{"id":13082,"date":"2021-05-18T11:06:12","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T09:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/code-rood.org\/?p=13082"},"modified":"2021-05-19T11:17:55","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T09:17:55","slug":"fighting-for-a-just-transition-3-3-suraendher-kumarr-singapore-climate-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/code-rood.org\/nl\/2021\/05\/18\/fighting-for-a-just-transition-3-3-suraendher-kumarr-singapore-climate-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting for a Just Transition (3\/3): Suraendher Kumarr (Singapore Climate Rally)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Suraendher Kumarr is a climate justice organiser from Singapore and member of SG Climate Rally, a coalition pushing for climate justice and a just transition to ensure a fair future for all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could you briefly introduce yourself\n(and your group\/collective)? What is your activism about? Where are you active?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a member of SG Climate Rally, an\norganisation in Singapore which pushes for climate justice and a just\ntransition to ensure a fair future for all. The organisation was first founded\nin 2019 when it organised the first-ever climate rally in Singapore. It was\nattended by over 2000 members of the public and had politicians from the ruling\nparty and opposition party attend it. This was significant as prior to the\nrally, climate change was not discussed substantively in parliament or any\nother national conversation. SGCR, along with others in the climate movement in\nSingapore effectively shifted the political needle and less than a year later, most\npolitical parties had policy positions on climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, much of climate change discourse- in\nSingapore especially, treats environmentalism as a separate issue from class,\ngender, disability, sexuality, race, imperialism, for example- very much in the\nvein of green capitalism. This is not a sustainable solution, as the logic of\ncapitalism is to continuously extract for the need of profit, and as long as we\nproduce and extract more than we need, we are still going to be polluting and\ndepleting the earth. A system built on such a logic is fundamentally\nunsustainable. While SGCR has called on the state to lead on systemic climate\naction since day one of its existence, we have also more recently clearly\narticulated that we want a just\nsociety<\/a> , democratically accepted by our membership. We don\u2019t just want to\nmitigate emissions, we want it to be done in a way that is fair. A just\ntransition essentially. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 What\ndoes this mean? Our organisation, broadly, has 3 calls to action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Bringing power to the people by building\na democratic society, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. launch a green recovery based on justice\nand equality, and <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Redefine what pragmatism and growth\nmeans in the Singapore context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A big part of \u201cthe people\u201d is the working\nclass. The financialisation of capitalism has to some extent, reconfigured\nclass and so when we say working class, we must clarify that we mean people who\nprimarily<\/em> rely on wage labour for their subsistence. Another part of\n\u201cthe people\u201d is marginalised communities who do not necessarily participate in\nthe realm of wage labour. Examples include unpaid caregivers, rural farmers,\nhomeless persons or anyone else who may rely solely on mutual aid or social\nwelfare. SGCR means both the working class and marginalised communities \u2013 two\nbroad groups that have significant latent power but have historically been\ndisempowered psychologically and legally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do I mean by latent power? For one,\nthere is no wealth, no world without workers\u2019 labour. Without labour, wealth\nremains stagnant, it cannot grow. And workers cannot go to work without care\nlabour, usually unpaid and usually performed by caregivers who tend to be women\n\u2013 activities that we systemically understand as social reproduction.  But workers and marginalised communities are legally\ndisempowered through anti-union and assembly laws for example, preventing them\nfrom organising themselves and exercising their power autonomously. They are\npsychologically disempowered by narratives that celebrate the capitalist logic\nof endless profit and consumption, where the role of the worker is reduced to an\nindividualised unit, competing against other workers for the privilege of wages\njust to stay alive. It is our job as activists and organisers to resist these\nforms of disempowerment and channel energies towards realising their latent\npower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are not interested in a green recovery\nthat benefits capitalists if it is at the expense of the majority of the\nworking class and other marginalised communities. A just transition is a green\ntransition that centres the working class and marginalised communities as active\nagents of this change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singapore is almost 100% urbanised, but\nSGCR also understands that a just green transition is impractical without\ninternational cooperation and solidarity. We are therefore internationalist in\nour outlook and have stood in solidarity with ecological struggles around the\nworld. These include but are not limited to the struggles in Myanmar against\nthe military coup, the Palestinian struggle against Israeli settler\ncolonialism, the democracy movement in Thailand, and the forest fires in Chiang\nMai for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One might say that SGCR is being too\nexpansive in the issues we address. We don\u2019t see it that way. Climate justice\nand a just transition are big asks, and we are not shy to practice what we say.