Climate change: path to extinction

By Richard North - July 30, 2023

One of the most insidious aspects of modern politics is the way MPs have been sidelined as the “go-to” people for those seeking to influence public policy.

There are many reasons for this, but there is no gainsaying the fact that NGOs and single-issue charities have become the main instruments of change, using extra-parliamentary tactics which render much of the traditional political processes ineffective and largely redundant.

There are few better examples of this phenomenon than the way in which environmental and related groups have become the principal champions of the climate change cult, mounting well-financed campaigns at an international level, by-passing national democratic processes.

But, just as we see tentative attempts to bring back aspects of the “green” agenda into the political fold, breaking free from the suffocating consensus in parliament, we see a sinister but entirely consistent reaction from the “blob” to restore its hegemony on environmental issues.

This comes in the form of a letter from more than 50 so-called environmental groups, sent to prime minister Sunak, threatening him that they will not “stand by” while politicians use the environment as a “political football”.

Within the 50 are the usual suspects such as the Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace UK, the WWF and the Climate Coalition but we also see less obvious claimants to the green warrior mantle, such as the National Trust, the RSPB and the RSPCA.

Taking an overtly political stance, these groups remind Sunak that, at the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto put the 2050 net zero target “front and centre”, notwithstanding that “getting Brexit done” was actually in pole position, and net-zero was sneaked into the manifesto with barely anyone taking any notice.

Nevertheless, we are told that Johnson – for it was he who ensured its inclusion – did so because, “as well as being the right thing to do, the environment remains a central concern for voters”.

Like motherhood and apple pie, of course, there is broad support for a range of measures to support and enhance the environment, but it is something of a stretch to assert that this support extends to bearing the costs and inconvenience of meeting the economically ruinous measures required to achieve the net-zero targets.

This is especially the case when – as former chancellor Lord Hammond observes in the Sunday Telegraph today, successive Tory prime ministers have been “systematically dishonest” about £1 trillion cost of implementing net-zero, who complains that there is a “cross-party disease” of politicians not being straight with voters about the significant true cost of the project.

Oblivious to this dynamic, our group of 50-plus, self-appointed environmental guardians assert that acting on climate change “needs to be done fairly”, which it interprets as being best done “by delivering well-designed policy, backed up with public and private finance, and by working hand-in-hand with industry and
Communities”.

There is, the group asserts, no public mandate for a delay, despite the fact that, if we adopt a strict requirement for informed consent, there is actually no mandate for the implementation of net-zero.

In its self-appointed role, however, the group tells Sunak that it is “with deep alarm” that the group signatories have read reports over the last few weeks of his government “considering watering down its commitments on almost every front of environmental policy”.

Members of your party and government, they say, “have questioned globally agreed science on the future role of oil and gas, opposed the 2030 phaseout of new petrol and diesel cars and vans, proposed weakening rules around energy efficiency, pressed pause on new systems to end the scourge of plastic waste, and cast into doubt our international global finance commitments.

Where this assumes its particularly sinister characteristics is that the group claims to represent more than 20 million supporters, “who support us to speak up for the future of life on this one precious planet”. Thus, it calls in aid people who support an animal protection charity, seekers after discounts for entry to some of Britain’s stately homes, and supporters of bird sanctuaries, amongst others, as the source of its authority.

With what can only then be described as supreme arrogance, this self-appointed body tells the prime minister of this country that it “will not stand by” whilst politicians “use the environment as a political football”. In other words, it will not tolerate elected politicians making political decisions on an intensely political issue, on behalf of the 46 million voters whom they actually represent.

Effectively defining a determination to ignore the actual wishes of the electorate as “courage and leadership”, it threatens to mobilise many of its members, resolving to “stand firm now against any and all attacks on this critical policy agenda”.

Again reflecting the supreme arrogance of this unelected group, it “requests” an urgent meeting with Sunak to discuss his response to the environmental crises – as if he was accountable to the group – in the meantime seeking “public reassurances” on his commitment to taking “the necessary action”, i.e., the action of which the group approves.

If ever there was a reason for rejecting in its entirety the net-zero agenda, and opening up to proper, informed public debate, this is as good as it gets. As with its determination to overstate its case, dwelling in the realms of hysteria with claims of “global boiling”, the “blob” has vastly over-reached itself and needs to a slapped down.

It is Hammond, in the Telegraph, who puts the issue in its proper context. He says that both his former boss, Theresa May, and her successor Boris Johnson had not been straight with the public on the issue of net-zero and that there was currently no one in British politics who is understanding the sort of numbers involved in meeting the costs.

“Boris, basically through weaponising his economic ignorance, tried to pretend that this was not really a cost at all because it would be investment and it will create jobs”, Hammond says. But, while jobs would be created it would be “in one part of the economy while failing to create them in another”.

Even then, Hammond can’t escape his conditioning, arguing that decarbonisation is “a necessary thing to do”, expressing concern only that it would cost “a significant amount of money… that we cannot invest in expanding consumption”.

Money has to be switched from lifting living standards to changing the nature of consumption to decarbonise it and, “If you’re a middle-class liberal type, you might well be able to say to yourself, ‘well, that’s fine, because I find these [decarbonised] goods and services more valuable’”, he says. But, he adds, “I think it is a conceit to assume that people who are living much closer to the breadline will necessarily think the same way”.

Hammond’s fear is that there is a “real danger that we end up losing the argument on the need to invest to address climate change, because of politicians being reluctant to be honest with people”.

“If you undertake a vast enterprise, like decarbonising the economy… it will cost you money”, he says, “and everybody’s going to pay”. Thus, he thinks “politicians should be honest and open with the public about that and lead”.

The question, of course, is whether any politician who was rash enough to be entirely honest about the costs of net zero would even stand a chance of re-election if they then went on to support the policy. In a note of realism, Hammond muses: “I don’t think the political class generally has got on board how little the working man in the street has signed up to this agenda”.

Nevertheless, most MPs still find it best to support the climate change lies, rather than confront the reality that, should the political process actually reassert itself, the “green” agenda is on a path to its own extinction.