Manifesto Weak
[Final update]
What are the different parties offering on climate?
POSTED ON 10 JUN 24
BY JITIN CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY, NET ZERO, POLITICS
[Final update. All 6 national parties have now launched. I did not find time to do SNP/ Plaid Cymru.]
This week sees the release of party manifestos. I thought I’d summarise their offerings on climate here, with a view to assessing whether any of them are worth voting for. Climate policy is not in any way equivalent in magnitude to most of the other policies on offer – more GP appointments, more nurseries, more cops, etc. Climate policy in a very real sense is existential: it determines whether you have the sort of country that can afford to do any of the things it wants to do.
Jump to: Conservatives. Green Party. SDP. Labour. Reform.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Today, the day of the moon, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats to release their policy platform. What do they say about climate?
Climate change is an existential threat. Soaring temperatures leading to wildfires, floods, droughts and rising sea levels are affecting millions of people directly, and billions more through falling food production and rising prices. Urgent action is needed – in the UK and around the world – to achieve net zero and avert catastrophe.
i) no it isn’t;
ii) food production is growing, and those things would have happened anyway, or worse;
iii) at least they mention “the world” here. Going it alone is not an option.
What are they promising?
Liberal Democrats are committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045 at the latest.
What they did here is, take 5 years off the existing “legally-binding” target. Why 5 years? No special reason. Just to look more green than the others.
https://cliscep.com/2024/06/10/manifesto-weak/
