The Climate Change Committee’s latestreporton the UK’s response to unprecedented environmental challenges makes for grim reading. Recalling the extreme weather swings of the last few years – which delivered both the wettest 18 months on record and the largest number of wildfires – the report’s authors deplore the current inadequacy of provision to protect the nation against risks which are now a lethal reality. The threat represented by flooding, said the chair of the committee’s adaptation group, Lady Brown, “is not tomorrow’s problem. It’s today’s problem. And if we don’t do something about it, it will become tomorrow’s disaster.”
An assessment so scathing, from such a source, deserved to be at the centre of political discussion ahead of Thursday’s local elections. Instead, Wednesday’s front pages were dominated by a considerably less useful contribution to the climate debate. In a foreword to areportfrom his eponymous Tony Blair Institute (TBI), Sir Tony Blair suggested that governments should dial down efforts to limit the use of fossil fuels in the short term, or risk alienating voters allegedly put off by the “irrationality” and cost of green policies. Politicians’ focus, he insisted, should shift to investing speculatively in technologies for the future such as carbon capture and storage.
Offering a counsel of despair over the elimination of fossil fuels really isn’t a good look for an organisation that has enthusiasticallyadvisedthe world’s largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia. Nor, one assumes, was providing doorstep talking points for Nigel Farage the aim of the TBI report’s authors, who loftily state within it that “we need to depoliticise the climate debate”. Some hope. Sir Tony’s remarks were duly greeted withjubilationby the Conservative party and Reform, which have been working overtime to try to turn net zero targets into a Brexit-style dividing line.
Following swingeing and justifiedcriticismfrom an array of climate experts, the TBI has scrambled to mitigate the damage. In a clarificatorystatementit noted that “ongoing domestic decarbonisation efforts in all countries remain vital for reducing emissions and delivering a sustainable future”. As Sir Tony’s foreword and the report itself should have made more clear, it is eminently possible to both accelerate the use of available clean technologies such as wind and solar, and invest more in ones for the future such as carbon capture and storage.
That, in fact, is what the majority of the public would like to see. As the89 Percent Project, backed by the Guardian and other media organisations around the world, has underlined, global backing for a rapid green transition remains overwhelming. In Britain,researchby the More in Common polling group has found strong approval for net zero targets, not least on the grounds of energy independence and national security.
To capitalise on that groundswell of support, Labour needs to lean in rather than take a step back. Properly invested in, with generous subsidies for the less well-off, the green transition can deliver a vote-winning combination of economic growth and environmental sustainability. In a notably bullishspeechlast week, Sir Keir Starmer robustly defended the drive to net zero in these terms. That was good politics as well as morally right. In the meantime, a period of silence from Sir Tony on this subject would now be most welcome.