Why the UK’s Conservatives have given up on climate
Zero: The Climate Race
Bloomberg
4.8 • 296 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2024
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After 14 years as a member of Parliament for the UK’s Conservative Party, Chris Skidmore quit the government in January — an act of protest over Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to allow new oil and gas licenses. Skidmore says the party has lost its way when it comes to climate issues, costing the UK lives, jobs and opportunities for economic growth. In this episode, Skidmore also discusses the Net Zero Review he published while in office, and talks through climate solutions emerging outside of Westminster.
Explore further:
- Past episode with Chris Stark of the UK’s Climate Change Committee about whether the era of climate consensus is over
- Past episode with Bryony Worthington, one of the authors of the UK’s Climate Change Act
- Past episode with three US governors– Republican and Democrat– about how they navigate partisan politics and the need for climate action.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim and Alicia Clanton. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Zero. I am Akshadrati. This week, a former conservative, Lambas, his party. |
| 0:17.2 | In the UK, it feels like a make-or-break moment for net zero. |
| 0:22.6 | The country's forward-thinking approach to climate change has, for some years now, been a source of pride. |
| 0:28.6 | The UK was the first major economy to create a national climate law and to make a net-zero commitment. |
| 0:35.6 | All that has helped the UK cut the most emissions among the world's major economies. |
| 0:41.3 | It has also pushed other countries to move faster by leading the way at global climate summits. |
| 0:48.3 | And the UK was pivotal in pushing through the 2015 Paris Agreement. |
| 0:53.3 | But the current government is moving away from all of that. |
| 0:56.0 | Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has diluted key policies and backtracked on green commitments. |
| 1:02.0 | It's something I asked Chris Stark of the Climate Change Committee about earlier this year. |
| 1:07.0 | He acknowledged that the consensus that has existed across all political parties on climate action |
| 1:12.9 | could finally be at a risk of crumbling. |
| 1:16.4 | It's a consensus that's been taken for granted for more than a decade. |
| 1:22.1 | And it's a bad time to lose it. |
| 1:25.6 | But Stark was likely holding back in his criticism. |
| 1:29.0 | This week, we weighed deeper into the reality of climate politics here in the UK. |
| 1:34.8 | Take a listen to what a former Conservative minister who just quit the party earlier this year |
| 1:39.6 | had to tell me about his party stance on climate. |
| 1:43.8 | In its current state, the Conservative Party |
| 1:47.2 | is endangering people's lives, people's jobs, |
| 1:51.6 | the opportunities for communities to grow further |
| 1:54.4 | by taking a negative approach and rowing back |
... |
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