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| Thu, 21st May 2020 14:21:00 |
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'I don't want to be seen as a zealot': what MPs really think about the climate crisis |
One day in the summer of 2017, I was sitting at a cafe table in the atrium of Portcullis House, across the road from the Palace of Westminster. With indoor trees and a good coffee bar, it's a pleasant place for politicians and their staff to meet, outside their cramped offices. I was there to interview an MP for a research project, hoping to learn more about how MPs understood climate change, and how that shaped their work in parliament.
The MP arrived. She was young and, at least on the surface, full of confidence. I explained that my interviews would be anonymised, so that she and others could talk freely about how they came to their public positions on climate. She told me she regularly speaks for her party on climate change, telling people about the need for action to tackle emissions. And yet, she said, there was a catch: lots of people in the constituency she represents have jobs in an industry responsible for huge amounts of carbon pollution.
She had two, conflicting, demands: she wanted urgent action on climate; and she also wanted government support to allow her local industry to continue polluting. She was simultaneously backing and opposing climate action. She was worried that someone – maybe a constituent or the local paper – would point out this glaring contradiction. But so far, no one had. "I thought I might get a bit of pushback," she told me. "I've had absolutely zero."
This contradiction sums up the state of climate politics in the UK today. There is strong cross-party support for far-reaching carbon targets. In June last year, the government passed a law to strengthen these targets, committing the UK to end virtually all emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases within the next 30 years. There was next to no opposition – in fact, Labour and the Liberal Democrats argued for an earlier phase-out date. And yet politicians are oddly reluctant to talk about how we might actually meet these targets. There is very little honest debate about the major changes to our economy and society that will be needed if we are to meet this challenge. Like my interviewee, we're all in favour of climate action, but we haven't yet had an honest conversation about the power and the vested interests involved, or the choices that will have to be made if we are to achieve significant reductions in emissions.
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