Conservative vs Labour on climate change

PA Wire

What, if anything, are the two parties planning for this year’s election in matters of climate change?  

by Lina Boulkout

The United Kingdom currently faces many issues, including who they are going to vote for in the next election. The traditional rivalry between the Labour party and the Conservative party is on the table again. The polls currently announce that the Labour party is well-ahead with a 10-point swing from Conservative to Labour since the 2019 General election in the United Kingdom.   

Labour's well ahead popularity in the polls for the coming elections can make us look more closely at its party's manifesto. It includes five missions: new economic stability, building new facilities for clean energy and cheaper bills, supporting British businesses, skills revolution and making work pay. This includes banning zero-hour contracts and ending fire and rehire. Labour's long-term goal is to promote economic growth and tackling challenges, which may have been caused by decades of austerity.  

The Conservative Party's pledges include halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing debt, cutting waiting lists and stopping the boats. Policy ideas pushed by the Conservative party conference from October 2023 include tax cuts, reducing immigration, and AI regulation.  

The next general election will be decisive in the current economic and social context. The UK fell into a technical recession in February as the "economy shrank by a larger than expected 0.3% between October and December", whilst the economy grew by 0.3% overall in 2023. Whilst the Bank of England commented that this recession was "mild", chief UK economist Ruth Gregory warned about its political significance. In fact, the announcement converges with the growing economic inequalities for low-income households, women, and students. This is shown by record number of people depending on food banks as food inflation was at 16.7% in 2023.  

The NHS waiting list figures reveal that 7.6 million people are still waiting for medical care, highlighting the urgency for the upcoming government to tackle this. This crisis also highlights the shortcomings of the Tory government and its failed pledge to cut NHS waiting lists, as Rishi Sunak admitted. 

Why climate change matters for this next election  

This year, the UK and many other nations have an election, over 4 billion people going to the polls in 2024. This will be a decisive year for the future of our planet, as 2023 was  recorded to be the hottest year and close to the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Agreement.  

At a global scale, the US's high oil production under the Biden administration, pipeline developments in East Africa, the state of China's renewables market, are examples of what needs to change.  

In the UK, the Rosebank energy license activities will also be highly influenced by who wins the next general elections.  

Although the UK was the first country in the world to create a binding commitment to cut gas emissions, the pledge of cutting 80% of emissions by 2050 is still considered a long way to go.  

For instance, the UK's financial industry creates 1.8 times more emissions than the whole of the UK and is still highly underregulated. Overall, the UK is one of the world's biggest contributors to global warming.  

According to research by Options 40, there is a consensus amongst the public that tackling climate change is an important long-term challenge. It is yet to be seen if this is reflected in the party manifestos.  

A plan for climate change?  

Amongst the top concerns of voters, are soaring prices including energy bills. This has been especially explained by the war in Ukraine, prompting politicians to seek more energy independence from top suppliers such as Russia. Rishi Sunak insists that having a domestic supply of oil and gas will keep energy prices under control.  

That said, the Conservative Party's commitments shy away from their past pledges to reach net zero by 2050.  

The current new oil and gas bank in the North Sea, Rosebank, is a new extraction plan which was approved in September 2023. Even though the new licensing is anti-climate protection at various levels, the party maintains it is a step forward towards reaching net zero by 2050. This was further highlighted by the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt during the latest tax cuts announcements at the beginning of March 2024.  

Furthermore, the party plans to continue to ease the transition to electric vehicles and giving more time for families to transition a heat pump, except for households "where this simply doesn't make sense". The party also wants to "scrap expensive energy efficiency requirements". Finally, it plans to continue to support green research and development.  

According to Daniel Cappuro, environment correspondent at INews, the new Rosebank field in the North Sea will not keep prices down. This is because Britain's oil and gas sectors is privatised, and most of the domestic supply is exported. As a result, the supply gained from new oil drilling from Rosebank will mostly be exported and sold back to Britain at higher prices to make more profit.  

The recent release of a Carbon Budget Delivery Plan in March 2023 is considered as "inadequate and in breach of the Climate Change Act" according to environmental NGOs Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and Good Law Project.  

The proposed politics on climate change by the Conservative party is focused on economic growth, limiting immigration, and tackling the NHS crisis. Climate issues are portrayed by the party as "expensive" for the government and the population, therefore not deemed as a priority.  

Labour's grand announcements for climate change is scrapped  

In 2021, Labour announced a £28 billion plan per year until 2030, to invest in a greener future in the UK.  

This is part of a wider plan to invest in "clean energy" and create a national wealth fund to "build industrial strength" by investing in Hydrogen. This will ensure that UK homes are "warmer" through a plan for "clean power" by 2030.  

It is not only different, but also sounds visionary and highly ambitious.  

As a result of the opposition party's criticisms about getting the funds to afford that plan, Labour said it would deliver the investment plan more gradually than previously announced.  

The recent U-turn on this plan has led the party to scrap the 28 billion figures later.  

As an updated plan, it said it would spend "less than 5 billion pounds a year" on green projects to invest in home insulation.  

This is planned to be funded through a tax on oil and gas firms.  

According to the Guardian Newspaper, there is "no question that a Labour government would be far better for climate than a conservative one".  

This is because a "green prosperity" plan would be good for climate and would inject public investment to boost economic growth and "stimulating private investment through higher levels of public investment in green transition is vital to growing the economy".  

The scrap of the initial investment plan speaks volume to the current dilemma of voters; whose main priorities remain tackling the cost-of-living crisis. This, however, cannot be achieved without more public investment in things that matter.  

The fear of the public about the cost of living is also used by the opposing party, as questions on how these projects will be financed arise.