\nOur main role, we see, is to effectively articulate the links between different\nfeatures of capitalism (imperialism, gender injustice, racism, xenophobia,\nableism, queerphobia, and our retributive criminal justice system etc) and yet\nanother one of its features, climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are some current\nstruggles\/problems?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of our most recent struggles is climate\njustice for app-based gig workers. Food delivery couriers and private hire car\ndrivers who are employed by apps like Grab, Food Panda, and Deliveroo were\ndisproportionately affected by an abrupt petrol price increase imposed by the\ngovernment recently. This was done during the pandemic, where workers were\nalready suffering reduced incomes and mass lay-offs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What particularly moved SGCR to act was the\ngovernment justifying the petrol hike as an effort to address climate change.\nSGCR responded to say we are environmentalists who are against an abrupt petrol\nhike as it was clearly classist, and, from a policy perspective, likely to be\nineffective. After speaking to some food couriers and private hire car drivers\nabout the petrol hike, we organised a petition with the slogan, \u201cWorkers didn\u2019t\ncause climate change, they shouldn\u2019t pay for it. Give them better rights!\u201d,\nwhere we also called for taxing the rich to pay for climate change instead.\nSingapore does not have a wealth tax. The petition had other demands as well \u2013 touching\non points about rider safety, a minimum income guarantee, and social and health\nprotections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in our organisational\nhistory, SGCR members went to the streets to talk to riders and drivers about a\npetition connecting labour and climate change issues, and invited them to\nweekly meetings about the campaign. Several riders were actively involved in\nthe campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we mostly listened to their\nstruggles, we were also actively linking their workplace issues concerning\npublic safety, lack of employment and social protections, petrol price\nincreases, and low pay, to climate change. For example, we argued that the\npetrol hike is not environmentally friendly as the tax is likely not to result\nin behavioural change (given the short time-frame and lack of financial and\ninfrastructural support to make a shift in vehicle choice), but workers\nabsorbing the cost. We argued that since the main polluters are the capitalists\nand they increased their wealth during the pandemic, we should be taxing the\nrich instead to finance climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also argued that public safety of riders\nis an environmental issue. There have been increasing cases of food delivery\ncourier cyclists dying in road accidents due to unsafe public infrastructure\nleaving them to resort to using the far more dangerous roads. Moreover, recent\nregulations disallow cyclist to use footpaths. In Singapore, cycling paths are\nnot as common as countries like the Netherlands for example. Public\ninfrastructure still upholds the supremacy of the motor vehicle. We argued that\nthe lack of a safe working environment for food courier cyclists and e-bikers\nis anti-ecological as it puts workers at risk. This point on workplace safety\nalso resonated with low-wage migrant workers in Singapore who work in the\nconstruction industry and are ferried from their dormitories to construction\nsites in the back of a an open roof lorry with no seatbelts. The other more\ndirect link to climate change is that riders work outdoors, and increased\ntemperatures cause higher chances of heat stress. Some drivers and riders have\ntold us that they prefer working at night due to the heat, for example. Beyond\nthe specifics of policy, we are so used to distinguishing between humans and\nnature that we forget that humans \u2013 and therefore workers \u2013 are also part of\nnature. Environmentalism that doesn\u2019t care for workers\u2019 well-being can only be\nwhat Nancy Fraser terms an \u201cenvironmentalism of the rich\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fundamentally though, the extractive and\nexploitative logic of capitalism is not sustainable for this planet. And the\ngig economy is one of the latest frontiers to extract even more from labour to\nprofit capitalists. They do so by attempting to erase centuries of hard-fought\nwins for the international labour movement \u2013 paid leave, paid sick leave, paid\nhealthcare for example. As a climate justice movement, SGCR believes that this\nmust be resisted. It is workers who can decide that they wish to engage in\nsocially useful work that doesn\u2019t ravage the planet and people, but only if\nthey have control of their workplaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also released 3 issues of labour\nbulletins hosting workers\u2019 voices and analytical