Greener than thou

Even before the government this week announced a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the Tory leadership contenders were competing fiercely to establish their green credentials.

Andrea Leadsom has vowed to declare a ‘climate emergency’. Rory Stewart has upgraded it to a ‘climate cataclysm’ and wants to double the amount of foreign aid spent on climate change. Sajid Javid says he would treat fighting climate change like fighting terrorism. Even Boris Johnson, who once called wind turbines a ‘hideous Venusian invasion’, has leapt on the 100 per cent carbon-free bandwagon, marvelling earlier this week about wind farms and solar panels. While the leadership hopefuls argue over Brexit, they seem to be falling over themselves to say the same thing on climate — only louder than their rivals.

It is easy to understand the pressure on political leaders, given the changing public mood. David Attenborough’s recent documentary and Greta Thunberg’s visit were both well-received and a panicked Tory party has decided it’s better to ride the green wave than to be crushed by it. But it is easy to cry crisis and preach doom; rather more difficult to devise a policy response which tackles climate change but avoids triggering the kind of backlash Emmanuel Macron has seen in France, where the gilets jaunes movement erupted in reaction to his fuel tax hike and he was forced to climb down.

It’s not just the Tories who are tying themselves in green knots. Last week, the Welsh economy minister, Labour’s Ken Skates, said he was ‘absolutely livid’ that Ford is to close its engine plant in Bridgend. Yet only six weeks ago Skates’s own Welsh Labour administration had grandly declared a ‘climate change emergency’. It can’t seem to connect the two things: that if you are going to prioritise rapid decarbonisation, you shouldn’t be surprised if fewer people want to buy cars and engine plants start closing down.