Yes, we should worry that politics is disengaging from environmental crises – Inside track

This is an Inside Track long read by Shaun Spiers, executive director of Green Alliance

Carbon Brief is an invaluable digest of climate news. Its daily emails in the four working days last week included the following stories (I could have highlighted many more).

An “extremely active” hurricane season is on its way, the “latest indication that a surge in global heat over the past year… could translate to greater extreme weather risks”. Zimbabwe has joined Zambia and Malawi in declaring a national disaster because of drought. Over 13 million people across southern Africa are facing severe food insecurity. In south-east Asia, unprecedented temperatures are driving up rice prices, threatening corals and causing schools to close.

In Chile, temperatures have been six degrees above the average for the time of the year. There is dengue fever in Peru, an infestation of jellyfish off the coast of Brazil and destructive forest fires in Mexico. In the UK, we face hosepipe bans after the wettest winter on record (“‘all or nothing’ periods of rainfall… are likely to increase”).

Carbon Brief is careful to point out that some of this is down to the naturally occurring El Niño climate pattern. But their analysis also shows that the recent acceleration in global warming is “broadly in line” with what scientists have predicted.

Net zero is attacked as if it’s unrelated to climate changeClimate change is serious, alarming and happening all around us. It is intimately tied up with the equally shocking nature crisis. And the UN has repeatedly said it is impossible to meet these challenges, and the scourges of pollution and waste, without addressing the skyrocketing unsustainable use of resources. But our political discourse is becoming curiously detached from this gritty reality. Climate scepticism has mutated into net zero scepticism, and net zero is attacked as if it has nothing to do with catastrophic climate change.

This might be expected of the ‘crazies’ in the media and on the right wing fringe. I am not surprised that dodgy ‘dark money’ think tanks are stepping up their campaigns against climate action. But ministers in a government that introduced net zero, from a party and a political tradition that has a proud record on the environment, should know better. They should stop campaigning against climate ambition and stop associating necessary progress with unnecessary costs and restrictions.

That is why the prime minister’s roll-back of climate ambition last September was so disappointing. A “pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic approach” is sensible, of course, but a truly proportionate approach to the crisis we face means doing more, faster. A responsible government should not dismiss policies that would tackle climate change, lower household bills, improve quality of life and reduce waste as “burdens on families”.

Net zero scepticism is catching onNet zero scepticism (particularly from the party that introduced net zero) is dangerous, but it is not confined to those on the right. The centre left New Statesman is now happy to publish articles putting ‘climate and nature emergency’ in heavy scare marks (it saves saying ‘so called’) or viewing environmental policies as just another way in which elites immiserate the masses.

All this is reminiscent of the political atmosphere of ten or 15 years ago, when politicians and commentators who knew the value of EU membership could not resist the easy lure of Eurosceptic rhetoric. We know what happened next. The anti-European forces, well-funded, backed by the main newspapers and careless of facts, won the day. Unsurprisingly, leading Brexiteers have now switched their attention to net zero (Reform UK even wants a net zero referendum, presumably because the last referendum proved to be such a success).

Climate sceptics cannot be appeased. When Claire Coutinho, the climate secretary, attacked Labour’s target of clean power by 2030, the immediate response of Ross Clark, an anti-net zero attack dog, was to say, yes, Labour’s policy is terrible, but yours is just as bad: “Labour and the Conservatives are both doomed if they think they can magic an entirely decarbonised grid into existence over the next few years without imposing huge cost penalties on homes and businesses”. Needless to say, energy companies do not agree, but anti-net zero crusaders are gambling that, as in 2016, “the people of this country have had enough of experts”. (The same disdain for experts when MPs attack Natural England: Labour needs to be firm in its support of independent, science-based agencies.)

