This year is a crucial one for our climate. The UK is hosting the COP26 summit in November, and the government does seem to appreciate how high the stakes are. It is good there is now recognition across the political spectrum of the climate change challenge.
But recognising the challenge is not enough. The transition to a net-zero economy requires the right policies and investment. No country is doing enough. Government must play an active role in not only making the transition happen but, crucially, ensuring it is fair for everyone in our country.
President Biden is aiming at a $1.7 trillion green plan over 10 years, and Germany and France have committed tens of billions. They are intervening at scale and actively supporting their industries to decarbonise, and their workers to train and reskill in the green industries of the future.
Here, the UK government is much more reluctant to act at anything like the level necessary. It has committed just a fraction of the resources; its announcements are piecemeal. It boasts of a ten-point plan, but it has no roadmap for delivery when it is way off track from its climate targets, and no sense of how it will be paid for and how it will be fair.
Why the contrast between the big rhetoric and the much smaller reality? It’s down to an aversion to the scale of government intervention required, and a false belief that the market can do it mostly on its own. The budget was virtually silent on climate while the new business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, is so allergic to the term “industrial strategy” that he has scrapped years of work in government on it.
Before being forced to backtrack, the government gave the green light to a new coal mine in Cumbria—as if this was a long-term plan for employment. The new National Infrastructure Bank, announced by the chancellor with much fanfare, won’t even plug the gap left by the European Investment Bank we’ve left behind. And the Green Homes Grant—the government’s flagship green policy—is ending in disaster. Outsourced to a private company, the shambolic delivery of the scheme saw homeowners struggling to access vouchers and installers not paid for work completed. Instead of fixing the scheme at the budget, ministers cut it by more than £1bn.
Labour is determined to fill the void left by government. We don’t have enough time left for half-measures, false starts and wrong priorities. Our first step is to call for a proper green stimulus of £30bn over 18 months, to tackle the climate emergency and create up to 400,000 jobs—from creating green spaces, to retrofitting homes, to improving public transport.
“Government must play an active role in not only making the net-zero transition happen, but ensuring it is fair for everyone”
Next we need a sector-by-sector plan so that we can show how key areas of manufacturing—from automotive to steel, aerospace to hydrogen, carbon capture and storage to offshore wind—can be part of the green transition.
Take automotive. The government has done the right thing, after Labour called for it, by moving the phase-out date for new petrol and diesel cars earlier to 2030. But it is failing to support the automotive sector to adapt to this new reality. A 2030 end date without support for workers and consumers will not take people with us if it is not seen as fair.
Indeed, this is the crucial test. The green transition will only command popular support—and will only deserve to do so—if it creates better lives for people. This is a challenge that requires an activist government: not stepping back, but stepping up. The government shows little sign of being up to that task.
