Elections & Climate Crisis

Which parties do the Earth and its inhabitants need to take power in the next U.K & U.S. elections?

Image by DFL-Denver

Here in the UK, the general election is on 4 July. We are fortunate that the elections only last 6 weeks here, though of course the major parties take pot shots at each other year round, but otherwise there are a lot of similarities. The U.S. elections are on November 5. So, each of us will be letting off fireworks while the other is voting.

Since the anti-democratic billionaires and think tanks and foreign dictators are brothers under the skin and try to influence both countries, following what they do here in the UK may help Americans prepare better for their own elections. And Brits need to know that Tufton Street is of the same ilk as the Heritage Foundation and be warned of how toxic their Project 2025 (below) is. You may also want to look at the recent E.U. elections, for example the disinformation campaigns.

Tories

The Conservative Party Manifesto 2024 has 16 chapters entitled “Our plan to… “. Not one of them mentions climate. Climate gets mentioned 11 times in the document. In the “We will seek to strengthen the Commonwealth” section it says “… support members facing challenges in attracting inward investment and strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable members to climate change, nature loss and environmental degradation.” Other sections also mention other countries.

Later, it says, “We will maintain the leadership on climate change we achieved at COP26 and our efforts to tackle global warming and biodiversity loss.” and “We will continue to ring-fence our commitment to International Climate Finance.”- whatever that means.

It says, “We … remain committed to delivering net zero by 2050.” As I pointed out in a previous article, they have a funny way of showing it. They point out that “Half of our electricity comes from renewables, compared to just 7% when Labour were last in office.” That was way back in 2010. Renewable energy has grown a lot in that time, and the UK’s share is a lot less than that of many countries.

The “Delivering energy security” section includes “annual licensing rounds for oil and gas production from our own North Sea”, “new gas power stations”, “Treble our offshore wind capacity” (but not onshore), “Build the first two carbon capture and storage clusters” — a technology that is proving expensive and ineffective — and “Scale up nuclear power” (a very bad idea).

Their idea of how to “cut the cost of tackling climate change for households and business” is “Ensuring that families are given time to make changes” — i.e. no hurry, the climate can wait and we won’t spend what is needed. “Reforming the Climate Change Committee, giving it an explicit mandate to consider cost to households and UK energy security in its future climate advice” also means the climate taking a back seat.

They will plant more trees, though. I just hope they take advice as which trees to plant where — getting it wrong can do harm — and take care of them until they are established. Failure to do so is a waste of money and useless for the environment.

So, overall I am not impressed. And when I consider their record over the past 14 years, I have no hope that they will do better.

Project 2025

Project 2025 is a radical plan of the conservative Heritage Foundation in the U.S. to replace the Democratic administration with its own conservative candidates and policies.

Perhaps it was written in reaction to the fact that Trump was totally unprepared to take the reins when the Electoral College appointed him president.

Some of its authors have climate mentioned in their job titles. They decry billionaires who are pro climate action but fly to conferences in private jets, and climate-friendly treaties that would not be made law in a Republican-controlled congress. They also decry the Biden administration for infecting several agencies with his “climate extremism” or “climate fanaticism” and says this should be unwound.

They say that the “NSC should rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense matters, including climate change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other polarizing policies that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s finest men and women from enlisting to serve in defense of our liberty. NSC should rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense matters, including climate change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other polarizing policies that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s finest men and women from enlisting to serve in defense of our liberty”.

The U.S. national security community considers climate change to be a national security issue.

It says that “the Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding. the Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding.” It summarises its opposition on digital pages 289–290.

In short, it is in full-blown climate denial and would undo every bit of progress that Biden and the Democrats have made, which would adversely affect the whole world.

Labour

One of the first chapters of the Labour Party Manifesto is titled, “My plan for change”. These are the words of a wannabe dictator, of someone unlikely to listen to advice from others, and do not augur well.

As with the Tories, there is no chapter for the climate crisis, though it is mentioned more often and there is one chapter for “Make Britain a clean energy superpower”. It starts with “The climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge that we face.” — a good start.

It goes on to say, “The damage done by 14 years of chaotic ‘sticking plaster’ policies was exposed when Putin invaded Ukraine. The cost of fossil fuel energy on the international market rocketed. The Conservatives’ ban on new onshore wind, failure to build new nuclear power stations, and decision to scrap investment in home insulation landed British families with amongst the highest energy bills in Europe.” I disagree about nuclear but agree about the rest.

As with Tories, climate is mentioned within the umbrella of energy independence: “A new Energy Independence Act will establish the framework for Labour’s energy and climate policies”.

