Keir Starmer faces a challenge at party conference that no UK opposition leader has faced in more than 30 years. He will have to defend his climate policy against a bitter and sustained attack.
Since the late 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher became the first UK prime minister to vow to tackle the climate crisis, a cross-party consensus on the issue has endured. In the last eight general elections, there has been no serious debate over whether to try to cut greenhouse gas emissions, only over how.
That consensus is now broken. At their party conference last week, the Conservatives openly turned the climate into a culture war, with attacks on net zero, the roll-back of key green policies, and bogus claims that Labour’s eco-zealots wanted to impose draconian new laws, such as meat taxes and rationing trips to the shops.
Rishi Sunak claims to be still committed to the UK’s legally binding target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but refuses to show how that is possible, while his anti-green rhetoric ramps up.
It’s now up to Labour to respond. Starmer will be faced with a barrage of claims – from the Tories, but also from voices within his party, including some powerful unions – that net zero is unaffordable. He should rebut those falsehoods. As the extreme weather around the world, and the woeful state of the UK’s own environment, show, net zero and environmental policies are much less expensive than the alternatives.
Sunak’s own words at the Tory party conference show how Labour should fight back. Sunak told the conference of how he “learned the reality of what people were being asked to do [for net zero], the thousands of pounds people would need to pay, all of it falling on the shoulders of the poorest in our society”.
The prime minister is a former banker, so he knows these claims are simply untrue. Reaching net zero does require some upfront investment, though it will be quickly paid back in energy savings. Treasury analysis shows that the cumulative cost of net zero by 2050 will reach £1.3tr – but £1tr will be offset by savings, and the remainder is fast being wiped out by high energy prices and new technology.
It is not the market, or some universal law of physics, that decides where those upfront costs should fall: it is the government, and this government has taken political decisions that have deliberately – and sometimes cynically – shunted the costs on to those least able to bear them.
Take housing. Why are houses still being built without solar panels? The government insists it is because of the need to be “technology neutral” – as if some other as-yet unknown invention might burst on to the scene, though none have in the 70 years since photovoltaics were invented.
There is an alternative explanation. As Guardian analysis revealed this week, building a new house with solar panels, heat pump and high-grade insulation adds more than £8,000 to the construction cost, paid by the developer. Retrofitting it costs about £33,000 on average, paid by the homeowner. Rules that would have required developers to meet low-carbon standards were scrapped soon after the 2015 general election, a move that has saved housebuilders about £15bn at a conservative estimate.
Housebuilders and developers are among the biggest donors to the Tory party, donating about 20% of all party donations.
Or look at water. Lax regulation since privatisation has allowed water companies to kill our rivers and poison beaches with sewage. Meanwhile, water shareholders have received about £72bn in dividends. But the government is set to allow households and taxpayers to pay for cleaning up their mess.
Car ownership is another example. The government is claiming to be fighting a “war on motorists” – but motorists have been treated with extraordinary favours. Fuel duty has been frozen since 2011, at a cost of £80bn, while £27bn on new roads was a cornerstone of the last Tory manifesto. Axing the northern leg of HS2 is set to unleash a fresh torrent of money for new roads, while UK public transport availability is among the worst in the developed world.
Across a range of green and net zero policies, the government has worked hard to minimise the costs to certain sectors – its donors, businesses it favours, and people the Conservative party regards as its natural voters – while the costs to poorer people and society as a whole are allowed to accumulate until they reach crisis point.
Sunak will make it as difficult as possible for Starmer to change any of this. Some of the costs – such as the savings to housebuilders and water companies – are now irrecoverable. On HS2, ministers are selling off the land they expensively bought, so an incoming government would find it near-impossible to revive the plans. Expect more of this, as Sunak seeks to heap costs on an incoming Labour government.
Yet the economics, as well as the moral imperative, are clear. Net zero is the only economic growth story now feasible for a developed country, as the US and the EU are demonstrating. Done properly, net zero swiftly reaps dividends, as renewable energy costs have plunged while fossil fuels continue to rise. Energy efficiency and insulation not only cut emissions but reduce bills for hard-pressed households. Public transport, if made widely available and cheap, would increase productivity. Green investment brings new jobs and the health benefits of clean air and water.
Net zero, and green policy more widely, are not the problem. It is the way this government has chosen to implement its policies, protecting vested interests while disregarding vulnerable people, that have made environmental policy appear expensive. Labour can make different choices.
• Fiona Harvey is an environment editor at the Guardian
