Panic not, whoever wins the election come May, tackling climate change is on their to-do list. That was the message from the UK’s main party leaders this Saturday, as Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all put their scrawl to a cross-party pledge declaring climate change was “one of the most serious threats facing the world today”.
You’d be forgiven for being underwhelmed by the news.
It’s not the first time all three parties have supported strong climate action. That was in 2008, when all but five MPs voted for the rather more significant Climate Change Act.
It’s also not the first time the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour have pledged to tackle the problem. All three parties promised to do something about it in the run up to the 2010 election.
And it’s definitely not the first time these three politicians have called climate change a threat. Cameron said so in his first speech as Conservative party leader in 2006, Clegg said so in his career-making appearance in 2010’s leaders’ TV debates, and Miliband said so many times as the UK’s Energy and Climate Change secretary.
So what is the point of the pledge?
Here are five things the agreement is, and one very important thing it isn’t.
The Tories are scared of UKIP. Labour are scared of the Greens. So the narrative goes, anyway. The climate pledge had the advantage of isolating both these parties in different ways.
UKIP are now marked as the only party invited to participate in the televised debates that doubt climate change is either caused by human activities, or is a serious problem. A potentially awkward position, given most of the British public believe both these things. At the same time, the Greens can no longer claim to be the only party that care.
Labour are doing ok in the polls, but not many people like the idea of Ed Miliband becoming prime minister. Many seem to think he simply isn’t a leader.
Before becoming Red Ed, he was Green Ed, the UK’s energy and climate change secretary. This, Labour’s strategists seems to think, is an issue he should be able to look good on, despite himself.
Richard Black, Director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, explains to me:
Indeed, it was campaigners that dreamt up the pledge. The Show the Love campaign, supported by groups as diverse as the Climate Coalition and CAFOD, calls on people to show their affection for the planet by cutting back on emitting greenhouse gases.
It’s a “classic tactic” by campaign groups, one commentator told me. Essentially, it allows them to say ‘look, the UK has agreed to do this, whatever the outcome of the election, so stop playing politics and get on board’.
But it’s unlikely others will follow suit. The US’s polarised politics makes it seem “a million miles away” from a similar pledge, Chris Shaw, a Sussex University lecturer tells me. Richard Black agrees. “It’s hard to see the US Republican leadership or [Australian prime minister] Tony Abbott doing something like this” while there’s such a staunch left-right divide, he says.
But that doesn’t mean they never will. “For younger Republican supporters climate denial is just not an option, it’s simply not credible”, Black says.
As Carbon Brief points out, perhaps the most significant part of the three-pronged pledge is the absolute commitment to phase out coal. As Black puts it, “it confirms that in the UK, coal is a fuel of the past.”
This isn’t really news, though. To hit the UK’s emission reduction target, the Department of Energy and Climate Change projects coal being taken off the electricity grid by 2027, Carbon Brief says.
Now they’ve signed the pledge, any of the leaders will look pretty silly if they suddenly change course once they set foot in Downing Street. You can be sure whoever is in opposition will be quick to remind them of it.
Through the art of Commons’ pantomime, the pledge might just be enough to stop future governments backsliding on commitments they’ve already made.
Which leads on to one thing the leaders’ pledge definitely isn’t: a new commitment.
Cameron, Clegg and Miliband’s signatures in no way suggest that the UK will go beyond its current climate change plans.
Shaw makes this point well. He says the pledge:
More than that, the pledge risks shutting down debate. Shaw argues that it says “we have the solutions to climate change, these are them, and there is now nothing left to discuss.” As a consequence, “what they have agreed on is not a literal transcription of the science but a very politicised interpretation of it.”
But, of course, that was the point. The pledge isn’t a means to tackle climate change, it’s a political device to let leaders get ahead by saying what they’ve said before. It’s money for old rope; tired rhetoric for poll points.
The leaders may agree climate change is a threat, but the cross-party pledge is no guarantee the UK’s next prime minister will take the hazard seriously, whoever it may be.
You’d be forgiven for being underwhelmed by the news.
 |
| Credit: Green Alliance |
It’s not the first time all three parties have supported strong climate action. That was in 2008, when all but five MPs voted for the rather more significant Climate Change Act.
It’s also not the first time the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour have pledged to tackle the problem. All three parties promised to do something about it in the run up to the 2010 election.
