Simon Evans: ‘The gap between the two biggest parties could hardly be any wider’ The election comes at a critical moment for global climate action, with the UK way off track to meet its targets and the limit of 1.5C of global heating slipping out of reach. Despite Conservative attempts to drive a wedge between themselves and Labour on climate policy, some have argued there is little to separate the two main parties in this area. Superficially, there’s some truth to this. Both are committed to the UK’s existing climate goals, scaling up clean energy and insulating homes. The Conservatives say they will “never forc[e] people to rip out their boiler”. Labour says: “Nobody will be forced to rip out their boiler as a result of our plans.” Even Labour’s pledge for clean power by 2030 – a target described by experts as anything from “totally achievable” to “herculean” or even “infeasible” – is only five years before the Conservative government target of 2035. (Notably, the latter is absent from the Tory manifesto.) But don’t be fooled. Short of breaking the UK’s fabled cross-party consensus on climate change, the gap between the two biggest parties could hardly be any wider. Much attention has been paid to Labour’s symbolic pledge to end new North Sea oil and gas licences – in line with the advice of the International Energy Agency and wider scientific evidence – in contrast to the Conservatives’ pledge to run annual licensing rounds.
Yet the other differences – particularly rhetorical ones – are just as significant. Last September, Rishi Sunak announced a new approach to climate policy that would remove “unacceptable costs” from “hard-pressed British families”. Sunak delayed a ban on new combustion engine vehicles from 2030 to 2035 and scrapped minimum efficiency standards for rented homes, both of which Labour would reverse. The Climate Change Committee said at the time that Sunak’s changes were likely to increase energy bills and motoring costs and make climate goals harder to meet. Still, the Conservative manifesto continues in the same vein. While the party “remain[s] committed to delivering net zero by 2050”, it wants an “affordable and pragmatic transition” that will “cut the cost of tackling climate change”. In contrast, Labour’s manifesto says “[t]he climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge that we face” and that action it would take in response is “a huge opportunity”. One of Labour’s five “missions” is to make Britain “a clean energy superpower to cut bills, create jobs and deliver security with cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030”. Labour aims to double onshore wind by 2030, double planned spending on insulation, triple solar and quadruple offshore wind, whereas the Conservatives pledge only to triple offshore wind. Among the smaller parties, the Lib Dems say climate change is an “existential threat” necessitating “bold, urgent action” that will also cut bills and create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs. Their manifesto aims for 90% renewable power by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2045. The Green party says the “solutions to the climate crisis are the same as those needed to end the cost of living and inequality crises”. It calls for 70% of power to come from wind by 2030. Drawing a deliberate distinction with the UK’s existing “net zero” target, it calls for a “zero-carbon society … more than a decade ahead of 2050”. Simon Evans is deputy editor of Carbon Brief Mikaela Loach: ‘The Green party have got the most right’ At a book event in Bristol, I was asked what advice I would give on how to have confidence to challenge injustice in the landscape we are facing: genocide in Palestine supported by our government, climate breakdown a reality all around us and fascist politics on the rise. My advice? To do something that is a little bit brave for you every single time. To keep pushing that boundary, to not get comfortable, to not let fear or the limits of what others say is realistic get in the way. When I read Keir Starmer’s Labour’s manifesto, bravery was not a word that came to mind. Instead, every time I felt its words were going in the direction of bravery, the party would falter, trip and choose weakness instead. I welcome Labour’s promise for insulating homes and commitment to no new fossil fuel licences with open arms – both were hard won by campaigners. But its embrace becomes thorny once it commits to continue with fields that have already been approved, after the International Energy Agency said in 2021 there must be no new oil and gas fields. A key one of these is the Rosebank oilfield – which would be a climate disaster and injustice, producing more emissions from one field alone than the emissions of the 28 lowest-income countries combined. The discomfort grows as Labour focuses on false climate solutions favoured most by fossil fuel giants: risky and unproven carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and sticking with the Tories’ too-distant 2050 net zero goal. Labour has an almost open goal to be the new government – while Rishi Sunak rides off into the California sunset with a manifesto that would be inspirational only to oil bosses – and yet it still fails to fight for the new, better world that is possible for us all with climate action that also tackles the root causes of not just the climate crisis but the interconnected social crises we face today.
The Green party has got the most right with its manifesto: it has the bravery to stand not just for the climate and environmental policies we need, but also to fund them through a wealth tax on the richest in our society and a carbon tax on the biggest polluters. A wealth tax is popular – 78% of voters support an annual wealth tax on those with assets over £10m, including 77% of Conservative voters and 86% of Labour voters. Labour’s unwillingness to support it puts it alongside the Tories: caring more about what the rich want than what the people need. Every part of Labour’s manifesto that is positive for our climate and all of our health was won by campaigners, community organisers and activists. Starmer’s reaction to a young protester at his manifesto launch was that Labour “aren’t the party of protest any more”. And yet, without protests’ impact, its manifesto would be completely indistinguishable from the Tories’ one. Mikaela Loach is an author and climate justice activist James Murray: ‘Some key parts of Labour’s manifesto are deliberately light on detail’ There is a lot to like in this week’s manifestos for the UK’s burgeoning green economy, as well as evidence of some worrying clouds brewing on the horizon. Labour may have faced criticism for a safety-first approach but the party’s manifesto is a reminder that its climate policy programme is genuinely ambitious, even radical in places. The proposed GB Energy venture, the National Wealth Fund, the doubling of funding for energy efficiency programmes, the commitment to sweeping planning reform and the pledge to end new oil and gas drilling licences all suggest Labour is serious about engineering a step-change in the pace of the UK’s net zero transition. Ed Miliband sounds confident in his assertion that it is “the most ambitious climate and energy plan in British history”. The Conservatives may have argued that Labour’s targets to deliver a clean power system by 2030 are unfeasibly ambitious, but the plan has secured a coveted endorsement from the former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. The target is also designed to give Labour a mandate to prioritise investment in green infrastructure and push through necessary planning and market reforms, even if meeting it could prove a stretch. It is notable that some key parts of the manifesto are deliberately light on detail. Keir Starmer is giving himself wriggle room to finalise the policies – some of them controversial – that will be needed to deliver on his ambitious goals. Green groups welcomed the proposals but there were also legitimate questions about whether there is the fiscal firepower to deliver on Labour’s agenda. The £7.3bn for the National Wealth Fund and £8.3bn for GB Energy sound impressive, but the budgets are stretched over the parliament and are a fraction of the axed target to invest £28bn a year. The promise of £500m for green hydrogen manufacturing, for example, is orders of magnitude smaller than the sums being offered in France and Germany.
