Storm warning: ever-stronger hurricanes, such as Hurricane Melissa, which has hit Jamaica, are supercharged by global warming and the impact of western carbon pollution
Jamaica has been declared a disaster zone, after Hurricane Melissa ripped through the Caribbean island overnight.
But according to Mayor Jason Perry’s most senior colleague at Croydon Town Hall, the climate emergency “is not a priority”.
Today, the supercharged Hurricane Melissa has swept on its devastating course over Cuba and on towards the Bahamas.
Climate scientists say that the extraordinary intensification of Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest storms ever seen off the Atlantic, with the 185mph winds that hit Jamaica yesterday, is a symptom of the rapid heating of the world’s oceans.
The ferocious winds, heavy flood waters and landslides caused by the strongest Atlantic hurricane yet seen has left entire parishes underwater in Jamaica, forcing 15,000 people to take refuge in storm shelters and more than half a million Jamaicans without electricity.
“The reports that we have had so far would include damage to hospitals, significant damage to residential property, housing and commercial property as well, and damage to our road infrastructure,” Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness said after the storm had passed.
PM Holness also said: “We are expecting that there would be some loss of life.”
Global warming: the Atlantic Ocean is heating up, and whipping up ever-stronger storms
But the climate emergency is not a priority for Croydon, according to Councillor Jason Cummings, the council cabinet member for finance at a local authority which itself declared a climate emergency six years ago… but has done sod all about it since.
When Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica yesterday, it was rated as a Category 5 storm, the worst rating possible.
Scientists say this is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification of its wind speed and power. This sort of intensification has been linked to the human-caused climate crisis, which is causing oceans to become hotter.
“That part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now – around 30C, which is 2 to 3C above normal,” Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, told The Guardian.
“And it’s not just the surface. The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.”
Last year, the world’s oceans were the warmest on record, continuing a recent trend of record-breaking marine heat, mostly caused by burning fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities.
“Climate change is fundamentally changing our weather,” said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, based in the United States.
“In our warmer world, it will continue to increase the likelihood of storms going through rapid and super-rapid intensification,” she said.
A 2023 study had found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events.
But Croydon Council taking some of the modest measures necessary to reduce our borough’s impact on such disastrous, planet-destroying climate change is not a priority as far as Conservative councillor Jason Cummings is concerned.
Councillor Cummings was speaking at last week’s council meeting in the Town Hall Chamber, trying – and failing – to explain why his council had spent less than one-quarter of a £5million grant it had received nine years ago, intended to help offset or reduce production of CO2 in the borough.
Getting snarky: Jason Cummings appeared to lose his temper when his answer on council spending was criticised
Cummings is acquiring a bit of an unwanted reputation for losing his temper in the Town Hall Chamber.
Last year, he bellowed across at a female opposition councillor who was gently heckling him, and last week his patience appeared to snap when dealing with a public question from a young woman resident.
Connie Duxbury, the chief exec of Croydon Community Energy, accused the council of focusing on “internal processes and plans rather than real-world delivery”, and said it was “shocking” that the council hadn’t spent almost £4million of what she described as “essentially free money” since 2016.
“What has the £1.1million spent so far been used for?” Duxbury asked. “Why is there £3.9million still unspent? And what plans are there for the remainder and any future money?”
She pointed out that other councils have used the funds for retrofitting council homes, planting trees and greening boroughs, as well as creating community energy funds.
And when Duxbury asked a supplementary question, critical of the response Cummings had offered from the Chamber floor, the councillor got just a bit snarky.
According to Cummings, Croydon is “noticeably above average” compared to other London boroughs in terms of spending all that “free money”. Which must be better than the council’s usual well-below average performance in so many areas.
There had been “difficulties” and “complexities” in spending the money, Cummings claimed, without providing any explanation for how Croydon, which has a well-earned reputation for frittering away millions, has somehow not been able to find suitable projects for this cash.
“Croydon is getting on and making progress,” Cummings claimed. You can read his full written response by clicking here.
Duxbury responded: “Most of what you’ve described are internal processes and plans, rather than real-world delivery… Residents don’t need more plans or forums — they need that £3.9million invested in real projects that cut emissions and save money.”
Duxbury asked for real spending plans “showing exactly how and when this fund will be spent, and how much of it will go to community-led action rather than your own internal processes”.
Questioning power: Connie Duxbury
When pressed, Cummings got more than a bit defensive, saying that tackling climate change is “not the council’s most pressing issue”. Cummings, as cabinet member for finance, has failed to balance the council’s budgets for the past three years, and it appears he is going to struggle to achieve his target again this financial year.
The climate spending plans, after nine years’ delay, “will be coming forward”, Cummings said, without assuring any in the public gallery.
“The council will be spending this money, but it is not top of our priority list right now.”
There were shouts from the public gallery of “Shame!”, and one resident was escorted out of the building
Cummings must hope that none of the residents living in his Shirley South ward who have friends or relatives living in Jamaica get to hear about his dismissive approach to the climate emergency.
