COMPLIANT REBELS

Later this year, the city of Glasgow will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). On the one hand, it’s a remarkable opportunity for the UK to position itself as the de facto leader in what some see as our last chance to avoid environmental apocalypse, building on its legacy as the first nation in the world to introduce long-term, legally binding legislation which has since become the model for other states. On the other, it’s a remarkable contradiction. Both the UK and the Scottish governments are under considerable pressure to end what environmental campaigners consider to be entirely indefensible plans to approve new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

In short, the UK is trying to reconcile efforts to sustain capitalist growth with seriously ambitious targets enshrined in law requiring the UK