Goodbye to 2024. Will 2025 be better?

2024 was a disastrous year for the environment, the climate, world peace and the future of our planet. It is set to be the hottest year on record and the 10 hottest years have all been in the last decade. But this blog has seen some successes which are worth celebrating.

In January we challenged the Council to raise money for Climate projects by issuing Climate Bonds. This was approved in December. Sheffielders with spare cash will now be able to invest it in climate projects which will help reduce emissions in Sheffield. 

In March, following the Adbusters campaign, Sheffield Council agreed to a strict new advertising policy.   They banned ads for junk food, sugary drinks, petrol cars, flights, alcohol, gambling and vaping. Sheffield has gone further than other cities like Bristol and Norwich as they have also banned high-carbon car and flight advertising. 

But our analysis of the Council’s response to declaring a Climate Emergency (the most read post on this blog this year) showed they continue to fail to act as if it is an emergency. 

My two most watched videos of the year were The Internationale being sung in the Peace Gardens by the mass choirs of the Street Choir Festival

and the Tadhamon Singers protesting in Aldi.

I do think the use of song and creativity in protest is helpful in convincing others about our cause. 

Throughout the year this blog has highlighted some of the most frightening news concerning the planet. News that should be on the front pages of all the newspapers but is left to volunteers to cover in articles like this. So in July we explained how the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could collapse, plunging the UK into a continual freezing winter. In September we reported on the work of Johan Rockstrom who has found that we have crossed 6 of the 9 Planetary Boundaries and is calling for emergency action to reverse this. In October we covered the visit to Sheffield by climate scientist Bill McGuire, who shocked his audience by declaring that he thought our society would break down by 2040 due to the floods, droughts, storms, wildfires and food shortages that our overheating climate will bring. And in December we revealed how plastic pollution is not just affecting our rivers and oceans, plastics are now polluting the human body. Most of the British public are blissfully unaware of these multiple threats to our future, due to the failure of the media to report them. Here four leading climate scientists talk about their hopes for 2025.

What has been most shocking this year is the continued complicity of our Governments, both Tory and Labour, in the Genocide in Gaza. We have watched it being televised and now Palestinians are living in flooded tents with nowhere to go, dying from malnutrition and hypothermia as well as from the Israeli bombs, drones and bullets. Aid workers, journalists, doctors and nurses have all become targets of the Israeli regime. Owen Jones has written an excellent expose of the BBC’s biased reporting of the Genocide. Locally the Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid have campaigned tirelessly all year to highlight what is happening and I am proud to have promoted some of their work here. Look out for future protests and fundraising activities here. 

As well as Gaza, war rages in Ukraine, Sudan and many other regions, destroying not just people but the environment they rely on to live and feed themselves. It is a shame Sheffield is welcoming the production of more armaments in the form of a massive Howitzer factory in Sheffield. More weapons mean more conflicts and more casualties. We should be investing in insulating homes, public transport and renewable energy, not bombs and missiles. 

2024 saw big changes in politics. In the States, Trump was elected. It is a frightening prospect to have an oil-loving, racist climate denier heading back to the White House. His friend Elon Musk is another climate denier, with so much wealth he threatens to completely subvert UK democracy. It’s great he has fallen out with Farage, but his backing of the imprisoned racist criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) and the far-right AfD Party in Germany is sickening.

Here the Tories were defeated, but they have been replaced with a weak Labour Government that talks the talk on climate change but doesn’t have a programme to address it adequately. They continue to prioritise Growth, back reopening and expanding airports and have dropped their climate funding in favour of Carbon Capture and Storage, a policy which will prop up the oil and gas industry for many years to come when it needs to be shut down as soon as possible. One glimmer of hope is the Climate and Nature Bill which has its second reading in the House of Commons on Jan 24th. As yet only two Sheffield MP’s have promised to be there to support it.  Please write to your MP and ask them to vote for it. Sea levels are now rising fast but policymakers still have their head in the sand. The irony that many oil ports are now at risk of flooding due to rising sea levels should not escape us. 

My favourite event of the year was the massive Restore Nature Now march in London led by Chris Packham. We must keep up the pressure on the Government to put the Climate and Nature Emergencies at the top of their agenda.

Sheffield Council have still not stopped spraying our streets with Glyphosate. They have managed to reduce mowing in parks which will give insect life a much-needed boost. There is still no news of the long-awaited re-introduction of beavers to Sheffield following the approval of the trial in February. Not far away in Huddersfield, the war on nature continues as Syngenta continue to manufacture and export pesticides banned in this country to other countries all around the world. 

Locally there have been many protests focussing on how companies and organisations should change. Extinction Rebellion targeted the National Trust to persuade them to move banks from Barclays. Barclays were targeted many times both due to their continued funding for the oil and gas industry and their complicity in the Genocide in Gaza. Sheffield Insurance Broker AON were targeted, with demands to Insure our Future, rather than their fossil fuel clients. Rich landowners were targeted because they drain and burn the moors to make conditions ideal for grouse shooting rather than recreate the natural wetlands which would protect us from flooding and increase biodiversity.  Thanks to everyone who joined protests in 2024.

A Reclaim the Power climate camp at Drax Power Station, which burns imported wood pellets, was prevented by the police and many of the organisers were arrested. Drax recieves £2m in Government subsidies every day to fund a project that is fuelling the climate crisis,  causing huge harm to human life and the planet. 

What gives me hope in these dire times is that there are many people willing to take immense risks in order to protect the planet. There are 40 political prisoners in UK jails who have been imprisoned for protesting, mostly under the new anti-protest laws brought in by the last Government. Defend our Juries have been protesting outside courts all year to ensure that those accused can explain to the jurors their motivations. There is a plaque in the Old Bailey stating this principle from the 1600s. Many peaceful protesters have received longer jail terms than racist rioters who attacked police and attempted to burn down a hotel full of asylum seekers. 

I hope 2025 is the year people worldwide wake up to the multiple threats we are facing and start to act accordingly.

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