After 14 years of Tory government, Labour has swept to power on a wave of disillusionment and anger at the Conservative Party. This is an opportunity to fix much that has been broken in this country, to build a fairer society, and, crucially, to take urgent action on the existential threat of climate breakdown, which is already causing destruction around the world, hitting those who have done least to cause the crisis hardest. Will that opportunity be taken?

Time to act on climate

Globally, every month since June 2023 has set a new temperature record for that month. This excess heat has resulted not just in heatwaves, drought and wildfires but in supercharged storms able to carry higher rainfall loads, resulting in catastrophic floods in many regions, and here in the UK, farmers suffering from the abnormally wet winter.

But despite these clear signs of climate breakdown, which underline the dangers of making irreversible changes to our climate and potentially triggering tipping points, climate action here in the UK has stalled. Rishi Sunak spent his last months in power attempting to garner popularity by pushing back Net Zero targets alongside a mission to drill 'every last drop' from the North Sea.

The previous government's climate plan was recently found in court (for the second time) to be inadequate to achieve the UK's national and international climate targets. It's time for a new plan.

Time to invest in the future

For decades the level of public investment in the UK has been significantly lower than that of comparable countries. The Labour government has promised to deliver tangible improvements to people’s lives; to repair the damage to public services caused by austerity; and to get the UK back on track to address the climate crisis. These are all essential, but if public spending continues to be constrained to austerity levels, it is hard to see how these aspirations can succeed. The transformation that is needed cannot be left to the market, nor can solutions be limited to those which are acceptable to industry lobbyists. There is widespread support for public ownership in key sectors such as energy and transport. 

Time to get off fossil fuels

The climate crisis demands a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and no new oil and gas exploration or infrastructure. Labour's pledge not to issue any more licenses for North Sea drilling is vital, but on its own won't be enough. Last September, the Rosebank oil field, the largest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea, was given consent for drilling. The resulting CO2 emissions would be more than the annual emissions of all 28 low-income countries. It's essential that this field, and others which have recently been licensed are not developed. Labour will be in a strong position to do this if the forthcoming legal case against Rosebank approval is successful (following the groundbreaking Supreme Court judgement that downstream emissions must be taken into account in planning decisions).

We need a just transition for workers and communities who have depended on fossil fuel jobs which are already in decline. Jobs in North Sea oil extraction have already halved in the past decade, a trend which will inevitably continue as reserves decline. In the shift to renewable energy that can give this country genuine energy security, an industrial strategy for a just transition is essential.

Time for climate jobs

Any credible strategy to tackle the climate crisis needs to also be a jobs strategy, as set out for example in the Campaign against Climate Change trade union group’s 2021 report, Climate Jobs: Building a Workforce for the Climate Emergency. There are jobs to be created around the country - in insulating homes and installing heat pumps, in public transport, in renewable energy, in shifting to a zero waste economy, repairing, reusing and recycling. And in the rural economy, where farming is already being hit by climate breakdown. The proposal for a National Climate Service would create and coordinate directly employed public sector jobs to cut emissions across key sectors of the economy, with national planning and coordination of strategy and workforce training, and local delivery.

Time to make the planning system fit for purpose

The planning system is wildly out of sync with climate legislation, allowing polluting developments such as new roads and runways to go ahead without any consideration of how their climate impact adds up. This needs fixing, urgently. Integrating the national planning system with climate and environmental legislation also needs to be at the heart of Labour's plans to build more homes, to ensure all new developments are build to the highest energy efficiency specifications and are not car-dependent. The plan for massive public spending on new roads must be cancelled, and a moratorium imposed on new airport expansion.

Time to say no to greenwash

The government's green spending needs to be focused on solutions which are proven to cut emissions. One of the first things they can do is to remove the massive subsidies for biomass burning, which is harmful not just for the climate, but also for the forests in North America and Europe harvested to feed UK power stations. And linked to these is the wider dependence on carbon capture and storage to meet UK climate targets. This is the preferred solution of the fossil fuel industry but has never been proven to function effectively at scale, and risks locking us into dependence on fossil gas.

Time to repeal anti-protest legislation

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, and the Public Order Act 2023 were passed by the Tories in order to deter protest, criminalising established tactics such as lock-ons and creating sweeping powers for the Home Secretary and police to define what might fall under these new restrictions. The defence that actions were justified by the threat posed by the climate emergency has also been prevented, and civil injunctions brought to prevent protest at over 1200 locations.

The recent draconian sentences of four and five years handed down to protesters for participating in a Zoom call planning a protest that would temporarily close the M25 highlight the urgent need for the new government to review and repeal these restrictions, the need for which was never justified. 

Time for the UK to be a climate leader

There have been claims in the past that the UK is a 'climate leader', but these don't stand up to scrutiny. But the UK could break with the past and play a key role in global climate negotiations, which have been weakened by dominance of fossil fuel interests and by refusal of rich countries to pay their fair share in resolving the climate crisis. The UK could lead by example in phasing out fossil fuel production and use and support moves towards a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Secondly, the UK should pay its fair share, commit to new and additional climate finance to support countries which are still developing and have done the least to cause the climate crisis, supporting debt relief as an effective means of freeing up finance for these countries, and paying towards the Loss and Damage fund. (Read more about climate justice)