Sunak Jettisons Climate Goals, Managing To Unite Greens And Auto Manfacturers Against Him

[hatrack]

It’s quite a moment when a Green party MP finds herself on the same side of an argument as the chair of Ford UK – but here we are. Claims reported by the BBC yesterday evening that Rishi Sunak is planning to weaken some of the government’s key climate commitments have managed to unite businesses, the energy sector, car manufacturers, environmental groups and the general public against him.

His leaked programme appears not to be a couple of minor delays here and there but instead a coordinated, calculated and catastrophic roll-back. According to the leak, energy efficiency targets for private rented homes will be dropped; the ban on new petrol and diesel cars will be pushed back to 2035; the phasing out of gas boilers will be delayed; plans for taxes to discourage flying ditched; recycling schemes cancelled. The leak from the BBC was big enough news for the prime minister to make a highly unusual late-evening statement, anticipating – and seeking to defend himself from – an almighty backlash. Several lines from this proclamation are enough to make you rub your eyes in disbelief.

EDIT

Sunak will argue, as he does in his statement, that we must prioritise the “long-term needs of our country before the short-term political needs of the moment”. Oh, the irony! Thinking in the long term would mean rolling out a street by street, local authority-led, mass home insulation programme to cut energy bills and carbon emissions now and long into the future – yet he’s now rolling back measures to deliver it. It would mean providing climate finance to the global south – yet this pledge is teetering on the brink. It would mean adapting to the emergency – yet the CCC says the government is “strikingly unprepared” for this scenario.

What this all reveals is that Sunak really doesn’t seem to care about the climate in the slightest – it’s little more than an afterthought. When asked by ITV recently if it was one of his top five priorities, he brushed the question aside, as if it would be ridiculous to make it so. Yet polling shows it has long been one of the public’s top three priorities, let alone top five. If Sunak mistakenly thinks the climate is merely a political device to draw dividing lines between his party and Labour, he will fail on his own terms. All it will do is draw an ever-greater divide between him and the people he seeks to govern.

EDIT/END

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/20/rishi-sunak-net-zero-u-turn-green-mps-car-manufacturers-caroline-lucas

[moniss]

1. It almost makes the Tories pine for

the days, literally, of Liz Truss.

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

2. Frankly, it's the desire for change versus the emerging reality of getting there

It would mean providing climate finance to the global south?

How is this critical?

[hatrack]

3. Because not providing it increases the odds of (1) mass death in the global south, or . . .

(2) mass displacement in the global south, and guess where they're going to end up heading?

Think about Syria, and the impact of the civil war there on refugee flows into European nations, or boatloads of refugees from the remains of Libya dying in the Mediterrenean on an ongoing basis, or the potential for chaotic mass displacement in the Indus valley, destabilizing two nuclear-armed nations that hate each other.

Then multiply those impacts by about 100.

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

4. I agree with the political and instability aspect, absolutely

just don't know how that relates to the climate, that's all...

I mean, sending money isn't going to work. Something tangible needs to change

[hatrack]

5. We're going to be sending money anyway - think Derna in Libya, at 12,000 dead and missing so far . .

And that's just one entree from this year's Climate Collapse Smorgasbord.

[Think. Again.]

7. But sending money...

...will work if it's money that they need to make tangible changes in addressing climate change.

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

10. But let's take it one step further

how is that going to "make tangible changes in addressing climate change"

It can't... the math doesn't add up?

If you mean adapting to climate change, I'd totally agree, but anything else? There's just no way...

[Think. Again.]

11. I honestly don't understand your point....

...you realize that actions of any kind, by any country, require funding, even actions to reduce CO2 emissions and address the affects of climate change that are hindering that CO2 reduction.

The countries who are in need of funding to take actions against thier CO2 emissions ...need funding.

Those countries also happen to be the countries that are most severely affected by climate change so far.

[Think. Again.]

6. reply deleted by poster

[Think. Again.]

8. Climate is global....

...addressing climate change is, therefore, a global task.

Any and all of the efforts to address climate change that are made by people populating any of the various areas on the globe (aka "countries" or "nations&quot are efforts to affect a situation that is not happening within any geographic or political boundaries but is happening globally. So those efforts will have to be made with a global mindset by those people.

As distasteful as it may be to some, we really are 'all' in this together, simply because we are all on the same globe, together.

[Think. Again.]

9. I wonder how much...

...and in what form, the fossil fuel industry is paying this guy.

Obviously they have to keep it under table so I wonder what kind of deal they made with him....