transforming our society’s energy and material basis at an unprecedented speed. Yet no policies or legal frameworks are yet in place to conceivably achieve it. In fact, under the accepted WTO definition, the UK continues to subsidize fossil fuels at the highest level in Europe [6]. This government, which likes to present itself as leading the global response to the climate emergency, has breached the Paris Agreement [7]. It omits international aviation and shipping figures from the UK carbon budget, and spends billions bailing out high carbon and polluting industries including £2 billion to British Airways [8]. It spends £3.9 billion on fossil fuel projects overseas [9], which will emit 69 million tonnes of CO2 annually, without a date provided for when it intends to stop these ‘investments’ [10]. It is also allowing a £165 million new coal mine in Cumbria to go ahead [11]. This year it has budgeted just £8 billion for reducing carbon emissions [12], while hundreds of billions have been allocated to road building and other unnecessary, destructive and high-carbon activities. HS2 provokes particular outrage for being hugely expensive [13], attracting billions in government subsidies [14] and destroying ancient woodlands [15].
As individuals, each of us has a duty of care, to avoid acts which could foreseeably harm others. I am withholding 3% of my taxes in order to try to prevent numerous greater harms: Ecocide, the mass extinction of species on earth; changing weather patterns which bring fires, floods and crop failures, leading in turn to mass migrations and societal breakdown. My conscience forbids me to subsidise activities which I know will lead to the preventable deaths of millions.
- stop subsidising and funding fossil fuels and allowing new fossil fuels to be extracted
- Cancel HS2 and the road building programme,
- no more bailouts of destructive industries
Tell the truth: our political economy distorts priorities and rewards harmful behaviour; it is hard-wired to create crises and destroy life; we must set differences aside and confront why we have failed to act. We must repair the damage done and prepare for the crises to come.
Champion Citizens’ Assemblies at all key levels, including global, with mandates to design a regenerative political economy in service to all people and life on earth.
References
[1] The Bank of England’s climate-related financial disclosure 2020, The Bank of England, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prudential-regulation/publication/2020/climate-related-financial-disclosure-2019-20 , (page 27)
[2] Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against, Nature , https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0
[3] Cardiovascular disease burden from ambient air pollution in Europe reassessed using novel hazard ratio functions, European Heart Journal , https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/40/20/1590/5372326
[4] Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change, Science , https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6471/eaax3100.full
[5] The Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/1056/contents/made
[6] Energy prices and costs in Europe, European Commission, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52019DC0001
[7]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/uks-creative-carbon-accounting-breaches-climate-deal-say critics
[8]https://www.godsavethepoints.com/british-airways-2bn-loan-uk-government
[9]https://positivemoney.org/2020/07/new-report-where-are-the-conditions-for-the-bank-of-englands-broken-bailout scheme/
[11] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-55561852
[12] https://www.carbonbrief.org/budget-2020-key-climate-and-energy-announcements
[13] https://www.theengineer.co.uk/poll-should-hs2-be-cancelled
[14] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2019-10-15/742
[15] Department for Transport kept back vital HS2 failings | Financial Times (ft.com) and ‘What’s the Damage’ Wildlife Trusts Report; 2446
[16] https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/06/19/the-uk-tax-gap-is-90-billion-a-year/
[17] https://fsi.taxjustice.net/en/
Originally published at http://docs.google.com.