After the meeting, Duxbury told Inside Croydon, “To be honest, my question isn’t really even about saving the planet – it’s asking why the council isn’t using this free money to help people live in warm and retrofitted homes and have lower bills.
“I didn’t have time to remind him that Croydon has some of the worst air pollution levels in the country, and that people continue to live in cold and damp homes, so cutting carbon emissions and improving the local environment isn’t just a tick-box exercise – it will affect each and every one of us in the borough.”
After failing to spend the bulk of the carbon offset fund over the course of almost four years in power at Croydon Town Hall, car-loving Jason Perry, the borough’s failed Mayor, resorted to blaming a Labour administration which was voted out of office in 2022 for his own inaction.
“Residents want us focused on the essentials, not chasing headlines,” said Perry, who has never missed a photo-op in all the time he has been Mayor. He promised that “every penny of our climate funding will go on real projects that cut emissions and improve people’s lives – not meetings, PR exercises or bureaucracy”.
Mayor Perry says that the council will be spending money on “local climate forums” from next month.
Read more: Council fails to spend £4m grant on climate change in 9 years
Hear more: Under The Flyover: interview with Green Party’s Zack Polanski
Read more: Tory minister is member of online group that salutes vandals
Read more: Perry’s Facebook group hosted video by Islamophobic ‘comic’
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It’s sadly not surprising. These are the geniuses who seem to want to tear down ULEZ signs yet say little about using a nation’s flag to incite violence to refugees.
I hope all the voters in Croydon (plus all those who don’t) with Caribbean links will “drill, baby drill” some sense into the skulls of climate denier Cummings, pollution pro Perry and their ilk whenever the ballot box gives them an opportunity to do so. Many Caribbean islands are at an extreme risk from rising sea levels caused by global warming and any funds on diminishing such risks to humanity need to spent on just that. I despair at the local so called leadership.
The irony of course was that Perry was quick out of the blocks with a “thoughts and prayers for Jamaica” statement whilst clearly not giving a shit.
A noted hypocrite draws attention to himself over the matter of human suffering.
No one will be surprised, surely?
The disingenuous Croydon mayor, a.k.a. Piss-Poor Perry, has “promised that “every penny of our climate funding will go on real projects that cut emissions and improve people’s lives – not meetings, PR exercises or bureaucracy”, and then said “that the council will be spending money on “local climate forums” from next month”, which is “meetings, PR exercises AND bureaucracy” !
The only usual way of protesting against the elected mayoral system is the (ineffective) not voting at all or spoiling a ballot paper. Perhaps if Count Binface stood for Croydon Mayor next year, he would get in via a landslide win ?!
As the only bit of Croydon Council that seems to be well-run is the pension fund (to the relief of my mother !), if Council pension fund person ran for Croydon Mayor next May, would they give Count Binface a run for his money ?!
It may well be well-run and in surplus – thank God- but I understand that payments to council pensioners takes about 25 percent of our council tax..
Calling subject matter expert Andrew Pelling…
(Jason) “Cummings, as cabinet member for finance, has failed to balance the council’s budgets for the past three years, and it appears he is going to struggle to achieve his target again this financial year.”
If he has only been “Cabinet member for Finance” since 2022, does that mean he has never balanced a budget in his entire life?!
We need to accept that no one could balance Croydon Council’s budgets. In the same way that no one can “fix the finances”, and that anyone claiming that they can is a liar and cannot be trusted.
The reality is that Cummings is probably the most capable of Croydon’s Conservative councillors (not a very demanding heat of the Local Government Darwin Stakes, we know, but…). His error was agreeing not to oppose Perry in internal Tory selections, in return for his getting to be the Conservative parliamentary candidate in Croydon East.
And then along came Liz Truss to fuck up Cummings’ route to Westminster.
Was Piss-Poor not a liar who couldn’t be trusted until he promised to “fix the finances” when he somehow won the mayoral election in 2022? Or as a long-standing Croydon Councillor, does he have a long history of lying and being untrustworthy ?
Come on, Jim. Do we have to spell it out for you?
Why was Cummings responding and not Mumbler Roche? He gets £40k to be the Cabinet Member for Streets and Environment. He does nothing to earn it
If the jet-stream blows Hurricane Melissa across the Atlantic to the UK, which will give the storm plenty of time to ‘refuel’, can we remind (wannabe MP) Cllr Cummings that he said that climate change was not a priority for Croydon?!
I would like to see this money spent on more and better bike lanes in the borough.
You mean like the ones car-loving Mayor Perry deliberately compromised and then spent more money having removed?
Climate Change transcends local councils – it’s a global issue that should be central government-led, not delegated in part to every tin pot local government authority in the country.
The local myth reminds me of Red Ken’s declaration of the whole GLA as a ‘nuclear free’ zone which, I am sure, meant that the USSR took us off their list of targets. Phew.
Croydon should spend the money on something tangible, like cleaning up Veolia’s dust carts and council limousines. Or … hand the cash back on the understanding that it’s spent nationally on something sensible.
Think globally, act locally