00:00 Clare Welton: I've got a slightly different focus and kind of organising strategy than Fiona, but I guess that's why it's good that we're together, so that we can kind of [see] the different tactics and methods are all out there. So, I guess most of you probably don't know: Fuel Poverty Action is a grassroots, non-hierarchical group that meets in London, and we are taking action on the issue of fuel poverty, the big six energy companies, expensive and polluting energy.
00:30 And what we're fighting for is a fair energy future for everyone, where, you know, we don't have people dying from fuel poverty and neither do we have people dying from climate change. So, I guess to start: fuel poverty hurts exactly the same people as climate change hurts. It hurts women the most, it hurts mothers the most, it hurts disabled people the most, it hurts elderly people the most, and it will hurt migrants the most, refugees the most. And actually there's a really big link there between, you know, the people
01:02 who make the decisions about our energy and the people who are affected by it at the other end. To put it in context: in the UK we have one in five households [who] are in serious debt [to] their energy supplier. We have one in four households who are describing having to make a decision regularly between whether they're heating their home or whether they're going to feed their children. And that's a poll that's been done of mothers over two years, and consistently it's shown about one in four households are making that decision.
01:33 We have things like — there's a big thing going on at the moment with food banks, which is that when people are being given their food packs at food banks, many food banks are reporting people giving back free food, and people saying: can we have food that doesn't need cooking, because I can't afford to put the gas on, or, you know, the hob on, to heat the free food you're giving me. So that's the kind of the level of, like, poverty that is existing in this country. And so, to kind of contextualise it all, there
02:04 are at least 10,000 deaths in the UK last year because of cold homes, and that's the second highest figure in Europe, with only Estonia coming out with more numbers of deaths caused by cold homes. That's because living in a cold home slows down your blood pressure, which means you're more likely to have a heart attack; it causes and worsens respiratory conditions. There's people in our group who've developed asthma through simply just living in a cold home, a damp home. And against all of this backdrop, the big
02:36 six energy companies made nearly four billion pounds between them in profit — you know, against the backdrop of people not being able to afford to heat, [to] eat, or dying. And obviously this links together [with] lots of other issues. It's about low wages, it's about bad quality housing, it's about high rents, it's about expensive polluting energy. And with the average bill now about £1,300, £1,400 a year, for people on, you know, minimum wage, like, it's just
03:09 unpayable. And we also have an increasing issue with people being forced onto prepayment meters. And what we think is that in the UK there are up to 300 homes being broken into every day by big six energy companies. So when people fall into debt now, generally you don't get disconnected, you're left to self-disconnect with a prepayment meter, where when you run out of money you simply get plunged into the coldness and darkness. And many people who write to us and contact us describe regular self-disconnection, and also many of
03:40 these people also describe feeling suicidal, saying like: all I do is feel cold all day, I think I'd rather die. Or people — like disabled people — who say, you know, we have to have the heating on so that I can stay well, but that means that we're in huge debt now, and maybe I should kill myself so my family don't have this burden. And that's lots and lots of people who write to us to say that sort of thing. So I think we all know that, you know, our unfair energy system is the enemy in all
04:10 of this. And to put it in a bit more context: companies like British Gas lobbied the government to drop free insulation programmes for the poorest households in December, and they succeeded. And then when they succeeded they said: guess what, we've had £50 taken off your bill. What it's emerged is that four of the big six didn't even give that full refund back to customers, they kept it themselves. And that's thousands less households per year now that will get free insulation that would have saved them hundreds of pounds a year. We have a for-profit energy system
04:42 that runs on fossil fuels, and obviously looking towards fracking and nuclear as well. And the basis of our energy system is that companies profit from pushing people into poverty and destroying the climate. And that's our energy system at the moment. Like, British Gas's owners Centrica have already invested 100 million pounds in fracking in Lancashire, so we can really join up the dots there and identify the enemy.
05:14 So if we know that climate change and fuel poverty is what energy injustice looks like, what would energy justice look like? And that's what Fuel Poverty Action focus on. We think energy should be not-for-profit, it should be renewable, it should be affordable, and it should be democratic — and that means it should be owned by us, for us. It should be owned by communities or by cities, and not by corporations that simply couldn't care less if people live or die every winter. And there's already really inspiring examples to look to. All over
05:46 London there are energy co-ops being set up which, in a very small way, are bringing down the bills, are generating renewable energy, and they're doing that in poorer areas where people are also getting skilled up — for example they're getting qualifications to make solar panels that they're putting on the roofs of their estate, which are then bringing down the bills in their estate. And that's such a great example of this link, of when we take the power into our hands it becomes renewable, it becomes affordable, it becomes for us. In a more kind of exciting
06:19 international way: I've just come back from being in Germany, and I've been meeting environmental activists and anti-evictions activists and refugee activists. And if we look to places like Hamburg — the city of Hamburg in a referendum just voted to buy back their electricity grid, and that now means that, you know, they now have the possibility to really make that energy system in that country — sorry, in that city — work for people. In Berlin I was with people that were part of an energy referendum campaign that was even
06:50 more radical. It was about stopping any cut-offs for electricity, [it] was about social tariffs, like progressive rates of tariffs, so everyone gets a free amount of energy, and then if you use lots more than that — which you would do if you own a big company or if you live in a mansion — you pay lots more for it; [and] if you're a disabled person and you need the energy on to stay alive, you don't pay much more for it. Unfortunately, due to some sort of engineering by the government there, they fell just short of the numbers needed.
