As wildfires rage across the land and workers struggle in the heat shouldn’t Burnham be saying and doing more about the climate emergency?
A summer of wildfires
This has been the European summer of wildfires.
The New Forest in the south of England suffered from as many as six days of a major forest fire, which covered 1/6 km2 of the renowned national park. Firefighters tackled the blaze whilst others were busy removing litter from the by side of the main A31 road to stop the blaze spreading further.
An even more serious fire caught hold in the West Midlands, with as many as 19 homes destroyed in the town of Stourbridge. Other residents were told to stay away from their homes in what were described as “apocalyptic scenes”.
Meanwhile in Europe, Belgium suffered its biggest ever wildfire, which doubled in size in just 24 hours during the weekend of 15-16 August. It was noted that “hundreds of firefighters are spending a third day beating back flames tearing through Hautes Fagnes – the country’s largest nature reserve – prompting the evacuation of two nearby villages. Local farmers hauled water tankers towards the park near Belgium’s eastern border with Germany, backed by water-bombing aircraft and helicopters sent from Sweden and the Netherlands.”.
So bad has the situation been in Europe that as far away as the United States, no strangers to deadly forest fires themselves, the grim situation in Europe has been reported. It was noted that Europe was seeing record temperatures and that the unusually parched land had made the work of firefighters across the continent even harder.
The full scale of the global disaster this summer has been laid bare, with as many as 370 million acres of land ablaze across 80 countries. The total area afflicted by fires is more than the land mass of France, Germany and Spain combined.
Here in the North East we have also seen a major forest fire over the summer, with emergency services called to Gurney Valley, near Close House at Coundon Grange, following a fire breaking out there on 15 August.
That same week County Durham firefighters dealt with as many as 1,000 callouts, including calls to save homes from destruction as temperatures soared again.
Given that all this has been happening how has our new Prime Minister responded to the climate emergency going on?
Burnham’s response to the climate emergency
It was reported on 14 August that Andy Burnham had responded by issuing a temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues. He also urged people not to risk lives in “tinderbox” Britain that coming weekend and also brought in the military to help deal with wildfires.
It was further noted that “the prime minister spoke from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, where at least 19 people have been taken to hospital during eight fires that have ripped through several homes”.
However, for all the fact that it has been another long hot summer of record temperatures Burnham has said very little so far about the crisis around us. Indeed Burnham has said that he is minded to agree to licences for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oilfields in the North Sea, despite the irrefutable evidence this summer of just how serious the climate crisis is now becoming.
This is despite the fact that it has been made clear that Burnham may face a major revolt among Labour MPs if he does grant the two licences and that a lack of meaningful action on climate was one of the reasons why so many Labour backbenchers became disenchanted with previous Labour leader Keir Starmer.
Similarly, it was reported on 15 August that Burnham had been accused by many of the UK’s leading climate organisations, of “remaining silent” on the climate crisis even as Britain was struggling with what was its fifth heatwave of the year.
Burnham was urged to come clean with the public about the reasons for the excessive heat as fires spread and workers struggled in increasingly dangerous working conditions.
Burnham’s silence about the causes of the heat this summer, now that he has the power to really make a difference stand in marked contrast to comments he made eight years ago, when Mayor of Greater Manchester. It has been reported that in October 2019, Burnham stated that Extinction Rebellion had done a “great service”, by drawing attention to the climate crisis that year and pushing it up the political agenda.
Meanwhile, back in Burnham’s old stamping ground of Greater Manchester, the heatwaves this summer have been said to have placed “unprecedented pressure” on the police in Greater Manchester. In a similar vein, John Harris writing in the Guardian noted that Burnham has been silent on the climate crisis this summer, while categories of workers from bus drivers to nurses have suffered badly while trying to keep the country going.
What should be done
Shortly before he came to power it was reported that leaders of a number of faiths in the UK had written to Burnham, calling upon him to prioritise action on protecting nature and dealing with the climate crisis
This seemed the correct thing to do as the climate emergency has been shown again this summer to be an existential crisis for humanity and combating and mitigating it should surely be the priority for all political leaders in the world today. It is also a crisis where the poor and marginalised are being unfairly hit the hardest, despite doing the least to cause the problem.
The climate emergency is already costing us a huge amount of money and without clear leadership and action for leaders like Burnham this situation is only going to get worse. Meanwhile, people will die, more will suffer terribly and much of our nature risks being wiped out. We didn’t create this world and have a responsibility to look after it, not just do what we want.
Dealing effectively with the climate emergency is a challenge that simply cannot be shirked. It is time for Burnham to step up and explain to the British public just what is going on and what he intends to do about it.
Our Eden is burning. It is time for meaningful and effective measures.
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