The Arctic ocean could be completely ice-free in September 2030 according to the latest data from scientists. The ice coverage for the region in August was the second lowest on record. The three worst years for ice cover have all been in the last four years.
Of course, the annual melt leaves ice coverage smaller in the summer and autumn months. Even in September 2030, scientists expect ice to return in the winter months but the scale of the change should be a wake-up call to everyone. This time last year, we were deep in the build-up to the Copenhagen climate change negotiations with the media, NGOs and politicians across the political divide actively engaged in local debate. Since the election, climate change has all but disappeared from the government’s agenda.
Despite promising to be the ‘greenest ever’ government, David Cameron has failed to deliver on anything but rhetoric about the environment. In contrast, the priority appears to have been proving that ministers can be as tough on the natural environment as they can on other areas of public investment. Since the election we have seen funding pulled for the Sustainable Development Commission, budgets cut for electric cars and backtracking on support for offshore wind and clean coal technology. The energy secretary has become a convert to new nuclear build whilst the government resisted European calls for a moratorium on deep sea oil drilling in the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that climate change is less of a priority for this government than the last one. And we haven’t even had the spending review announcement yet. Last week I spoke at the National Energy Action conference on the future of fuel poverty and energy efficiency. Despite positive words from the new minister it is doubtful how much funding will survive beyond this current round.
No doubt the party conference season will see renewed calls for investment in green technology and the swift transition to a low carbon economy. Yet these calls remain as hollow as David Cameron’s rhetoric without sustained government action. It is incredible to think that the polar ice-cap could be replaced by a blue ocean within our own lifetime, even if it is just for part of the year. But that fact underlines the challenge ahead.
The reality is that the heavy lifting phase of climate change policy needs to happen over the next five years. By the time of the next election – if it is held in 2015 – it could be too late to restrict climatic rises to two degrees. We need concerted policy change now. The melting of polar ice-cap would not just be a disaster for wildlife and the ecosystem in the High North it would also irrevocably change global weather patterns.
The scale of the cuts proposed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has the potential to fundamentally undermine moves towards a low-carbon economy. For a party that professes strong concern for the environment the Liberal Democrats should be ashamed of the compromises they have made in the name of power and by the dismantling of state intervention aimed at stimulating and providing new green industries. It took Labour a long while to recognise the importance of an active industrial policy to help encourage and support private sector innovation; it has taken less than four months for the new coalition to unpick that progress.
The new government needs to understand that tackling climate change requires more than a press release and a few good speeches. The test of the spending review and party conferences will not be what is in the headlines but the hard detail of investment and funding. And if the coalition won’t take up the challenge then it falls to us in the broader progressive and Labour movements to provide an alternative.