Russia’s invasion of Ukraine feels like a really pivotal moment in this story. In the fall of 2022, energy prices in the UK skyrocketed, however react by Liz Truss, prime minister at the time, doubled oil and gas exploration and refuse to ask people to cut down on their energy use. It’s the exact opposite approach many European countries facing the same problem.
At that time [the invasion] has happened, it’s clearly a real crisis and I think climate will be high on the priority list. But in my technocratic mind, I also think this will create incentives to move away from high-carbon fuels—if you want to know what the world looks like with a high carbon price, we’re about to find out Already.
What I didn’t expect was that the green arguments were too late because the fossil arguments immediately said, “This is why we need domestic fossil fuel supplies.” That really important argument, to act on this because fossil fuels are so volatile in price and so expensive, was a little bit missed in the political landscape at the time, and we moved to another story about what the country needs to do.
The irony during that period was that we were running out of oil and gas. So, in the long term, trying to pump out vital oil and gas licenses in the North Sea will not be a credible strategy.
A year later, Truss’s successor, Rishi Sunak, did one Big speech rolling back key climate policies, most notably rolling back the 2030 ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars.
If you look at it purely as a policy speech, there is more to pro-climate policy than delayed climate policy. For example, that’s where he talks about accelerating green investment. And the electric car thing [pushing back the 2030 deadline] not a huge change since we allowed hybrid cars until 2035.
But what did the country hear? They hear: “Don’t worry, now is not the time to switch to electric vehicles.” It’s hard to connect anything to a single speech, but if you look at the proportion of electric vehicles sold in the UK, it’s been flat since September. I’m sure there are other factors at play. here, but there will be people who think: “Oh, maybe I don’t need to buy that electric car right now.”
It seems this government has decided to make engaging motorists a key campaign strategy. In July 2023, the Labor Party narrowly lost a by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and many commentators suggested that the Conservative candidate won that election because he opposed the Republican Party. Extremely low emission zone.
What happened there was interesting. Labor also accepted the narrative that the ULEZ was the reason why they failed to win that constituency. Inevitably, in any election there are plenty of issues at play, but if all parties think it’s about environmental policy then it’s no surprise that it becomes one of the Political themes emerged then.
