UK General Election issues

2 -Climate and nature

“Let me watch night fall on the river,

moon rise up and turn to silver, 

the sky move, the ocean shimmer,

the hedge shake, the last living rose   quiver”

(PJ Harvey, The last living rose, 2011)

This general election is taking place at a time when evidence of the severity of the climate crisis has become overwhelming.  Climate scientists are terrified that global temperatures are rising at a much faster rate than most of their models had projected.  The impacts of global heating on the frequency and severity of wildfires, storms, and flooding are becoming increasingly apparent to all of us, as a present danger, not just a future threat. One in six of the species in Britain are close to extinction. Polling suggests that most voters believe that environmental issues are at least as important as other issues facing the country, and that the main parties are performing poorly in relation to them..

Climate change

Policies that are adopted, or not adopted, for the next five years will significantly affect what sort of planet our children and grandchildren will be able to inhabit. Yet most of the party manifestos demonstrate little or no awareness of the severity of the situation. Their climate policies are constrained by self-imposed fiscal rules, and rely on being able to follow an economic growth path that will deplete supplies of water and critical minerals and intensify biodiversity loss. Some of the political parties seeking our votes deny that climate change exists, or claim it is not caused by humans, and want to pour more fuel on the fire.

In 2008 the Labour Government under Tony Blair enacted the Climate Change Act, with cross party support. This Act committed the UK to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Conservative Government under Theresa May strengthened this target in 2019, again with cross party support, by committing the UK to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Climate Change Act also set up a system of 5-year carbon budgets, scrutinised by an independent  Climate Change Committee, to monitor whether or not the country was on track to meet the 2050 target.

The UK was deemed to have met the first three carbon budgets, but it is not on track to meet the current (2023-27) budget.  Policy differences between the two main parties have emerged,  and it has become clear that the 2050 net zero target is too lenient - global temperatures have already risen more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels  (the Paris Agreement long-term goal) .

Conservative climate policy

For much of the Conservative government’s period in office, onshore wind, the cheapest form of renewable energy, was effectively blocked.. A key offshore wind development was scrapped because it could be viewed from the coast, and electricity supplies from new wind farms further out to sea were limited by lengthy delays in connecting them to the electricity transmission grid. In addition to slower than needed development of renewable energy, the Conservative government has promoted fossil fuel developments that directly conflict with its Net Zero objective.

“The decision on the Cumbrian coal mine sent a very concerning signal on the Government’s priorities. The UK will continue to need some oil and gas until it reaches Net Zero, but this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields.. There has been continued airport expansion in recent years, counter to our assessment that there should be no net airport expansion across the UK.”

(Climate Change Committee, Progress in reducing UK emissions, 2023)

The Conservative manifesto has not ditched the Net Zero by 2050 target, but its policy proposals, if carried out over the next five years, would make achieving the target virtually impossible. It would license new oil and gas developments in the North Sea. It guarantees “no new green levies or charges”, and it suggests that new gas power stations are the way to balance the variability of renewable electricity output, without specifying green hydrogen as the gas. Although they have not given up on decarbonisation projects, the whole emphasis is on slowing their introduction, emphasising, for example, that “families are given time to make changes that affect their lives.’’

The Conservatives have identified an electoral opportunity in being, as its manifesto puts it, “on the side of drivers.” Wherever this a conflict between car driving and environmental protection,  the manifesto suggests ditching the environmental protection. The manifesto proposes a Backing Drivers Bill  to reverse the recent expansion into Outer London of the Ultra Low Emission Zone, and block the ability of local authorities and devolved governments to introduce Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and 20mph zones. If such a Bill were to be enacted, it would adversely affect climate mitigation as well as air quality, road safety, and local democracy. 

That the Conservatives can present their climate policies as consistent with the Net Zero by 2050 target demonstrates two things - they are not serious about meeting the target, and a target so far in the future has no meaning when what constitutes progress towards the target is not specified.

Labour climate policy

Not so long ago, Labour had a plan to invest £28 billion per year on the green infrastructure that it calculated was needed to reach the Net Zero target. Unlike other of its spending commitments, this was to be financed mainly by borrowing, rather than tax. It soon became clear, though that borrowing £28 billion per year might compromise Labour’s s fiscal rule requiring decline in national debt as a proportion of GDP.  Either the fiscal rule would need to be changed, or the £28 billion a year commitment would need to be scaled down, In February party of this year, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced that he had chosen - “fiscal rules come first”, he insisted. The biggest cut was to a home insulation programme which would have slashed carbon emissions and energy bills, created jobs throughout the country, and improved the health of vulnerable householders in the winter months. What had been £28 billion per year was reduced to £4.7 billion per year, three quarters funded by borrowing and a quarter by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants.

Labour’s promises on climate now focus mainly on Great British Energy, a new publicly owned company that, it is claimed, will accelerate development of renewable energy, and cut household energy bills. The proposal is short on detail, and it is hard to see much benefit, on decarbonisation or energy bills, occurring before the end of a 5-year electoral cycle, particularly when grid connection constraints take so long to resolve. It is hard to understand why this has been given precedence over an expanded home insulation programme.

The size of the slimmed down Green Prosperity plan is limited by its dependence on faster economic growth. What Labour doesn’t realise is that economic growth is part of the problem. The faster the economy grows, the faster and greater will be the energy transition that will be needed, and the more intense will be the threat to nature’s life support systems.

Liberal Democrat and Green climate policies

The Liberal Democrat manifesto proposals on climate and energy lack feasibility. Free heat pumps are promised for those on low incomes, a laudable way of decarbonising without harming  the living standards of the poor. But this would greatly expand winter electricity demand, and there’s a target for 90% of UK electricity to be renewable by 2030. There’s no assessment of what would be needed for the additional capacity to be installed within 6 years. 

