With the Conservatives resisting climate change action, Labour must lead the way

I wouldn’t describe myself as the anxious type, generally speaking, but when I watch the news forecasting temperatures in the mid-40s in parts of western Europe and record-breaking heatwaves here in the UK in the days ahead, it’s hard not to worry.

In December last year, multiple academics from the Lancet Planetary Health produced a report entitled Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. Their work surveyed 10,000 young people from across the world between the ages of 16 and 25. It found that 59% were very or extremely worried about climate change and 84% were at least moderately worried. They also found that more than 50% felt “sad”, “anxious”, “angry”, “powerless”, “helpless” and “guilty” with three-quarters of those surveyed describing the future as frightening.

These are feelings that I and no doubt many others are increasingly having, especially with many of the extreme weathers that we are seeing not just becoming the norm but also getting closer to our own front doors. On the Climate Central website, there is an interactive map showing areas of the UK threatened by sea level rise and coastal flooding. By their estimations – based on the predicted global temperature rise of 2℃ by 2050 – significant parts of Newport (the city where I live), Cardiff and the wider South Wales area will be under water.

My anxiety with the climate crisis has only deepened in recent days with Conservative leadership hopefuls trying to woo their grassroots with pledges to scrap net-zero targets and do away with other green policies. Whilst I recognise no government or country can tackle climate change alone, the hard-right rhetoric from our Prime Ministerial wannabes is worrying, and it’s sad to see that tackling the climate emergency isn’t a priority for many of them.

In the last couple of years, I have befriended the New Democratic Party (the equivalent of the Labour Party in Canada) MP Don Davies, who represents Vancouver Kingsway. In the 2019 Canadian election, he made climate change a central theme of his campaign, saying it was the “defining issue of our time”. He is right to say that. Last summer, British Columbia – the province that includes Vancouver – recorded heatwaves just short of 50℃. The extreme temperatures resulted in approximately 1,400 deaths. Four months later, the area had to declare a second state of emergency, this time due to major storms. One person described the scenes afterwards as like “armageddon”.

In last year’s Welsh Senedd elections, I ran the Newport East Labour Party campaign. Inspired by Don, we made the climate emergency a key theme and echoed his words of it being the “defining issue of our time”. Green policies and issues were also a key part of Welsh Labour’s national campaign, with the manifesto committing to delivering not just a stronger and fairer Wales, but also a greener one. Labour at a UK level must learn from Wales, but also work with other progressives from around the world to tackle climate change. We don’t know when the next general election will be called. It could be this autumn, next May or even 2024. My guess is as good as yours. But whenever it comes, we must use the time between then and now to clearly set out our response to this emergency.

We need to be bold and radical and have an approach which understands the seriousness of what is at stake. Scientists say a temperature rise of 1.5℃ by 2050 is now inevitable – we mustn’t worsen the situation. Where we are constructing new buildings or homes, decision makers must make it a requirement for those doing the work to make them as eco-friendly as possible – installing solar panels and using more sustainable materials for example. We need to change our planning laws and systems that for too long have been designed around the needs of the car and other polluting forms of transports. Let’s create town and city centres that are more centred around the needs of peoples’ health, leisure and wellbeing. One idea proposed by the commissioner for future generations in Wales is for every household to live at least five minutes away from a green space. And, of course, the big one is once and for all ending our reliance on fossils fuels – saying no to any more coal mines and banning practices such as fracking. As an island nation with unlimited tidal resources, we have no excuse.

For many on the hard political right and arguably now the mainstream of the Conservative Party, addressing climate change is regarded as ‘woke’. When I recently asked one their party’s supporters if they knew what I meant by ‘climate anxiety’, he sadly, but predictably replied by saying ‘snowflake syndrome’. If Tory ministers won’t tackle this emergency and address the anxieties many young but also older people in the UK have about the future of our planet, then Labour must not hesitate to do so and take action when forming the next government.