To live up to our conference slogan, we must set out a vision for climate action

From speaking to my constituents, small businesses and charities, I understand the worry and the precarity many are experiencing during the cost-of-living crisis. After 12 years of brutal austerity, the challenges of Covid lockdowns and now soaring prices and falling real-terms pay, people are crying out for change.

The energy crisis has caused a cost-of-living emergency, but it also marks a significant moment in the mission to achieving net zero and tackling the climate emergency. And yet, by lifting the ban on fracking, increasing fossil fuel exploration in the North Sea and proposing a ‘review’ of plans to meet net zero by 2050, Liz Truss is trying to make us choose between addressing one or the other – climate or cost of living – while failing to offer serious solutions on either. As we approach our party conference in Liverpool, we must reject that approach completely.

Last year, I worked with constituents to develop the Hallam citizens’ climate manifesto ahead of COP26 in Glasgow. It was clear that there is a broad base of support for joined-up solutions to the twin crises of economic and climate injustice; far from being contradictory, action on both is mutually reinforcing.

That’s why, ahead of the next general election, we must offer a compelling package of support for struggling households alongside long-term solutions to the UK’s structural economic failure to address the climate crisis and shield us from soaring and unpredictable prices.

When Labour has been bold, we have set the agenda. It is right that our conference slogan this year is a “fairer, greener future”. There is a clear dividing line between the Conservatives, who are happy with a 95% increase in energy prices at the expense of working people, and our policy to cap prices now, funded with a backdated windfall tax on fossil fuel super-profits.

But we also need an inspiring vision of what that future might look like. In Liverpool next week, we must show the country a clear direction of travel, demonstrating concretely how we will guarantee high standards of living and a habitable planet for the days yet to come

While energy becomes increasingly unaffordable, fossil fuel producers are recording eye-watering profits. Our energy system is disjointed and ineffective. Bill payers are ripped off while profits are extracted at every stage – from generation, through distribution, to supply.

Even before the 2022 energy and cost-of-living crisis, more than one in ten households in the UK lived in fuel poverty. Energy bills were already too high. Prior to the surge in wholesale energy prices, network connection costs made up approximately one quarter of the price cap – at the same time that distribution and transmission networks were reporting staggering 25-39% profit margins.

To guarantee energy security and decarbonisation, we need a transformation of the system. Only by removing the profit motive can we ensure it meets people’s basic energy needs and plays its crucial role in achieving net-zero.

Public ownership of the transmission and distribution networks is common sense – it would mean funnelling profits back into the system and bringing down bill prices. And, as the TUC argues, nationalisation of the ‘big five’ energy suppliers could enable the implementation of social tariffs – making bills cheaper for the lowest paid and disincentivising unnecessary energy consumption by the wealthiest.

But the main driver of high energy bills is profiteering from oil and gas producers. Far from increasing our reliance on these sectors through fracking and intensifying North Sea oil exploitation, we need a massive investment in renewables, alongside home insulation to bring down energy demand.

Green energy, especially offshore wind, has so far been a squandered opportunity. 50% of our offshore wind is publicly owned – by other countries. Unsurprisingly, that’s resulted in the jobs and infrastructure going abroad. A UK publicly-owned renewables company would ensure that the industry was developed and nurtured here while insulating us from the fossil fuel price shocks of the future.

While public ownership from energy supply to generation makes sense, a green new deal isn’t just about energy – but also developing every sector of our economy. Another part of the reason we’re so exposed to soaring prices is structural weaknesses in our real economy which make us overly reliant on imports, ballooning our trade deficit, devaluing our currency – which has sunk to a historic 37-year low – and driving up the cost of living even further.

A programme of investment in green infrastructure, manufacturing and skills would address these weaknesses while preparing us to meet the challenge of the climate emergency. But across sectors, we’ve seen the same problem. Rather than reinvesting profits to develop our economy and improve wages and conditions, private companies have pocketed them as dividends for shareholders, often while imposing the pay cuts that workers are now rightly resisting.

Privatisation has failed my constituents on cost of living and on the climate. That’s why I’ve supported Labour for a Green New Deal’s motion to Labour Party conference this year. I’m sad that the conference arrangements committee has ruled this motion out of order for “covering too many subjects”. There is no part of our economy that won’t be touched by the climate transformation we need. Delegates should be given the opportunity to debate these solutions.

Green new deal campaigners are, however, still pushing for their key priorities to be debated and voted on through another route. Public ownership of key infrastructure and economic levers such as energy, mail, rail, water and finance would put an end to the profiteering and enable us to invest in an economy that safeguards people and planet. It must form part of our vision of a society that meets basic needs and tackles the existential threat of our era: climate meltdown. Now is the time to embrace this agenda for a green, democratic national renewal of our economy – to build the fairer, greener future our conference slogan rightly announces.