Labour take the climate change challenge to the Conservatives



A post this weekend on John McDonnell’s Facebook page (don’t judge my political views - I'm a UCL student after all!) revealed Labour’s plan to put “climate change at the centre of [their] economic policy”. Labour is clearly challenging the Conservative Party to move climate change issues higher on the agenda. Whether this is the proactive governance that I'll be focusing on throughout the blog or political chatter to gain a few points is yet to be seen. We can only hope that Wednesday’s budget responds to these calls for environmental protection and that UK politics continues to progress in matters of conservation.  


John McDonnell | Tackling Climate Change Will Be Labour's Mora...
In next week's Budget, the Conservatives could do what the next Labour Government will and put climate change at the very centre of economic policy making.
Posted by John McDonnell on Saturday, 18 November 2017

Comments

  1. Unknown8 January 2018 at 10:39

    Really enjoying your blog Henry! I have to admit I only just checked it out, so I'm 'binge-reading' it.

    A quick question, apologies, if this is going to interrupt your dissertation research but how did the environment do in terms of the actual Conservative budget?

    Jack

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. H8 January 2018 at 14:54

      Hi Jack, thanks for the comment, binge away!

      Well the Conservative’s Autumn Budget fell short of Labour’s proposed plan to quite literally put environmental concerns right alongside economic strategy, but you probably could have guessed that. They have however, committed to investing £100 million in electric cars and ensuring all new-build houses will have the necessary cables for electric car charging already installed. On top of this they’ve allocated £220 million to tackle air pollution, which will be great for some regions, and they’ve also promised to have a look at ways in which single-use plastics can be phased out, although the reality of this is probably some way off (for more detail on any of these figures, you can find the Budget documents here)

      So they’ve certainly put a few environmental concerns on their agenda, but to say there’s a long way to go would be an understatement. I won’t attack the Conservative Party however, because any government coming into power has a big task ahead of them if they’re going to transform the UK’s economy into a sustainable one. The role of domestic politics on the environment is really interesting, including how it influences international environmental agreements, and this is something I would have liked to have explore in more depth had I had a little more time. I’ll try and do a post after my dissertation is out the way.

      I hope you enjoy the rest of the blog!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Governing The Arctic

Image
The melting of Arctic sea ice is a phenomenon many of you will be familiar with. However, you may not be aware of the impact of these changes on international politics. The Arctic has long been a site of political contestation , being of key strategic importance during the Cold War. Its location between the (then) Soviet Union and the USA   led to an initial ‘battle’   over its control. However, as ice cover has receded in recent decades, the race for Arctic resources has taken off. Satellite images from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Figure 1 highlight how dramatic Arctic sea retreat has been since 1979, with an average 12% reduction per decade . Anthropogenically linked climate change is causing profound changes in Arctic ecosystems, a region more sensitive than most due to complex feedback mechanisms known as ‘polar amplification’ . Temperatures have risen 1.1°C within the last 50 years , twice the rate of the rest of the globe, and with up ...
Read more

Can The COPs Win?

Image
I watched ‘ Guardians of the Earth ’ at a film screening this week and I have to say, I was slightly overwhelmed. The film focused on the Paris Conference, or COP21, as the ‘last attempt’ to salvage the Earth after 20 years of failed UN climate negotiations. Whilst the film was almost distressing in its highlighting of the complexity and urgency of the situation, the reaching of an agreement left viewers with a glimmer of hope. However, this is not fiction and the Paris Agreement might just be a big hint of the proactive international governance I was discussing in relation to the Arctic. As I said last week , I’ll therefore be having a look at what exactly COPs are, the problems they’ve faced, and why Paris might just be different Figure 1 : The leaders of COP21 celebrate after the passing of the Paris Agreement.  The COP journey to Paris has not been a smooth one. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, which emerged from the 1977 Kyoto COP, was  heralded as a s...
Read more

Introduction: Politics Cannot Avoid Climate Change

It was the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) that initially directed my attention to the politics of our environment. The notion that 195 countries, so often at odds or even at war with each other, could possibly sit down and come to an agreement that benefits perhaps not themselves but the planet as a whole, seemed, well…absurd. Add to this the complex histories of development that have unfairly advantaged certain countries over others and the divides deepen. However, central to all the discussions, debates and politics was the overriding necessity of an agreement that could help knock the Earth from its current trajectory. It was this necessity, one which transcended political borders, that centred my attention on the global politics of environmental change.   In recent years it has been suggested that humankind has become a major geophysical force, influencing the global climate and pushing our environment towards a point from which it may not recover; l...
Read more