This is a climate election – Labour deserves the chance to put its bold green plans into action
Labour’s plans for the green economy are hugely ambitious, the party needs a mandate to put them into action and deliver the investment and policy clarity the UK so clearly needs
With the election campaign entering its final stretch, Labour’s Ed Miliband today made an important and timely intervention. “This is the most important climate election in history,” he told the Guardian. “We are halfway through the decisive decade. The next government will serve for most of the rest of this decade. This is the biggest choice in our history on this.”
This is not hyperbole. The nature of still-rising global emissions and worsening climate impacts means it is a truism that the next election is always the most important climate election in history. The clock is always ticking and time is running out to avoid the most catastrophic and irreversible climate scenarios. But there are good reasons why the stakes will feel higher than ever this Thursday.
Firstly, as Miliband rightly points out, deadlines are looming. Labour’s plans to deliver a clean power system by 2030 may be the subject of intense debate, but all the main parties support the electric vehicle targets set under the Zero Vehicle Emission Mandate, the heat pump targets set under the Clean Heat Market Mechanism, and the overarching target submitted to the UN to cut emissions by at least 68 per cent by 2030 against 1990 levels. After the political chaos and underinvestment of recent years, the UK is off track to meet all these goals and more.
There is just five years to get the economy back on track to meet its climate goals. Those five years represent a fifth of the time left to deliver a net zero economy by 2050. There are just 25 summers until all the world’s industrialised economies should be nearly fully decarbonised. That’s only six more Olympics. Just five more parliaments. If the pace of decarbonisation does not accelerate significant during the next parliament it will soon be too late.
Secondly, there is a very real risk that international efforts to decarbonise could soon falter. President Trump could be back in the White House. The French Parliament could be dominated by a climate sceptic party. The EU’s ambitious green plans could be under siege from populists. With Trump’s encouragement, Russia and its petrostate allies could renege on their support for their Paris Agreement. None of this will definitely happen, but if it does the willingness of governments to vocally make the case for climate action and clean energy investment will be of critical importance.
Thirdly, and most importantly for green businesses in the UK, Labour and the Conservatives are offering a real choice when it comes to climate policy.
Urgent action is needed to meet climate targets and revive a flat-lining economy, and yet Rishi Sunak has just run a campaign where he has made it absolutely clear he does not share that sense of urgency. The government has repeatedly promised to meet legally-binding emissions targets, but never once explained how. It has pledged to keep supporting new oil and gas projects, despite signing up to an international agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. Worst of all, it has offered more of the same when it comes to the policy frameworks, planning rules, and political messaging that may have helped drive down emissions to date, but which are increasingly unfit for purpose for an economy striving to attract green investment and reach net zero emissions.
The core message at the heart of the Conservatives’ faltering campaign has been ‘we agree the past 14 years have been deeply disappointing, but stick with us and we won’t change anything’. It is the embodiment of Einstein’s old line about how the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is little wonder the polls have not moved.
In contrast, and contrary to what its critics on left and right say, Labour is offering the prospect of real change. Clean power by 2030, planning reform, a green industrial strategy, new low carbon investment vehicles, mandatory corporate transition plans, floating offshore wind farms, an end to new fossil fuel drilling projects, a willingness to make the economic and moral case for climate action – these are serious, consequential changes that can stimulate the economy, enhance energy security, and improve living standards, as well as deliver a step change in the pace of decarbonisation.
Keir Starmer is right when he says the country will benefit from a government with a big mandate to enact the big reforms that are urgently needed.
There is a case for backing the Greens in the four seats the party is targeting, even if you do not agree with every position the party takes. A louder voice in Parliament that prioritises the environment at every turn would be a valuable thing and a progressive counterweight to the reactionary siren voices of Reform. Equally, Ed Davey’s Lib Dems are promising an environmental policy platform that is broadly similar to Labour’s and deserve support in their mission to seize the government’s ‘Blue Wall’ constituencies.
But everywhere else it is only Labour that can deliver a fresh approach to an economy that is clearly failing far too many people – an approach that places clean technology, green investment, and climate resilience right at the heart of a modern 21st century society. A vote for other parties offering similarly bold climate policies in these seats only chips away at Labour’s mandate to push through reforms that will face significant opposition. A tactical vote is a vote for more ambitious climate action.
That is not to say Labour’s plans are perfect. There are legitimate questions about the feasibility of the clean power by 2030 target, the precise details of the promised planning reforms, and whether Labour in government will have the fiscal firepower to make its ambitious energy efficiency and green industrial plans a reality. The years of under-investment and the degradation of the public sphere have taken their toll. The geopolitical and demographic headwinds are severe, even before you consider how climate impacts will only worsen. In multiple areas, Labour’s plans do not look radical enough. There is a very real risk that Starmer could struggle to deliver and quickly find himself facing a ferocious populist backlash.
But Labour is aware of these risks and the leadership is smart enough to recognise that if it does win it will need to continue to make the case for the net zero transition and the role of the state in driving real change, regardless of the size of the eventual mandate. There is no such thing as a ‘supermajority’ in British politics, and if Labour fails to deliver on its promises voters will soon enough be able to offer their judgement on its performance.
The simple truth is the Conservative’s economic project has failed on its own terms. It has been undone by a combination of bad luck in the form of the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, strategic errors in the form of austerity and Brexit, and self-indulgent political factionalism in the form of five Prime Ministers in seven years and reckless populist posturing. It is a minor tragedy that the political consensus on the importance of climate action has become one of the many casualties of this chaos.
Labour is offering a credible alternative programme that neither denies the scale of the climate threat, nor ignores the enormous opportunity offered by the green economy. If it does win on Thursday, enacting its genuinely ambitious plans will be an immense challenge, not least because of the economic legacy it will bequeath. But the past few weeks have only underscored how it has earnt the chance to try.
