Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
Last week, a group of non-aligned political thinkers gathered for their regular discussion session. Like Eastern bloc dissidents meeting during the Cold War era to distribute samizdat, furtiveness would have been forgivable.
The topic being debated? “Climate Change: Is it Just a Load of B*****ks?”
Questioning the current green orthodoxy is to court ridicule and contempt. Expressing any doubt about the planet being on the brink of a man-made climate disaster is to be dismissed as a knuckle-dragging thicko or, far worse, a “denier” – with all its implicit associations with the Holocaust.
In the context of the threat from carbon dioxide, we must “follow the science”, which is “settled” (where have we heard that before?). It is heresy to ponder whether history suggests that the climate periodically changes, reflected by, for example, the frost fairs on the Thames between 1600 and 1814.
Having encouraged “vote blue, go green” eco-sensibility for almost two decades, we Conservatives have boxed ourselves in. If Britain’s thriving literary festival scene is any guide, its well-to-do patrons in Conservative heartlands are more than tinged with turquoise.
In November, George Monbiot sold out in Bridport, part of the West Dorset constituency where Chris Loder has a 14,106 majority, and Extinction Rebellion had a market stall. Over in Mere (South West Wiltshire, Andrew Murrison, 21,630), a talk by Kate Hughes on Going Zero drew the crowds.
Conservatives are meant to do what it says on the tin: conserve. Alas, successive leaders have been too focused saving the planet to give much of a monkey’s about safeguarding one of its marvels – the British countryside, the home of lit fest-going Shire Tories.
Ministers’ global saviour complex might account for the neglect of their own backyard, emblematic of which is their indifference are waterways, too many of which, including our precious chalk streams, are either polluted or denuded by over-abstraction.
Thanks to the saviour complex, Conservatives are also outflanked in cities and towns. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and Sadiq Khan’s extension of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone are despised by voters. Green camouflage gives cover to indulge town-hall tyranny, which delights in curbing liberty of movement while raising taxes.
According to the Office of National Statistics, in September-October last year climate change was the second biggest concern after the cost of living.
But are there actually many votes in greenery? The elephant in the political room is the relentlessly (recyclable) rubbish performance of the Green Party.
While May’s local elections were hardly the finest hour for the Conservatives, it was not the “incredible set of results” the Greens claim. They gained 201 councillors, taking their tally to 738. For some perspective, 8,025 seats were contested. They also gained one council in England – out of the 230 where elections were held.
The media made much of how the Greens now control Mid-Suffolk, but little of how they lost Brighton and Hove.
This is ground zero of the country’s eco-zealotry, home to Caroline Lucas, Britain’s only Green MP. The Greens were wiped out, with the Leader and Deputy Leader losing their seats. To Labour.
Brighton locals testify to the Greens’ literally crap performance, not least their decision to close public lavatories (although defecating in the streets seems a reasonable fit with the medieval mindset of eco-loons like Just Stop Oil). As councillors, they focused on expensive eco-related vanity projects rather than the delivery of basic services.
The Green Party will apparently use its feeble local election results to pave the way for general election success – an echo of the “go back to your constituencies and prepare for government” hubris that periodically afflicts the Liberal Democrats.
Dare it be suggested that the great British public is unconvinced about the imperative to curb carbon? At best, the attitude seems to be “let me live sustainably – just not yet”; the post-pandemic surge in flying suggests that millions of holidaymakers are none too bothered if their carbon footprint is the size of a yeti’s.
In the middle of this mess of contradictions is the Government – which is all over the place.
If climate change really is an existential threat for humanity and for all life on Earth, why isn’t more being done to avert it? Three years ago, ministers were perfectly happy to sacrifice life, liberties, freedom and economic well-being for a virus that represented a mortal threat to fewer than one per cent of the population who caught it.
Confronted, however, by the climate catastrophe, policymakers’ reaction is decidedly underwhelming.
Instead of the immediate grounding of flights and the instigation of a one-child policy to ward off the mortal danger – not just to polar bears but to the entire human race – we have the more leisurely goal of carbon dioxide net zero by… 2050.
The Government has co-opted the finance industry – “a critical enabler” – as its key ally to deliver its green industrial revolution over the next few decades: Mobilising Investment: 2023 Green Finance Strategy follows the 2019 Green Finance Strategy and the 2021 Greening Finance: A Roadmap to Sustainable Investing.
After almost destroying the global economy in 2008, the fat cats of finance are now eager to save the planet. They need rehabilitation after getting a UK taxpayer-funded bailout of £1,162 trillion – £133 billion cash and £1,029 trillion in loan guarantees.
Net Zero is the financial sector’s highly lucrative redemption project. As BlackRock’s Larry Fink observed in his 2022 Letter to CEOs: “We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients.”
With an estimated extra £50-£60 billion of capital investment needed each year through the 2030s to deliver decarbonisation, the Government is turning to the markets. This is in addition £198bn invested in low carbon energy since 2010, delivered via “government [i.e. taxpayer] funding, private investment and levies on consumer bills.”
High household energy bills, low energy security… but, of course, the science is “settled”.