The door is open for Labour to pledge meaningful action on the climate crisis

The climate crisis may be off the front pages but it remains the defining challenge of our time. In the last year, Europe saw potentially the worst drought for 500 years, Pakistan experienced unprecedented flooding affecting 33 million people and acute food insecurity threatens millions in the Horn of Africa due to delayed rains.

Scientists have made clear that these once unusual weather events, which have huge consequences for millions of people, are set to become the norm in coming decades. Unless we take radical action this decade (the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) says we need to cut emissions by 43% by 2030) it will be all but impossible to keep to the 1.5C rise in temperature deemed safe by scientists. Beyond that limit the likelihood of maintaining a liveable climate for humanity and most of the natural world diminishes fast.

Yet, despite knowing the threat before us, global action to prevent climate change remains inadequate. Last year’s climate summit, COP26, made meaningful if inadequate progress – with governments and business leaders making tangible commitments to tackle the climate crisis including plans to cut emissions, double adaptation finance, curb methane emissions, halt forest loss, accelerate the phase out of coal and end international financing of fossil fuels.

But politics and security at home and abroad have prevented many of these pledges being realised. Russia’s war on Ukraine and rapid inflation have caused global energy and food prices to soar, distracting leaders from climate action. The Covid pandemic and tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan haven’t helped. Tension between the UK and EU following Brexit is hampering attempts to build renewable energy capacity in the North Sea. “Climate action is being put on the back burner — despite overwhelming public support around the world,” stated UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the UN General Assembly last month.

The inability of the Conservatives to run anything like a functional government for the past year has harmed climate action at home and abroad. Boris Johnson’s commitments in the 2019 Conservative manifesto were not enough but they were something – yet they remain only partially implemented due to government infighting and Liz Truss’ anti-environment agenda. They have wasted the UK’s COP26 presidency, which ran from last year’s summit to the handover to COP27 in Egypt this November.

Alok Sharma, the government’s COP26 president, left Glasgow last year pledging to ensure that countries – including big emitters like India, China and Indonesia – came to COP27 with substantially improved action plans. But only 24 of 194 countries have submitted updated emissions cuts, far below what is needed. The 24 include none of the biggest polluters. And while nations committed to ending subsidies for fossil fuels in Glasgow, they almost doubled in 2021 from 2020 levels and are estimated to increase even further due to mounting fuel prices.

Green groups fear that Rishi Sunak will pay only lip service to climate and environment issues. As Chancellor he tended to see the costs of climate action above the benefits. He inherits a legislative programme that, if implemented, would only do harm. In the last year, the government committed to multiple new fossil fuel projects, which if implemented would destroy any hopes of meeting our climate obligations. The retained EU law bill threatens 570 pieces of environment legislation. Sunak’s inheritance from Truss – investment zones (a “polluters’ charter setting up a race to the bottom”) and newly legalised fracking – will cause further damage.

In the short term, we must hope that significant progress is made at COP27, and that Egypt does a better job of using its presidency to good effect than has the UK in the past year. In the medium term, this is an agenda on which Labour can lead both at home and abroad. It struck me at the COP26 summit last year how much Labour was listened to on climate despite a decade out of power. Labour leaders including Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham and Mark Drakeford hosted or spoke at packed events. World leaders wanted to hear what we had to say.

A year on, and with Labour looking ever more like a government in waiting, we have the chance to set the agenda. Pledges made at this year’s conference – which were both ambitious and cleverly presented – to integrate climate action with social justice and employment objectives at home, and renewed commitment to international aid abroad, put climate action at the heart of a plan for a fairer country and fairer world.

The launch of Great British Energy, a publicly owned company which will provide clean energy and form a key part of a green prosperity plan, and which aims to create one million jobs as well as reduce energy prices, is ambitious both for the environment and for jobs and social justice. The return to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid, and the passing of a law to ensure that the bulk of this money would go directly towards tackling the climate crisis, is another positive pledge. Together, these policies can help mitigate carbon emissions while meaningfully contributing to social justice and climate finance for developing nations.

A Labour government can also rebuild trust and collaboration with the EU. One result would be renewed and deepened collaboration on the climate crisis, particularly in investment in renewable energy in the North Sea and beyond, and the sharing of best practice and innovative technology.

After the multiple crises of the last few years, the public want a government willing and able to act to ensure economic stability, social and climate justice. Over 80% of the public worry about climate change and want to see more done to bring emissions down, quickly. The door is open for Labour to pledge meaningful action now. Once in government we can achieve a huge amount at home and influence rapid action in the EU and beyond.