Thatcher ‘would be appalled by Kemi Badenoch’s vow to scrap climate act’
Margaret Thatcher would have been “appalled” at plans by the Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch to scrap the Climate Change Act, according to a Tory grandee.
Lord Deben, a former environment minister, said any bid to axe the UK’s landmark climate law would have dismayed the former Tory prime minister. “She would have been appalled by it. She didn’t support industries which were no longer going to be the future. She actually moved the support to new industries,” he said, referring to the shift from coal to gas power in the 1980s and 1990s.
Deben said Badenoch’s plan was “very sad”, “an entirely wrong step” and “not a Conservative thing”.
“When one thinks about it, the truth is that the Climate Change Act has been supported by every Conservative prime minister, and of course it follows directly in the footsteps of Mrs Thatcher,” he said.
Lord Deben chaired the climate change committee for 11 years
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Thatcher was one of the first world leaders to warn of the need to act on climate change. 1n 1990 she said: “The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.
“Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community.”
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Badenoch announced on Thursday that she wanted to abolish the 2008 Climate Change Act, a step that would remove Britain’s legally binding carbon targets, including reducing emissions to net zero by 2050. She claimed the move would drive economic growth and lead to cheaper energy.
However, Deben, who chaired the climate change committee for 11 years, argued that repealing the law would be bad for the economy. “In a competitive world, where we want to sell goods abroad, and if we want more jobs, the way forward is not to go backwards,” he said.
“Two hundred years ago, there were lots of people who said we shouldn’t build railways because they were expensive, and they were intrusive, and we should keep with our well-trusted toll roads and canals. That’s exactly what [Badenoch is] saying here,” he said.
His view was echoed by Britain’s largest business group. Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said: “Fundamentally ripping up the framework that’s given investors confidence that the UK is serious about sustainable growth through a low-carbon future would damage our economy.”
Alok Sharma, the former Tory MP and president of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, said: “Turning our back on this progress now risks future investment and jobs into our country, as well as our international standing. The path to a prosperous, secure, and electable future for the Conservative party lies in building on our achievements, not abandoning them.”
Though passed by Gordon Brown’s Labour government in 2008, the Climate Change Act was a product of cross-party consensus. The late Tory MP Peter Ainsworth played a key role in forging the legislation during David Cameron’s “hug a husky” climate awareness period. The law introduced a binding goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, a target that Theresa May in 2019 strengthened by making it net zero.
Part of Britain’s net-zero drive has involved using wind farms to generate renewable energy
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Deben warned that Badenoch’s decision would cost the Tory party votes. “It’s an absolute open goal as far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned. What you are going to do is to make a whole lot of moderate, sensible people, who believe in markets, who would very much normally vote Conservative, say to themselves: ‘well we’ve got to think about our children, and we’ve got to think about ourselves’,” he said.
The peer, who said he remained a Conservative, said Badenoch did not appear to have spoken to any scientists or “understood what the science says”. The 2050 net zero target is what scientists have said is in line with hitting the international target of holding global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Later this month the government will have to publish an updated plan for how it will meet its binding carbon targets, after the High Court last year ruled ministers had breached the Climate Change Act.
The Conservative party was contacted for comment.