“We will not issue new licences to explore new fields because they will not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure, and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis. In addition, we will not grant new coal licences and will ban fracking for good.” would also be a considerable improvement over the Tories’ policies, as would closing the loopholes in the windfall tax on oil and gas and their ‘warm homes plan’, their ‘clean energy mission’ and allowing the Bank of England to give due consideration to climate change in its mandates.

Labour are also aware that “the climate crisis has accelerated the nature crisis” and that the climate crisis is fuelling geopolitical tensions and that “we cannot address the urgency of the climate and nature crisis without co-ordinated global action”.

So, overall Labour look more understanding of the climate crisis and its effects and urgency, though it does not look like I’ll agree with all their solutions.

Democrats

Combating The Climate Crisis And Pursuing Environmental Justice was a chapter in the Democratic Party’s Party Platform published in 2019.

According to American Progress, “The Biden Administration Has Taken More Climate Action Than Any Other in History”. Of course, that may not be saying a great deal, but it is better than Biden’s predecessors have done, despite obstruction at every turn from Republicans in Congress.

He’s not got it all right, however. For example, he approved the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska, though he curbed other drilling.

Some of his investments will take time to come to fruition, so it would be a pity if Trump or another Republican were to win and undo all the good.

He could get a lot more done if Democrats were to win both houses in 2024.

Liberal Democrats

The LibDem manifesto has a chapter on “Climate Change and Energy”. It says, “Climate change is an existential threat… Urgent action is needed — in the UK and around the world — to achieve net zero and avert catastrophe.” It says it will:

• Make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with a ten-year emergency upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes, and ensure that all new homes are zero-carbon.
• Drive a rooftop solar revolution by expanding incentives for households to install solar panels, including a guaranteed fair price for electricity sold back into the grid.
• Invest in renewable power so that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by 2030.
• Appoint a Chief Secretary for Sustainability in the Treasury to ensure that the economy is sustainable, resource-efficient and zero-carbon, establish a new Net Zero Delivery Authority to coordinate action across government departments and work with devolved administrations, and hand more powers and resources to local councils for local net zero strategies.
• Establish national and local citizens’ assemblies to give people real involvement in the decisions needed to tackle climate change.
• Restore the UK’s role as a global leader on climate change, by returning international development spending to 0.7% of national income, with tackling climate change a key priority for development spending.

They aim to achieve net zero by 2045 and meet the Paris Agreement target of reducing emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030 and have a wide range of energy, financial and industrial policies towards those aims.

Agenda 47

Agenda 47 is basically Donald Trump’s manifesto. It is presented as a series of videos which I chose not to watch. His record on climate already speaks for itself.

Green Party (UK)

Caroline Lucas in the Commons and Jenny Jones & Natalie Bennett in the Lords have done a sterling and often lonely and thankless job raising climate issues in parliament whenever they were relevant. We need more like them. The environment needs more like them. The climate needs more like them.

The Green Party manifesto says, “The election is also taking place against the background of a climate emergency” and the climate gets many mentions throughout the document with a focus on “fairer, greener” policies.

Policies include:

• Wind to provide around 70% of the UK’s electricity by 2030.
• No new oil and gas licences and the ending of all subsidies to the oil and gas industries.
• Communities to own their energy sources, ensuring they can use any profit from selling excess energy to reduce their bills or benefit their communities
• Investing billions for insulation and heat pumps and heatwave preparedness
• Minimising the climate impact of new homes and buildings
• Phasing out fossil fuels
• Cease development of new nuclear power stations

Republican Party

Republicans are still planning their 2024 platform. There is no sign of any improvement in their attitude towards climate change that I have seen.

Reform UK

The party’s manifesto is due out on June 17. The working draft begins by saying, “Net zero means reducing man made CO2 emissions to stop climate change. It can’t. Climate change has happened for millions of years, before man made CO2 emissions, and will always change”. The party has made false claims about the climate crisis. It is funded by “oil and gas investors, high polluters, and climate science deniers”. ‘Nuf said.

These elections are important.

If you care about the climate crisis, the most important thing is to prevent as many Tories or Republicans from winning in the election as possible.

But in the UK, that does not necessarily mean to vote Labour. Labour seems very likely to win the majority of seats, but it shares many economic imperatives with the Tories and these often limit the amount of money available for climate work. If it will not risk letting a Tory win, vote Green Party — it will help them grow. If you are in Brighton, Bristol, Waveney Valley or North Herefordshire constituencies or anywhere else that a Green Party candidate stands a good chance, vote Green Party anyway. We need more Green voices in parliament. Caroline Lucas has done a wonderful job but she is not running again. Any party to the left of the Tories is preferable to the Tories or any party to the right of them.

In the U.S., if the climate is important to you, vote Democratic. Trump or any other Republican would be terrible for the climate, and the race may be close.