The transition has to be fairThis is not to deny that the transition will be difficult. Change always is. Net zero requires big changes squeezed into just a couple of decades. In the medium term, environmental progress will deliver growth and jobs (see the US Inflation Reduction Act), warmer homes, cleaner air and water and more abundant nature, all of which will improve people’s lives. But, in the short term, people will fear they are being asked to ditch their polluting cars, replace their boilers, fly less, eat less meat, waste less, recycle more and so on. All of this can look like finger wagging nannyism.

It can also look like well-off people (the ‘new elites’, often condemned by Oxbridge educated peers in the Telegraph) telling the less well-off to tighten their belts. That is why it is imperative that the net zero transition has fairness at its heart.

Murky interests are fuelling farmers’ fearsThe sector most often identified as the victim of environmental policies is farming. Many farmers are having a tough time, but it would be a travesty to suggest that all of them are or that the troubles of poorer farmers are mainly down to policies designed to tackle climate change and restore nature. Farmers everywhere receive significant public money and it is legitimate to seek public goods in return, particularly as farming has such a big role to play in restoring nature and mitigating against climate change.

There are some murky interests exploiting farmers’ fears and it is important not to draw the wrong lessons from recent farmer protests: we must not revert back to a system that is bad for the environment, taxpayers and smaller farmers, but good for wealthy farmers and industrial agribusiness.

Green policies must be designed better so they benefit poorer farmers. We have set out how this can be done. Post-Brexit trade deals should also protect UK standards: environmental and farming groups are united on this. But whatever criticisms one can make of its implementation, the principle behind the government’s Environmental Land Management schemes is spot on: all types of farmers should receive payment from the state for the public goods they deliver, not simply to farm with most of the money going to the biggest, richest farmers.

The government’s farming reforms need improvement, but it deserves praise for sticking with the principle of public money for public goods. We now need to hear what Labour would do. In his recent speech to Green Alliance, Ed Miliband said the party would have more to say on nature in its manifesto. It will not be able to meet its climate commitments, clean up our waterways or restore nature without encouraging better farming practices.

Lack of policy detail is a big problem for LabourAt present, there is a large policy gap on nature. The government has committed to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. The Liberal Democrats adopted a detailed plan to tackle the nature crisis last year. The Green Party has a set of detailed wildlife and habitats policies. But there is no public plan from Labour outlining how it would meet this objective in government. For instance, for all its talk on the water pollution scandal, the party has not put forward any plans to reduce pollution from farming, which is a major contributor to the problem.

Beyond farming, as the election approaches, we should also be looking for a narrative from all the parties that links climate action with strengthening the economy and improving lives. In spite of Labour’s u-turn on the £28  billion a year for its Green Prosperity Plan, Rachel Reeves was clear in her recent Mais Lecture that “there can be no durable plan for economic stability and no sustainable plan for economic growth  that is not also a serious plan for net zero”. There is also some hope that Labour’s over strict fiscal rules can be flexed to allow for the investment the country (and the climate) needs.

Lots of questions remain over Labour’s policies, including exactly what it intends to do about the planning system: Rachel Reeves calls it “the single greatest obstacle to our economic success”, but details of what a Labour government would do, either on housing or infrastructure, are scant. A pledge to fund 300 more planning officers in England, less than one per planning authority, suggests the party has not quite got the measure of the problem.

Planning policy is just part of the challenge to develop credible plans to close the carbon gap (revealed in Green Alliance’s latest net zero policy tracker) and get back on track to meeting the UK’s international obligations.

If we have an autumn election, COP29 is likely to be the first big international moment for the new or re-elected prime minister and a great chance to show serious commitment to addressing the climate crisis. If Labour wins, it is likely that it will give a high rhetorical priority to tackling climate change. That will be welcome for all the reasons given above: it should not be surprising that when the public is told climate action is an unnecessary burden, it will be harder to get consent for it.

But beyond the rhetoric, there is a crying need for more policy detail now from Labour (see our programme for government for detailed suggestions). The party is there on energy policy, but it still has a long way to go in other areas. If Labour does win the election after 14 years out of power, it will be harder for it to develop those policies once in government, when ‘events’ take over.