When Anna McMorrin MP visited the Antarctic as part of a government inquiry, she stumbled upon a report in the Rothera Research Station library that her father, a polar researcher, had written in 1962.
It described the Larsen ice shelf, a beautiful stretch of thousands of miles of thick, white, crystalline snow – which has now almost completely melted away.
Her shock at witnessing the change first-hand has reinforced for her the urgency of slowing climate breakdown in Antarctica to prevent a dangerous tipping point that could disrupt ocean currents and weather systems, with catastrophic implications for humanity.
She said: “[The Larsen ice shelf] has just completely melted away and disappeared into the sea. Ice that was there for thousands of years, and it’s gone in the last few decades.
“This was an important trip, because never has there been a more important time to look at the changing Antarctic and its impact on the rest of the world, the melting of the glaciers and the impact that’s having on ocean temperatures, the currents, biodiversity, weather systems. What happens in Antarctica does not stay in Antarctica.”
McMorrin, the Labour MP for Cardiff North, flew to the Falklands just before Christmas, where she was able to hitch a ride on a British Antarctic Survey ship, a science and research vessel named after Sir David Attenborough.
On arrival she found an “incredible continent that’s been totally isolated from the rest of the world”, with unique biodiversity, 24 hours of daylight during its summer and freezing winds that blow in wild storms at a moment’s notice.
Her expedition will feed into the recently launched UK and the Antarctic environment inquiry by the environmental audit sub-committee on polar research, which will look at how British scientific research and climate policy can slow climate breakdown in the Antarctic. The inquiry will soon hold a series of evidence sessions in parliament before publishing a report later in the year.
McMorrin found the trip particularly emotional because her father, Ian McMorrin, worked for the British Antarctic Survey. During his career, he surveyed and mapped the landscape, and he even has a glacier named after him.
Yet McMorrin – herself a former environmental campaigner and climate change adviser in the Welsh government – was as moved by what she did not see as what she did: “The changes that have taken place in those 60 years – it is stark. You are seeing glaciers retreat by huge amounts, hundreds of metres.”
She believes it is important to understand the mechanisms causing this, and the impact it could have on the world’s climate, from floods in the UK to changing weather patterns that have resulted in the Earth’s hottest-ever annual temperature and lethal forest fires around the globe.
A study published last week found that Greenland’s ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, 20% more than was previously thought.
McMorrin said: “It’s accelerating, and the worrying thing is we don’t know where that tipping point is – where we can’t reverse it. The only way forward is to ensure we have those stark cuts to carbon emissions, that we’re on this track to net zero, we don’t veer off that, we invest in renewables, we come together globally, meet our carbon commitments.”
The message she wants the general public to receive is that this doesn’t have to be about sacrifice. “It can be a good change, it can lead to more jobs, a better future for everybody, a much more pleasant place to live and more money in your pockets, because it’s an investment in our economy,” she said.
She also wants the public to understand that if they care about slowing climate breakdown, voting for Labour in the next general election is the best way to achieve this.
McMorrin said: “Labour has a plan for this. We are absolutely determined to turn our industries around and invest in decarbonising them.
“I’m not sure it’s understood by the Conservatives, they have a battle on their hands. Rishi Sunak turned back the clock on net zero last September, he slowed things down in terms of targets. That’s not someone who sees hope in the future of net zero, that’s someone who sees it as a problem.”
