Is Boris Johnson doing enough to tackle climate change? | Climate Politics

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🗓️ 6 October 2021

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

In the first of a special series of episodes in the run up to the global climate conference COP 26, Anoosh Chakelian interviews our guest co-host Philippa Nuttall, The New Statesman’s environment and Sustainability Editor, about how the Government is facing up to climate change and what to expect from Glasgow’s environmental summit.

They talk about how much lives need to change, who the onus for change needs to be on and how the UK compares to other countries in their approach to cutting emissions and tackling the climate crisis.

Throughout the series Philippa and the NS Podcast team will speak to experts and leaders on the environmental issues facing the UK and the world.

Episodes will be published every week, with the normal New Statesman Podcast published on Fridays as usual.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Anouche and today we're starting a special series of episodes looking at the politics
0:10.8	of climate change and what changes we might need to see in the UK if we are going to reduce
0:15.6	independence on energy. Our co-host for this series is Philippa Nuttel. She's the environment
0:34.0	and sustainability editor at the New Statesman and she's with me today. Hi, Philippa, thanks so
0:38.8	much for coming on. Hi, Anouche, thanks for inviting me. Ahead of this new series that we're doing
0:44.8	on the climate crisis. We've got COP coming up and you've even had the government's COP
0:51.2	spokesperson saying that she's not ready to drive an electric car and that perhaps we should all be
0:57.0	all stop rinsing our dishes before we stack our dishwashers. Some of the messaging has been a
1:01.3	little lackluster leading up to the event. Do you think our politicians have really got to grips
1:06.7	with this crisis and what needs to get up to scratch ahead of the conference? Yeah, thanks Anouche.
1:12.4	It's interesting to hear very simple answers to the climate crisis. As you've just mentioned,
1:17.2	I think it will come as no surprise to you to hear that the short answer is no. I don't think
1:21.1	politicians anywhere have really got to grips with the climate crisis. Part of that is because
1:25.9	climate change is the original wicked problem. It's extremely difficult to tackle. It's very complex
1:31.6	and it's very interconnected and getting to grips with climate change means we're thinking not
1:35.7	just that energy systems, the way we heat our homes, cook our food or whether or not we rinse our
1:40.5	plates perhaps, but also how we power our cars, our trains and planes, how we produce our food and
1:46.6	how we produce and consume all the products that we use today. And this is clearly a massive
1:51.5	task. I think politicians everywhere are struggling how we face up to this task and to make the
1:56.3	decisions to enable the change and also how we finance it. And I think in the run-up to COP,
2:01.5	especially the UK as the host of COP26, really needs to accept the difficulty of this issue to
2:09.8	face up to it. And I think also what would be great is if we could start treating it as a cross-party
	...

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