And it’s definitely not the first time these three politicians have called climate change a threat. Cameron said so in his first speech as Conservative party leader in 2006, Clegg said so in his career-making appearance in 2010’s leaders’ TV debates, and Miliband said so many times as the UK’s Energy and Climate Change secretary.
So what is the point of the pledge?
Here are five things the agreement is, and one very important thing it isn’t.
What it is
A way to isolate the Greens and UKIP
The Tories are scared of UKIP. Labour are scared of the Greens. So the narrative goes, anyway. The climate pledge had the advantage of isolating both these parties in different ways.
UKIP are now marked as the only party invited to participate in the televised debates that doubt climate change is either caused by human activities, or is a serious problem. A potentially awkward position, given most of the British public believe both these things. At the same time, the Greens can no longer claim to be the only party that care.
 |
 |
| Source: Department of Energy and Climate Change, public attitudes tracker survey wave 9 |
A strategy to make Ed Miliband look like a leader
Labour are doing ok in the polls, but not many people like the idea of Ed Miliband becoming prime minister. Many seem to think he simply isn’t a leader.
Before becoming Red Ed, he was Green Ed, the UK’s energy and climate change secretary. This, Labour’s strategists seems to think, is an issue he should be able to look good on, despite himself.
Richard Black, Director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, explains to me:
“For Ed Miliband, climate change is a legacy issue. He was energy and climate secretary at the time of the Copenhagen climate summit, and was instrumental, along with his brother, in ushering in the Climate Change Act. So he has serious skin in this game – if he wants to be seen as a real leader, which according to the polls he’s struggling with at the moment, a strong position on climate change is politically positive.”
A campaigner's dream
Indeed, it was campaigners that dreamt up the pledge. The Show the Love campaign, supported by groups as diverse as the Climate Coalition and CAFOD, calls on people to show their affection for the planet by cutting back on emitting greenhouse gases.
It’s a “classic tactic” by campaign groups, one commentator told me. Essentially, it allows them to say ‘look, the UK has agreed to do this, whatever the outcome of the election, so stop playing politics and get on board’.
But it’s unlikely others will follow suit. The US’s polarised politics makes it seem “a million miles away” from a similar pledge, Chris Shaw, a Sussex University lecturer tells me. Richard Black agrees. “It’s hard to see the US Republican leadership or [Australian prime minister] Tony Abbott doing something like this” while there’s such a staunch left-right divide, he says.
But that doesn’t mean they never will. “For younger Republican supporters climate denial is just not an option, it’s simply not credible”, Black says.
A push to phase out coal
As Carbon Brief points out, perhaps the most significant part of the three-pronged pledge is the absolute commitment to phase out coal. As Black puts it, “it confirms that in the UK, coal is a fuel of the past.”
This isn’t really news, though. To hit the UK’s emission reduction target, the Department of Energy and Climate Change projects coal being taken off the electricity grid by 2027, Carbon Brief says.
A stick to beat each other with
Now they’ve signed the pledge, any of the leaders will look pretty silly if they suddenly change course once they set foot in Downing Street. You can be sure whoever is in opposition will be quick to remind them of it.
Through the art of Commons’ pantomime, the pledge might just be enough to stop future governments backsliding on commitments they’ve already made.
What it isn’t
Which leads on to one thing the leaders’ pledge definitely isn’t: a new commitment.
Cameron, Clegg and Miliband’s signatures in no way suggest that the UK will go beyond its current climate change plans.
Shaw makes this point well. He says the pledge:
“... may help the three main parties take the wind out of the green sails. It may be a very strong message in the lead up to Paris 2015 and it is good to know that there is this cross party support for the Climate Change Act. But we have been here before, climate change became yesterday's news when the financial crash came ... [Despite the pledge] there is no sense of a deep shift in recognition of the risks posed by climate change.”
More than that, the pledge risks shutting down debate. Shaw argues that it says “we have the solutions to climate change, these are them, and there is now nothing left to discuss.” As a consequence, “what they have agreed on is not a literal transcription of the science but a very politicised interpretation of it.”
But, of course, that was the point. The pledge isn’t a means to tackle climate change, it’s a political device to let leaders get ahead by saying what they’ve said before. It’s money for old rope; tired rhetoric for poll points.
The leaders may agree climate change is a threat, but the cross-party pledge is no guarantee the UK’s next prime minister will take the hazard seriously, whoever it may be.
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