Tony Blair’s recent intervention in the guise of a highly critical essay of Labour provided uncomfortable reading for the government. Predictable and some might say self-serving, in his 10-point plan, one area shone a light on the thorny issue of the government’s approach to climate and its net zero policies.
His argument is that Labour should prioritise cheap energy over net zero, criticising the government’s decision not to allow any new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.
Unwelcome as the 10-point plan might have been for Labour, it has also reignited the often contentious debate over the choice between cheap versus clean in the provision of our future energy needs in an ever-increasingly warming world.
Cheaper energy but at what climate cost?
Although ideally these two concepts could be true at the same time, proponents of the status quo such as Tony Blair, suggest that energy generated from fossil fuels are currently a cheaper option than those derived from renewable sources and therefore the better choice, both from an economical and affordability perspective.
Equivocation over how we transition away from fossil fuels dependency for our energy needs serves no one except the vested interests of those who continue to make huge profits from the burning of oil and gas for our contemporary and future energy needs.
Climate change isn’t a vision from a dystopian future or science fiction movie, it is happening in real time and we ignore the warnings at our peril. The temperature of 35.1°C recorded on 26 May, broke the previous May record of 32.8°C, which had stood since 1944.
It’s not as if the impacts of climate change are rejected by the British public. Recent polling by YouGov found that 84% of Britons accept that the climate is changing, even if 17% of those surveyed don’t consider that our changing climate is related to human activity.
Blair, a voice from the past, not for the future
The overwhelming scientific consensus is that a business as usual approach to our climate is unsustainable. Notwithstanding this unanimity, high profile critics of the imperative of a future underpinned by renewables continue to benefit from a disproportionately higher public profile than their discredited narrative should warrant.
With his well publicised intervention this week, could it be that Blair is seeking more relevance in contemporary politics than perhaps his legacy should afford him?
What I find so disappointing is that he has sought to make such political capital at the expense of the government’s approach to net zero.
Like him or loathe him, he still has the profile and influence to create noise in high places.
So much the pity that he chose publicity over the urgent need to address the climate crisis. Blair could have been a good friend of the climate lobby. Instead he chose a different path; putting himself on the wrong side of history with that choice.
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