The Tories must recover their climate credentials

It is, of course, not an isolated invention. From machines which trap plastic to remove it from rivers to tidal- powered electric vehicle chargers (in Shetland, by the way), we are teeming with ideas to solve the climate crisis.

These ideas all have one thing in common. Capitalism. They are not the creation of a government department or the by-product of windfall taxes on oil companies. They are game-changing innovations which will not only help us to arrest and reverse climate change, but will also make their inventors and owners money.

I am well aware that, however axiomatic, this is uncomfortable for many people, particularly those in the traditional green movement. Change the system, they cry. Capitalism has caused climate change. Indeed it has. But it is also the only thing that will solve it.

Research and development, an entrepreneurial environment and an incentive to innovate are our saviours, and they will not happen if there is no profit motive to power them.

Is it not a curiosity, then, that the default party of free-market capitalism, of entrepreneurialism and business, the Conservative Party, appears to be so determined to recuse itself from solving the climate change crisis?

If there’s a politician opposing a cycle lane, or a wind farm development, or telling us that this is all natural and there’ll be a long period of global cooling soon, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be a Tory.

It is not immediately obvious why this has happened. Indeed, it could be said that a Conservative was one of the UK’s leading advocates for tackling climate change before it was remotely fashionable, as far back as 1990.

“The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations. Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world's environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order. Our immediate task is to carry as many countries as possible with us, so that we can negotiate a successful framework convention on climate change in 1992. To accomplish these tasks, we must not waste time and energy disputing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report or debating the right machinery for making progress.”

The Tory in question? One Margaret Thatcher. The current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, was 10 when his famous predecessor made this speech, and yet, until Wednesday, he was electing to skip the 27th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) and ordering the King to stay away, too.

It is important to say that, to a significant degree, there is a gap between perception and reality. The UK has a challenging net zero target. It has decarbonised at considerable speed, more so than most other rich countries. However, perception matters, and the perception of the Conservatives is that they don’t care much about climate change.

They should, for three very good reasons.

The first is growth. Liz Truss is rather unlikely to be remembered in the historical annals as a successful Prime Minister, but her initial diagnosis is hard to dispute; Britain suffers from chronically low growth. But the viable, long-term, cast-iron guaranteed growth area for the middle part of the 21st century is fixing climate change. Education, research and development, the export of skills; it is as important to create a globally competitive advantage in these areas as it was when we started the industrial revolution 250 years ago.

The second is health. The United Kingdom is, whisper it, a deeply unhealthy country. The Legatum Prosperity Index has us well down the league table, sitting a fraction above Colombia, and well behind most of Europe and the Far East. Obesity rates, in particular, are profoundly depressing. We are Europe’s fattest country, by quite some distance, with more than one in four of us being obese.

In Italy, say, the rate is around one in five; if we were to replicate that, around three million fewer people would be obese. This would help people lead a better life, but it would also save an astonishing amount of money. We all pay our taxes towards the NHS, and the physical and mental health problems caused by obesity cost all of us a very large chunk of cash.

Conservatives should want to improve that, and good climate policy – from active travel to clean air to lower food miles – has the ability to be transformative in this area.

Tories who are unconvinced by these arguments, those who consider this whole area to be the luxurious preserve of the left, might want to consider the third good reason for leading on climate change. It will win you votes.

At 42, Mr Sunak is part of a generation of voters who instinctively see climate policy as a key part of the mental matrix they consider when crossing the paper at the ballot box. Anyone of his age or younger is disinterested in, and has already discounted, any notion that climate change is of little consequence. It matters to them; they have a lot of years to live (and by extension, a lot of elections to vote in).

They may be right-wingers, they may be left-wingers, they may be pragmatic centrists. Wherever they are on the ideological spectrum, they are in the same place on the climate spectrum; action.

The centre-right Liberal party in Australia learned this lesson the hard way. In that most diverse of countries, voters from the city to the country voted for candidates promising climate action. And the Liberals lost.

Britain’s Tories have a couple of years to learn from their Antipodean brethren. It may, in the final analysis, not save their skin. But their climate ambition will help determine whether they choose recovery or ruination in the aftermath.

Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters and Zero Matters

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