articles about the gig\nworkers\u2019 struggle for fair pay and overall conditions. This served as a helpful\nway of connecting with riders. This was quite historic in the Singapore\ncontext, where it is generally stigmatised for workers to openly organise \u2013 and\nfor an environmental group to initiate. These riders and drivers had previously\norganised against an abrupt ban on e-scooters that wiped out many of their\nlivelihoods overnight, and many saw it as novel \u2013 but it was done by the riders\nalone \u2013 and spontaneously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We held an open meeting on Labour Day, to\nmark the submission of the petition which eventually carried 19 organisational\nand over 2000 individual signatories to 5 government agencies. The open meeting\nwas attended by almost 100 people online (with more than 2000 views on\nfacebook), discussing and debating openly about class politics on labour day. In\na country like Singapore where labour and class politics has been severely\nmuted and depoliticised for decades, we wanted that to change. To date, the\nstate has not responded to us, privately nor publicly.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are currently taking stock of what was\ndone and how to carry the work forward post-petition, especially since the\ngovernment has yet to respond to our petition. As climate activists, talking to\nworkers in fossil fuel industries would be the logical next step, but there are\nmany barriers to this. Many of these workers sign non-disclosure agreements and\nare therefore scared to talk to us, fearing legal costs. We are still committed\nto engage with people in the fossil fuel sector. We have heard through the\ngrapevine that even as fossil fuel companies stay silent on transition plans,\nsome workers in fossil fuel sectors have been planning their own transition out\nof the fossil fuel sector and into greener pastures, where they have\ntransferrable skills. This leaves the open question of what happens to workers\nwho are not able to make the jump to other industries and will be left behind\nas mass lay-offs continue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the role of Shell specifically\nin the place where you are active?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The oil and gas industry and the services,\nequipment, and construction companies that support it account for close to 5%\nof Singapore\u2019s GDP. Shell\u2019s Singapore refinery is Shell\u2019s largest wholly owned\nrefinery in the world. Shell operates two oil and petrochemical sites in\nSingapore, namely in Pulau Bukom and on Jurong Island. As far as we are aware,\nSingapore does not publish the data of carbon emissions that individual\ncompanies have created. However, the oil and gas sector accounts for 45% of\nSingapore\u2019s carbon emissions. Despite this, Shell paid only $49 million in\ntaxes despite generating $2.3 billion in profits, far below the 17% tax rate on\ncorporate profits.  That\u2019s about 2% of\nits profits.
\n
\nShell\u2019s origins in Singapore go as far back as 1960, 5 years before the\ncountry\u2019s independence. 1960 was when then newly appointed Finance Minister Dr\nGoh Keng Swee grasped an axe and symbolically chopped down a Flame of the\nForest tree, breaking ground on the site of Shell\u2019s first petroleum refinery in\nSingapore. Shell invested $30 million in this refinery, representing the single\nbiggest investment for Singapore at that time. Economic growth for this young\nnation would go on to be inextricably tied to the growth of the fossil fuel\nindustry.  The refinery would go on to\ngrow and become Shell\u2019s largest in the world, and possibly, its most profitable\nworldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War around the world has reaped Shell in\nSingapore enormous profits. The Vietnam war strengthened Singapore\u2019s position\nas Asia\u2019s oil supply hub. According to Louis Wesseling, president of Shell,\nmuch of the fuel for the US and South Vietnam in the Vietnam War was supplied\nthrough Singapore\u2019s refineries. He added that some of the fuel also unintentionally\nslipped to the Vietcong, enabling them to successfully carry out their\nguerrilla warfare. Moreover, Singapore\u2019s refining industry had its most\nprofitable spell in the months after Iraq\u2019s military invaded Kuwait in August\n1990. As a result of these record refining margins, Shell was reported to have\nfully recovered its investment for a long-residue catalytic cracker in less\nthan two years. The US-led invasion of Iraq was also another cause for cheer\nfor Singapore\u2019s refineries with Merrill Lynch reporting that refining margins\nin 2003 were at their highest levels since 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shell says it aims to be a net-zero\nemissions energy business by 2050. The scepticism around the loopholes of 2050\nnet zero pledges is well documented. Meanwhile, Shell Singapore outlined a 10-year\nplan for the company to repurpose its core business and aim to cut its own carbon\ndioxide emissions in the country by about one third by then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are people taking on Shell\/fighting\nfor a just transition? What are their strategies?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Succinctly put: In your view, why must\nShell Fall?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently I would say that the most active\nmovement confronting big oil is the divestment movement which is largely university\ncampus-based<\/p>\n\n\n\n