John Hurst, Tunbridge Wells Green Party’s Parliamentary Candidate responds to Greg Clark’s column in last week’s edition of the Times of Tunbridge Wells.
‘We hope everyone had a merry Christmas – even though it was wet, windy and one of the warmest on record.
In his last column, Greg Clark waxed lyrical about being at CoP28, his pride in Britain’s past climate leadership, and the government’s delivery of emissions reductions and environmental protection. While Greg indeed got Net Zero by 2050 approved in the last weeks of Theresa May’s premiership, the more pressing issue right now is keeping global temperature rises below 1.5degC above pre-industrial levels, as agreed by 196 countries at CoP21 in Paris in 2015; on current trends, 1.5degC may be exceeded by the end of this decade.
And in that respect, Britain is showing anything BUT leadership.
Firstly, the Government gave the go-ahead for the Cumbrian coal mine, which will produce 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per year, equivalent to putting 200,000 cars on the road, thereby trashing any environmental reputation the UK might have had.
It recently approved development of the UK’s biggest oilfield, Rosebank, which Caroline Lucas has called ‘the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime’. The field could produce 300m barrels of oil in its lifetime, emitting as much CO2 as 56 coal-fired power stations for a year.
Then the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars, and the phasing out of gas boilers, was pushed back by Rishi Sunak, a move met with despair by environmental experts, with former US vice-president Al Gore saying Rishi Sunak was ‘doing the wrong thing.’
Friends of the Earth, Client Earth and the Good Law Project took the government to court in the summer over its inadequate future strategy for tackling climate change, following a damning progress report from the Climate Change Committee, which found there are only credible plans for less than a fifth of the emissions cuts needed to meet the UK’s legally binding climate targets.
Does this look like a government providing climate leadership?
Worryingly, little has been done to bring the public along on the low-carbon journey. Britain has the worst insulated homes in Europe but there is no country-wide scheme to address this at a price people can afford and give them lower heating bills as well as cosier rooms.
Replacement of gas boilers by heat pumps will need 45,000 extra skilled technicians, but there is no nationwide programme to meet those numbers. This is a government led by a PM who thinks the ‘free market’ is going to solve the climate emergency, but it isn’t – industry needs to see commitment and consistency from the Government before it will invest.
As one of the world’s richest countries, and the home of the Industrial Revolution, the UK needs to set an example by urgently moving away from fossil fuels, reducing heat losses from buildings, and investing faster in renewable energy. And the Prime Minister himself needs to lead by example – starting by dropping the use of private jets and helicopters for short journeys.
When Britain has committed to a plan – and shown results – aimed at keeping short-term global temperatures under control, then we will have a chance of seeing White Christmases in Tunbridge Wells as regularly as we used to.’