07:20 But actually the Berlin government are now in talks with NGOs and environmental campaigners about bringing these policies in. So it's possible — like, there isn't just despair; actually we're seeing all around us people really leading the way in what a kind of fair energy future would look like. I think I would also say that [in] Fuel Poverty Action we work with lots of pensioners, we work with women of colour, migrant women, we work with single mothers, we work with disabled activists,
07:51 and these — because these are the people most affected by fuel poverty and by climate change. And if we want to be a diverse movement, we have to go out into communities and into community groups and community centres and start those conversations with people. And last winter we did a whole range of — we called them Keep Warm Cafés. We went into community centres and we started up those conversations, and we also, while we were there, gave people support and advice for dealing with energy debt and dealing with living in a cold home. And we also started the conversation about
08:22 what energy future do we want, and the thing that unanimously came back was: everyone wants public energy. That was so strong across the board. So we need to think about, you know, if we want an energy revolution we also need to think about a revolution within our movement, which means we don't all look so much like we look now in the room. And that's not to point fingers at this conference at all — that's, you know, wherever you go it's quite often quite similar. Yeah. So, and I think also there's a point to,
08:53 like, community organising and building in your community, which is about building up strength in our community so we are more resilient, so we are stronger, so we are louder — that if things like Paris doesn't happen, that we still have this incredibly strong community network that we go back to, that is diverse, it does represent all of us, it is democratic. And we do need a critical mass of people to, like, want a different energy future, want a different climate future, because there isn't enough of us at the moment. And I think in an age of such harsh
09:24 austerity, most people's concern is how do I pay the bill, not how do I save the planet. And how do we link that issue up? I think fuel poverty is a very good way that you make that link, because it's about saying: you're poor because of this energy system, and it's also the energy system that's destroying the planet. I could go on and on, because I'm very inspired from [inaudible] in Germany, but I'll stop there. But yeah, I guess just to say, I think it is all about getting out there, it is all about building in our community, about building our power base, about diversifying our power base, and
09:56 really speaking to people, you know, wherever they are in their political journey or their personal journey — about not judging people for not being the world's best environmentalist, but knowing that they can be. Everyone is a potential ally, other than fascists, but everyone is. And actually, like, let's not be afraid to, like, talk to people that don't agree with us or don't understand climate change, or aren't critical of it, because actually a lot of people are, for example, struggling with energy bills, and that's a really easy way to open up that
10:27 conversation. Thank you very much.
## Corrections
- The upload's own description misspells the speaker as "Calre Welton". Socialist Resistance's report of this talk gives **Clare Welton** of Fuel Poverty Action, and that spelling is used here. - "whether they're **eating** their home or whether they're going to feed their children" → "whether they're **heating** their home" — the heat-or-eat choice, and the captions delete the whole point of the sentence. - "one in five households are in serious **depth** their energy supplier" → "in serious **debt to** their energy supplier". - "the gas on or you know the **hog** on" → "the **hob** on". - "there are energy **culps** being set up" → "energy **co-ops**". - "**fuel coverage action**" → "**Fuel Poverty Action**". - "we called them **keep warm cafes**" → "**Keep Warm Cafés**", the group's own name for them. - "british gas owners **centrica**" → "British Gas's owners **Centrica**" — correct in the captions, capitalised here. - "about **diversity** our power base" → "about **diversifying** our power base". - "it was about um stopping any **electric cut-offs for electricity**" → "stopping any cut-offs for electricity" — a duplicated phrase in the captions. - "make that energy system in that **country** work for people in that **city sorry**" → she corrects herself from country to city; the correction is kept rather than tidied away. - **A claim left as spoken.** She says living in a cold home "slows down your blood pressure, which means you're more likely to have a heart attack". The mechanism usually given is the reverse — cold *raises* blood pressure, which raises the risk. The captions are consistent here and there is no garbling to repair, so her words stand; the point is flagged rather than quietly corrected. - "if things like **paris** doesn't happen" → Paris, i.e. the climate summit then two negotiating rounds away. Kept as spoken. - "i'm very inspired from **knock on roads** in germany" → defeats me; marked [inaudible]. From the context she is referring to the trip she has just described. - **Fiona**, the speaker she follows and contrasts herself with, is not named in any of the twelve uploads from this conference, and may be one of the three recordings uploaded under camera filenames (MOV00A, MOV00B, MOV004).