 David Cameron may not need convincing on climate change,
but just how many of the new generation of Conservative
MPs will share his concerns?
I can read opinion polls. Over the
past year, every single one has
pointed to the likelihood that,
after May’s General Election, there
will be more Conservative MPs than
from any other political party.
I can also read the science. This
shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that
the threat of accelerating climate
change is very real. And that it is
necessary to make signifi cant
alterations to the way we do things to
minimise the likely deleterious effects.
The leaders of the three main
political parties, and their energy
and environment spokesmen, are at
one in stressing the seriousness and
the urgency of adopting policies to
address this threat. During the
forthcoming election campaign, I
can confidently predict that the only
dissension between the relevant
senior party figures will be
regarding who would adopt the
most effective policies to minimise
the impact of changing our climate.
So there is no significant dispute
about the importance of this matter? Is this purely a managerial issue
now? My concern is not with the
party leaders. It is with the followers.
More precisely, it is the lack of
traction the climate change issue
now has among those likely to be
taking their seats as Conservative
MPs after May.
Conservativehome is a very
influential right-wing website. It just
polled 250 Tory candidates in the
party’s most winnable seats: 144
responded. Each was given a list of 19
different public policy priorities. The
candidates were asked to rank each
from 1 to 5 in levels of importance.
There was no limit to the number of
issues which could receive five points.
Nonetheless there was one issue
which came far and away bottom, trailing all the others.
With an average score of just 2.8,
'reducing Britain's carbon footprint'
was deemed to be way less important
than any other issue. Law and order,
the economy and European Union bashing
ranked very high in the
respondents’ priorities. So for that
matter did “more help for marriage”.
Or “protecting the English (sic)
countryside”. All had significantly
more support as a priority for
Conservative legislators.
In the end just eight out of 141
prospective Conservative MPs (5 per
cent) appear to regard climate
change as a five-star, top-ranking
issue. This is a very sobering statistic.
During this parliament, party
leader David Cameron has been at
pains to emphasise his personal
concerns about the threat of climate
change. This is a very difference stance
to the one he took in 2005, when he
was given the job by his predecessor,
Michael Howard, of editing the
Conservative manifesto. Then he
carefully excised all the radical ideas for combating climate change put
forward by the party’s then
environment spokesman, Tim Yeo.
But undoubtedly over the past
five years, the scientific consensus
regarding the dangers posed by
accelerating climate change has
become even stronger – even while
the noise promoted by scientific
illiterates has increased in volume.
During that period a myriad
number of publications have been
issued on the topic. Strangely mute
on the entire subject have been all
the various think-tanks positioned
to the right of centre of UK politics –
in strict contrast to the numbers
emanating from Labour and
LibDem-oriented organisations. An exception is the most respected Conservative supporting think tank,
Policy Exchange. Last autumn they
were due to launch a pre-
Copenhagen climate summit report
with policy recommendations. It
never appeared then. At the time of
writing, it still hasn’t.
However sincere may now be the
convictions of party leader David
Cameron and his energy and climate
change spokesman, Greg Clark, they
may well be leaders without too
many followers. As the editor of the
Conservativehome website Timothy
Montgomerie is quoted in the
Financial Times as warning: “I am
confident the climate change
sceptics are going to win. It is for
Cameron to decide how he is going
to get out of this. But he has lost the
battle already.”
Is Montgomerie’s view a triumph
of hope over expectation? Certainly
another survey, on this website of
party members, found threequarters
believing that energy prices
are likely to be a far bigger political
issue than climate change during
the next Parliament.
Meanwhile, two senior
Conservative MPs with strong
environmental and energy efficiency
credentials are stepping down,
former environment secretary John
Gummer and former shadow
secretary Peter Ainsworth. Their
wise counsel will be lost.
Among the intake of new
Conservative MPs since 1997, few
have evinced much interest in
ecological issues, let alone sought to
address the magnitude of the impact
upon our daily lives that dealing
effectively with climate change will
need to have. Or even more serious
detrimental effects that will occur if
no serious attempts are made to
ameliorate it.
The greatest of leaders are prepared
to lead, in trust that their supporters
will follow in their wake. At present,
those who do regard 'reducing
Britain's carbon footprint' as a five star
issue may be trusting too much in
the leadership qualities on offer to
the British people this May.
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