A LibDem Perspective – Rampaging wildfires, flash floods and hurricanes, Wake Up!
I could have wept with frustration when I heard that champion of the extreme right, the unelected ‘Lord’ David Frost, glibly claim last week that global warming is ‘Likely to be beneficial to the UK’ as, apparently, more people die of cold than heat in this country. This at a time when the dire and immediate impacts of global warming are filling our news channels. Whether it is wildfires rampaging in 45C temperatures, flash floods, hurricanes, shrinking glaciers and ice sheets, or warnings of mass extinctions as the natural world struggles to adapt quickly enough, the need for all of us to wake up to the immediacy of the global warming threat could hardly be more clearly demonstrated. Increasing numbers of environment scientists warn the rapid melting of Greenland’s ice cap could disrupt Atlantic Ocean currents sufficiently to ‘turn off’ the Gulf Stream that protects our mild climate as soon as 2025. Should that happen temperatures could drop 10C with catastrophic results.
The Tories’ narrow retention of the Uxbridge & Ruislip parliamentary seat seems to have galvanised the far right into trying to block government environmental measures. Goodness knows our government is weak enough already in its environmental protections- and not being sufficiently challenged by Keir Starmer who has said a Labour government would not revoke newly granted oil and gas exploration licences.
There can be little doubt that ‘ULEZ’, the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone by the London Mayor was a major factor in the Uxbridge result. Although there is a £110m scrappage scheme, compensation is only available to those on certain low income or disability benefits, sole traders and charities. Most people won’t qualify, and they only have until August to comply before hard up families will be hit by a daily charge of £12.50 for using their cars (which will have negligible sale value). Liberal Democrats are fully supportive of the expansion of ULEZ but in light of the cost-of-living crisis wanted the scrappage scheme to be more comprehensive, and for the measures to be phased in over a longer period. There can be no doubt though that thousands of people across the whole country continue to suffer and die prematurely because of pollution from vehicle exhausts and it is important that polluting vehicles are removed from our streets.
I know that many decent moderate Conservatives are appalled by the extreme right of their party, indeed many of them joined with Liberal Democrats to oppose Brexit. The other two by elections in Somerton & Frome and Selby & Ainsty saw stunning swings in favour of Liberal Democrats and Labour, and surely show moderate Tories that there are alternatives to our current hapless government that just seems so devoid of ideas.
Those who deny man-made climate change should be classed alongside flat-earthers, anti-vaccers, and 9/11 deniers. We are fast running out of time to put things right.
Cllr Kathryn Field
