Rishi Sunak’s decision to side with climate deniers isn’t just wrongheaded: it’s costing our environment and our economyby 2050. At the time, I was the cabinet minister who signed this into law. We did so knowing that taking action to tackle thewas supported by all the major political parties. We had no time to waste.
Worse still has been an extremist rhetoric that frames net zero policies as an imposition. This false narrative is the product of both ignorance and deliberate misinformation. Nobody has ever been told that they must remove their boilers or replace their petrol cars. The energy transition is aan act of shifting from the past towards the future.
Sunak’s decision instead to side with climate deniers and to deliberately politicise the energy transition is perhaps the greatest tragedy of his premiership. It has cost us not just environmentally but also economically. It is a decision that will also cost votes, including those in my own constituency. For the first time, I cannot vote for a party that has boasted of new oil and gas licences in its manifesto or that now argues that net zero is a burden and not a benefit.
Labour’s policy platform is sensible and mainstream. And as I found from speaking to thousands of people across the country during my, it is what the public wants and what business needs. It is potentially the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetimes – and the UK can’t afford to miss out.