The Green Party has a  more realistic short term target (70% of electricity from wind by 2030, coupled with investment in storage). In the longer term it, alone among the political parties, recognises the dishonesty of the Net Zero rhetoric, which allows bogus ‘negative emissions’ to offset actual carbon emissions. The Green Party’s s aim is clear -  not Net Zero but Zero Carbon, and before 2050. It recognises too, more than the other parties, that this has implications for all sectors of the economy, particularly farming and transport.

The deniers

Reform UK’s draft Contract on Energy & Environment was based explicitly on denial of climate science. It insisted that there is no climate emergency, that the climate has been changing for millions of years, and that this has nothing to do with human activity. In its fantasy world, there is no point in cutting carbon emissions - the only effect, it claimed, would be to increase inflation and unemployment.  This climate denying ‘justification’ for Reform UK’s policy has been removed from the final published Contract, but the policy is exactly the same  - scrap the Net Zero target and related investment, and fast track more North Sea oil and gas exploration, together with fracking for shale gas, new coal and lithium mining, and small modular nuclear reactors. 

UKIP’s manifesto, like Reform UK’s draft Contract,  denies that there is a climate emergency, and favours boosting domestic production of fossil fuels. Unlike Reform UK, it wants a referendum on Net Zero before scrapping it, and would not reject all forms of renewable energy  - it would “encourage builders to give buyers the option of a solar array before the tiles are fitted to a new house.”

The Workers Party of Britain is slightly less dogmatic about climate and energy than Reform UK and UKIP, but there is surprisingly little difference between their policy recommendations. Its manifesto rejects what it calls “apocalyptic Green hysteria”, and doubts that there is a climate emergency. It emphasises instead that the climate has been changing “for thousands of years” , and implies that climate science is “socially constructed in a society dominated by the interests of Profit and not People”. Rather than explore how the economy can be decarbonised in ways that protect working class jobs and living standards, it assumes that the costs of transition to Net Zero will inevitably fall on workers and small business. Like UKIP, it  calls for a referendum on Net Zero.

Nature recovery

The UK is a country whose nature is severely depleted. 

Neither Reform UK, UKIP, nor the Workers Party of Britain address the need for nature recovery. Reform UK’s Contract aims to “protect country sports”, but insists that “productive land must be farmed, not used for solar farms or rewilding” The Workers Party of Britain’s manifesto has a whole section on “Restoring football to the community”, but just one sentence on “the preservation of national parks and woodlands as well as meadows and other ecological treasures.” 

The other parties recognise there’s a problem, and propose measures that would help, particularly to make farming more nature-friendly and to cut back on the pollution of rivers. Their policies are, however, short term, inadequately funded,  inconsistent, and sometimes counterproductive. The Liberal Democrats, for example, propose planting at least 60 million trees a year, but give no indication that they need to be the right trees in the right places, and that trees need to be cared for after they’ve been planted if they are to survive. Carefully managed tree planting has its place, but in addition to, not instead of, natural regeneration.

.What none of the parties address is the need for stable long-term finance  if nature recovery programmes are to succeed:

“A radical shift in nature recovery funding and investment is needed to ensure the progression of large-scale nature restoration in Britain that’s vital to combat the nature and climate crises.”

(Rewilding Britain, Rewilding Finance Report, 2024)

It is perhaps understandable that political parties give greater priority to tackling the climate emergency than to nature recovery, as it more directly affects human self-interest. Climate change affects wildlife as well as humans. But relying on economic growth to decarbonise the economy requires a pace and extent of mineral extraction that will place additional burdens on nature. What we need instead is an economy that emphasises wellbeing rather than growth and  limits the threat to all planetary boundaries, not just to the climate. 

Labour keeps insisting that planning regulations delay the economic growth on which so many of its policies depend. This insistence is extremely worrying. Planning inquiries can facilitate nimbyism, and they are unduly bureaucratic. But they do provide an opportunity to assess the impact of development projects on nature. Labour’s number one mission is to “kickstart economic growth”. The corollary, ‘and don’t let nature stand in its way’, is not spelt out. Yet the authoritarianism with which Starmer pronounces that planning is a barrier to growth underlines the fact that protecting and restoring nature is not one of his missions. 

The Conservative manifesto calls for reform of “outdated EU red tape” and “EU’s bureaucratic environmental impact assessment”. The framing is designed to appeal to Conservative voters who might be tempted to switch to Reform UK, but it appears in a section titled ‘Speeding up infrastructure delivery.’ What the manifesto refers to as outdated and bureaucratic is, in large part, environmental protection. As with Labour’s attack on planning regulations, nature is not to be allowed to stand in the way of economic growth.

In stark contrast, the Green Party’s proposed Rights of Nature Act would  give legal protection to endangered species and habitats. It’s an initiative that would provide a sound basis for nature recovery, and one that is long overdue.

”Instead of asking how we can meet insatiable industrial energy demands and still live on a planet at least minimally capable of supporting life, the question must be: How can we help the earth to be stronger and healthier while still meeting human needs (needs, not conveniences, not luxuries, not addictions, and further, human needs, not the needs of industry and commerce.”

(Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith & Max Wilbert, Bright Green Lies, 2021)

The obsession that all the parties have with economic growth, and their lack of understanding of the need to live within the limits of the natural world, are profoundly depressing. As we shall see in Part 3, which will delve further into the economy as an election issue, only the Green Party’s economic policies hint at a more respectful approach.

 If only I could vote for them again with a clear conscience. But their vehemently anti-women and anti-gay policies on ‘gender’ (of which the Green candidate in my constituency is an enthusiastic supporter) have taken away that possibility.