Labour’s response to this critique is that it will be able to spark billions of pounds of private-sector investment by removing planning barriers and “stopping the chaos” that has engulfed the government in recent years. But the Lib Dem and Green manifestos underscore how a Labour government would face significant pressure from its left flank to deliver even more ambitious climate policies. The Lib Dems’ energy and climate policies are broadly similar to Labour’s plans, but they propose pulling the net zero target forward to 2045 – a move plenty of climate scientists would endorse. And while the Greens’ plans for new wealth and carbon taxes are unlikely to curry favour with Rachel Reeves, the multibillion-pound investment plans they would enable are arguably the only package truly commensurate with the scale of the climate crisis. Meanwhile, the Conservative manifesto highlights how the next phase of the net zero transition could prove politically turbulent. Rishi Sunak’s climate plans were not quite as bad as some critics suggested, given they largely continue the policies that helped the UK cut its emissions faster than any other G20 country. Tory support for the offshore wind industry, the nuclear project pipeline, the electric vehicle charger rollout and planned carbon capture hubs remained in place. But there were no new measures to help put the UK back on track to meet its emissions targets, and the manifesto confirmed Sunak’s strategy of doubling down on fossil fuel development and characterising the net zero transition as a costly burden. If elected, Labour can expect significant support for its plans from green businesses, which have been arguing for years that they have the potential to revive the UK’s flatlining economy and deliver on its climate goals. But to meet its targets, a Labour government would have to move extremely quickly to remove barriers to green infrastructure development and catalyse investment. And the Tory and Green manifestos suggest it would have to do so while facing vocal opposition from both right and left. James Murray is editor of BusinessGreen Rebecca Newsom: ‘It doesn’t take much to see how hollow the Tories’ words about climate fairness are’ With the continuing rise in global climate disasters and broken temperature records, this is definitively the most important election for the climate and our natural world in the UK’s history. However, the climate and cost of living pledges in the manifestos of the two main political parties are like chalk and cheese. Sunak majors on building new gas plants and drilling for more of the very fossil fuels driving the breakdown of our climate. This would deliver the opposite of what he claims. Increased dependence on gas would result in higher bills, more energy price shocks and an obvious increase in our climate-wrecking emissions. In contrast, Starmer’s GB Energy – a state-owned power company, partly funded by a proper windfall tax on oil and gas companies – promises to boost clean energy projects across the country, lower bills and increase the UK’s energy independence. And his plans to ban zero-hours contracts and boost workers’ rights would help ensure new green jobs are secure and good quality. It’s the same story on transport and housing. The Conservatives’ plan to ban measures to clean up our air would continue to expose the poorest communities to the most toxic pollution. Their decision to prioritise road-building over investing in a clean public transport system would hinder regional growth and job creation. And their strategy to scaremonger about heat pumps while offering no support to transition away from gas boilers would only continue households’ exposure to volatile fossil fuels, spiralling bills – and the awful choice between heating and eating for many.
It doesn’t take much to see how hollow the Tories’ words about climate fairness are. All they are doing, in a desperate but flawed attempt to claw back votes as they tank in the polls, is to instrumentalise this agenda to sow division and protect the interests of their friends in polluting industries. Labour should be bolder on revamping declining public transport, but on the green energy revolution it is still significantly ahead. However, there are some major gaps in Labour’s manifesto that need to be filled. On nature protection, there’s no mention of tackling the industrial fishing and plastic pollution crisis that’s trashing our oceans and threatening coastal communities. In contrast, the Conservatives’ commitment to ratify the global ocean treaty “early in the next parliament” and to ban new incinerators suggests they may be prepared to move faster on ocean protection and a circular economy. Labour’s plans on tackling the sewage crisis are also outflanked by the Lib Dems, who would transform water companies into public benefit companies, tax profits and set more stringent legal targets. Starmer has also missed a trick when it comes to raising taxes on the super-rich – something the Greens and Lib Dems both have a clear vision for. Raising wealth and property taxes on the richest 1% of Britons – who have a combined wealth of £2.8tn – could be used to eradicate fuel poverty, protect people from floods and storms, and fund the measures needed to ensure the green transition is fair for all. Labour’s lead over the Conservatives in the polls seems to be justified by the detail set out in these election manifestos so far. But the strength of the climate and nature pledges put forward by the Greens and Lib Dems mean that the 70% of people who stated that climate and environment would influence how they vote do pose a threat to the strength of its likely majority. Rebecca Newsom is head of politics at Greenpeace UK