The world is now on “Code Red” in the fight against climate change.
The recent report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made for stark reading, confirming that human activity is changing our climate in unprecedented and irreversible ways.
Increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding are now firmly on the cards with the effects of climate change already being seen in the UK and around the world.
Without rapid, co-ordinated and meaningful action right now, any chance of controlling the rise in global temperatures and avoiding catastrophe will become almost impossible. That means deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases and a radical change in how we live, work and do business. As individuals and communities, we can all play our part but now, more than ever before, governments around the world really need to step forward and lead the way.
The world is in the climate and nature last chance saloon. The latest report is clear, detailed and must be acted upon.
Sadly these warnings are not new.
Back in 2008, the UK Labour Government passed the world’s first Climate Change Act. It set out ambitious, legally binding targets and put the need to tackle climate change firmly at the centre of the political agenda. The current Tory Government needs to show similar leadership now, not just domestically but also on the world stage with the forthcoming COP 26 summit of global leaders taking place in Glasgow at the beginning of November.
The 2008 Act built on the work of the ground-breaking “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change which outlined the environmental and economic consequences of the situation and prescribed the best options available to take long-term action. The report’s author, Nicholas Stern, has again recently spoken of how transformative that action now needs to be and has urged the Tory Government to drop any plans for further austerity and instead deliver on a credible and realistic investment plan.
Denial and delay on this has had its day and the Prime Minister really needs to get a grip. Current emissions targets are inadequate and there is no coherent or wide-ranging plan to do the things that need to be done in energy generation, green jobs, electric car manufacturing and much else besides.
The need to tackle climate change has not gone away while we have been dealing with the pandemic and its impact on our public health and economy will be no less significant. It needs to be treated with the same energy and urgency that we have needed to tackle Covid-19.
I welcome that following this year’s Senedd election, the Welsh Labour Government put climate change at the heart of its decision making. To this end, it created a new “super-Ministry” in which my Llanelli Senedd colleague, Lee Waters MS, is a Deputy Minister. This means that for the first time, transport, planning, housing and energy are brought together, with the environment, to tackle the climate and nature emergencies. The Tory UK Government could benefit from a similar sense of prioritisation and concrete action.
We need to do so much more to hit net zero by 2050 and I will be continuing to push for bold action to tackle the climate and ecological emergency at every opportunity.
