Stand by for more broken promises on the Environment

When Zak Goldsmith, the British Government’s international environment chief resigned in June, his departure provoked a mere ripple of attention in the Press. To the extent the media chose to give any attention to his departure, they preferred to downplay his reasons for resigning and instead adopted the line that his decision was down to him being asked to apologise for undermining the parliamentary inquiry into former PM, Boris Johnson. This despite Goldsmith’s own insistence that he was resigning because of the Government’s apathy in the face of the environmental challenge. This despite Goldsmith own statements that he was happy to apologise for publicly sharing his views on the Privilege Committee.

Weeks on from Goldsmith’s resignation, we hear Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak announce a review into low traffic neighbourhoods and declare that he’s ‘on the side of motorists.’ Then days later, he defends the expansion of oil and gas drilling in the North Sea claiming bizarrely that the move is consistent with achieving net zero targets.

His recent moves may improve his political prospects. But given inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, they may not by themselves be enough to stave off defeat at next year’s general election. His announcements provide another stark reminder of why we will not save ourselves from environmental calamity. It demonstrates that outside imminent threat to life scenarios such as war, the real priority of government will always be the economy.

We should not hold hope that a Labour government, faced with the same choices, would have taken a vastly different position. Ours is a consumerist culture, and in the face of any serious threat to our material standards of life, one of the first casualties will be spending on environmental projects and initiatives inimical to economic growth.

As we move towards an economic reality where higher cost credit, falling populations, and rising inflation assails us, no politicians keen on power will dare impoverish us further. in the interest of the yet unborn.

This is all very sobering. But there remains, for those with a sense of a humour, some pleasure to be had by observing the justifications offered by leaders placed in this position. Take poor Rishi. On the same day that he expressed his willingness to approve drilling licenses that will extend our dependence on fossil fuels he took pains to have himself photographed opening a carbon-capture facility in Scotland.

In that moment, we were allowed to watch svelte and dapper Rishi adopt the classic attitude of our obese uncle who justifies breaking his strict diet to scoff a chocolate cake, by declaring to us just before the first bite, that he’ll register a few more steps on the pedometer the following afternoon to make up for it.

Don’t you worry, the diet is still on course!