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It won’t be news to anyone currently in the UK that we’re experiencing an extreme heatwave. I’m typing this article in the middle of the afternoon, with all curtains closed just to keep the sun out in the hope the house will stay cool enough to work in. A choir I attend has been cancelled because of the heat. My local rail company, ‘southeastern’, has issued an ‘avoid non-essential travel’ alert, again because of the heat.
Extreme heat
Extreme heat has even worse consequences: In July 2022, when temperatures in London hit 40C, 41 homes around London were destroyed by fire. This link shows the aftermath in the village of Wennington, the worst hit place. I still remember being out in the evening and seeing a large part of the horizon covered with smoke from wildfires. This in *London*.
To put this into historical context, those of us old enough will remember the summer of 1976 – one of the most prolonged heatwaves in British history. We remember it precisely because it was so utterly exceptional. The highest recorded temperature recorded then was 36.9C (on July 3, 1976, in Cheltenham): A temperature that is now exceeded increasing regularity.
Of course, anyone who follows the news, or is aware of the science, will know exactly why this extreme weather is becoming so much more common: It’s because of our fossil fuel emissions changing the composition of the atmosphere, leading to climate change – with consequences for much of humanity that are likely to be far worse than what I’ve described in London. In spite of disbelief by some conspiracy theorists, mostly on the political right, none of this is remotely threatening to the scientific consensus.
The Conservative response
What is the Conservative Party’s response? Less than 3 months ago, they launched their energy campaign, Get Britain Drilling. In short, they want to burn even more fossil fuels, despite the fact that the numbers don’t add up (Their claim is to “secure cheap and reliable energy for the long term”, by drilling for more oil and gas in the North Sea. Reality: Most experts believe we’ve already extracted most of what is available in the North Sea fields).
No matter that this will increase our dependency on outdated fossil fuels at a time when renewable energy is becoming increasingly technologically viable. The sheer irresponsibility of seeking to lock in more climate change, and ignoring the entire scientific consensus about the impact on our lives is breathtaking, and I would argue is the single biggest reason why the Conservatives cannot be trusted with Government.
Reform
Unsurprisingly, Reform are following the same irresponsible path, but more emphatically. Their 2024 manifesto promised not only to fast-track a new North Sea drilling license, but also licenses for fracking, as well as scrapping the Net Zero target.
The folly of this has just been perfectly illustrated by the action of the Reform group in King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council. They proposed that the council should scrap its Climate Emergency Declaration. Unfortunately, the debate has had to be postponed… because of the extreme heat!
Liberal Democrats
Where are the Liberal Democrats in this? Policies to protect the environment and climate change have for a long time been one of our strongest areas. And with the Greens having largely abandoned environmentalism under Zack Polanski, there is now a gaping hole in British politics waiting to be filled by a party that can offer sensible economic policies for growth while also respecting the need to reduce CO2 emissions and protect the planet that we all need to live on.
Yet under Ed Davey, we just don’t seem to be there. Our leadership’s biggest recent contributions to the climate debate have included on two separate occasions calling not for green energy, but for lower costs for motorists to drive petrol and diesel vehicles.
Surprisingly, populism can prove popular
What worries me is that the Conservative’s approach, awful though it is, has proved electorally popular. In 2023 they won the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election after a campaign that was focused on opposing the expansion of the London emissions zone. And last week, they won the Aberdeen South by-election after campaigning directly for the extraction of more North Sea oil.
I’m going to suggest that those victories were crucially enabled by the fact that no other major party was willing to put its head above the parapet and passionately explain why replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy is so vital to humanity’s future. That absence from the climate debate gave the Tories a clean run. We can’t afford for this situation to continue.
Climate change is happening now
Climate change is no longer a warning about the future. It is something we can see through our windows today. The cancelled trains. The overheated homes. The wildfires in places where they once seemed impossible. And the temperatures that would have astonished previous generations of Britons.
At precisely the moment when all scientific evidence points towards the urgent need to end our dependence on fossil fuels, most of the British right are instead pushing to increase that dependence. Liberals should not be afraid to challenge that argument directly. And although in this article I’ve focused on the environment, the case for clean energy is not only an environmental one. It is a case for economic resilience, energy security, public safety, and a liveable future for the generations that will inherit this country after us. It’s time the LibDem leadership stepped up to that debate.
