The win, achieved at the 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties in Paris last week, is for my family, and especially my nieces and nephews and their future children. That is how important the outcome of the COP21 Paris conference will be for their future and the future of our planet. Now, I know that some may snipe, saying I am being hyperbolic. But that would be wrong, because there can be nothing as important to the future of humanity as the threat posed by climate change.
People can be under no illusion that climate change will affect each and every one of us. Some suggest that the United Kingdom will not be affected by a rise in global temperatures above 2oC, but that is naive and misinformed. Although it may sound like a small number, its affect will be dramatic. Sea levels may rise by up to six metres, with experts suggesting that the UK we will see much wetter weather conditions with more extreme weather events and storms. And abroad, there will be significant changes to the climate across each and every continent with more severe droughts in the American midwest and Africa and more intense storms coming from the Gulf of Mexico. And, as we have seen in China this week, continued use and investment in fossil fuels leads to air pollution that takes us back to the ‘pea-souper’ days of the 1950s.
This is why the outcome achieved in Paris is such an important step in tackling climate change. Never before have so many nations acknowledged the threat of climate change and agreed to take action to tackle it. Some may say that because the agreement is not legally binding it is worthless, but that misses the point. The first step to sorting out any issues is to acknowledge that there is a problem – something that the Paris agreement does. Not only that, it bridges the gap that existed after Copenhagen accord in 2009 between developed and developing countries, with all states in Paris accepting both an individual and collective responsibility to tackle climate change. And fundamentally, an important feature of the agreement is that all countries will be mandated to report on their progress to tackle climate change every five years, the significance of which cannot be underestimated. This alone will foster greater transparency between nations, making nation states more accountable for what they have, and more importantly have not done.
It is against this positive outlook that the Labour party has an opposition day debate on climate change this week. Thanks the work of the last Labour government and in particular Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, the UK has been a world leader in tackling climate change, being the first country to put into legislation actions to carbon emissions. But our position as a global leader is under threat from a government that claims it is all ‘green crap’. They are banning onshore wind subsidies, reducing solar feed-in-tariffs to a level that makes it uneconomical for individuals and businesses to invest in solar renewables, weakened the standards for new build homes by rolling back on zero-carbon homes commitment, a trailblazing policy initiative by former housing minister Caroline Flint, virtually stopped all investment in making our homes and businesses more energy efficiency and awarded diesel generators subsidies of around £170m to keep our lights on in four years’ time. These are not really the hallmarks of the ‘greenest government ever’.
It is therefore the responsibility of the Labour party to hold this government to account for the abysmal decisions they are making which will ultimately put the UK on the wrong side of history when tackling climate change. The Labour party has a duty to do for our children and for their future children. In this task, we cannot fail.
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Jason Prince is a member of Progress. He tweets @Jason_Prince