It was reported in The Guardian on 3rd June that a number of prominent green groups had written to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and Global to raise their concerns that environmental issues were not being raised sufficiently by the media in the general election campaign.
It was noted that Hirra Khan Adeogun, who is co-director of the climate charity Possible, which was the group that coordinated the letter, had been reported as saying: “Where is the climate in this election? It’s a top five issue for the public, but you wouldn’t think it when you listen to our party leaders. We need our leading broadcasters to get the campaigns away from gaffes and infighting and on to the real issues. Climate solutions can bring down bills, bring up quality of life and bring the country together – so let’s have a conversation about it.”
I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t agree more with Hirra. In what is so far quite possibly the most lacklustre general election campaign that I can remember in 50 years of following them, most of the political leaders as a group and most of the media have spent a lot of time on personalities and gaffes and very little time on discussing anything of substance. Like policies. And specifically, important policy areas, like those concerned with the existential Climate Crisis, not mention several other environmental concerns.
General Election campaign
So, what should be on the news agenda daily regarding the environment, during this General Election campaign?
Clearly, the hugely important issue of the Climate Crisis should be a major topic of discussion. It should be a matter of concern to all of us that this has not been the case. It is a matter of life and death for millions across the world today and could be for the whole of humanity at some stage in the future, if we continue with ‘business as usual’. With regards to the Climate crisis, it should be being looked at in several ways.
The NHS
Firstly, the Climate Crisis is a major health issue. This was seen at least as far back as 2003, when the August heat wave across Europe caused at least 30 000 excess deaths across the continent. Similar problems have been seen in other heatwaves.
Yet there never seems to be any mention in the political discourse of gearing the NHS up to be better prepared for future periods of extreme heat, as the Climate Crisis intensifies.
Housing
There has been a small amount of discussion about housing during the campaign, However, this has concentrated on the numbers of houses that need to be built, rather than the type. Certainly, there is great need for more housing across the country and especially more affordable housing, whether to buy or rent. There is also a desperate need for more social housing, particularly for the kind of key workers, who were praised so loudly during the Covid-19 pandemic, but still find it difficult to find appropriate housing.
However, there really needs to be more discussion about the type of housing being built as new and the retrofitting of older housing. All people living in our region and especially those hardest hit by the cost-of-living crisis, must be given the opportunity to talk about and get involved in effective climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts that affect them. Obviously, one of the biggest areas for this is in terms of adequate housing insulation, which can help to reduce both energy bills and fossil fuel emissions, while also contributing to a healthy standard of living. Similarly, we need to be talking about ways in which housing can be adapted to help the drive to Net Zero carbon emissions, with the installation of features such as heat pumps and solar panels. Yet in this election we have heard nothing about greater insulation or ways in which housing can made be less dependent on fossil fuels.
Education
Another policy area, about which very little has been said in the election campaign is Education. With regards to this policy area and the environment, there are two very important things to say. Firstly, the National Curriculum is in many respects simply not fit for purpose and one of these is the way it helps young people to get a good understanding of the Climate Crisis. There is no sense of it being an overarching theme in the National Curriculum, despite the seriousness of the issue and the huge impact that it is going to have on young people’s lives during coming decades. It is taught in a very fragmented way, which does not make it easy for young people to join the dots and get a full understanding of the topic.
If we are to really tackle the Climate Crisis in a serious way, we are going to need to transform our economy from one dependent on fossil fuels, to one which is as close to Net Zero as possible. This is going to require a huge drive to get people skilled up. Yet the further and higher education system is at present nowhere near to being geared up to be ready for this. That is not to say that efforts are not being made to remedy this, as reported by the Green Business Journal. However, as with the National Curriculum, there has been a deafening silence from both politicians and the news media, during the General Election campaign, about getting Further and Higher Education fully geared up to tackle the Climate Crisis.
Jobs
Transforming our economy to Carbon Neutral can create a lot of jobs. For example, by 2038, we will need a workforce of around 70,000 in this country involved in developing offshore wind, based on a target of 100 gigawatts of installed energy, according to the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group (CACCTU). Similarly, CACCTU suggest that 90 000 jobs could be created through the creation of 37 GW of rooftop and on-site installation of solar panels by 2038 along with 60 GW of large and medium-scale PV farms that could be installed, increasing total capacity to 97 GW by 2038. 37,000 new jobs could be created in the area of water power, with 16,000 people working in tidal stream offshore energy production, while tidal barrage energy production could add another 5,000 jobs to the green industry total and another 16,000 jobs could be created in the area of wave energy production.
Altogether around half a million new jobs could be created across the country as part of the decarbonising the energy sector of the national economy, according to CACCTU, while thousands more jobs can be created in decarbonising the economy. All this job creation presents an excellent opportunity to grow the economy in a way that will add little to the Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere and provide good, well-paid jobs. Yet, we have heard nothing of this from the main party leaders during the general election campaign so far…
A Just Transition
Then we have the huge area of a Just Transition to a Carbon neutral economy. This will involve changes in many areas of our economy, including developing an efficient, fully integrated public transport, housing and addressing inequalities and poverty.
However, there has not been a word about this from most of our political leaders, while the main political commentators on our television screens seem totally oblivious to this policy area.
Sewage and drinking water
Then there are other environmental issues, which should be being discussed regularly during the general election campaign. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the dreadful situation regarding sewage and ownership and regulation of water companies. It was reported in the Guardian on 4th June that the drinking water regulator for England and Wales had brought only three prosecutions against water companies for providing poor quality water since 2021. This was despite there had been 362 instances in which water had been designated as being unfit for human consumption. The report went on to note that, “the problems range from old pipes causing discoloured water to a deteriorating water-treatment process. Improvement measures vary from replacing pipes to rebuilding water-treatment works. Figures reveal only a tiny fraction of these legal instruments led to a prosecution. Water companies are under a legal obligation to provide safe drinking water to their customers.”
The sight of sewage on our beaches and the plight of customers unable to drink water from their taps for fear of falling seriously ill is a national scandal and one of the clearest signs of just how broken Britain is today. Despite all this, discussion of this hugely important policy area has been largely absent from the General Election campaign so far. There has been little, or nothing said about the lack of regulation of our water companies, let alone a debate about whether water companies should be taken back into public ownership, as shareholder profits seem to be being put above the health and safety of customers. The sewage on beaches is scandalous. But so is the lack of debate about the state of our drinking water.
Rewilding
Then we have the issue of re-wilding. Rewilding Britain have noted that there are 7 reasons why rewilding can help the world. These include helping to fix the Climate Crisis, supporting local economies, improving our health and wellbeing, help provide clean air and water and create healthy soils, strengthen communities, help to mitigate extreme weather conditions and reverse biodiversity loss. Yet there hasn’t been a word from most political leaders or commentators about this issue during the general election campaign so far either.
Speaking of biodiversity and the extinction crisis, it was noted by the BBC in 2021 that the UK is: “one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries – in the bottom 10% globally and last among the G7 group of nations, new data shows.” The report went on to note that as a country we have only an average of about half of our biodiversity left, far below the global average of 75%. By way of contrast, it was also said that “a figure of 90% is considered the “safe limit” to prevent the world from tipping into an “ecological meltdown”, according to researchers.” Again, here is another major environmental issue, which is simply not being addressed by most of our political leaders or commentators.
Conclusion
I can’t remember an election when so many important issues were being neglected by so many of the political leaders and political commentators. We have so many problems facing us as a country and the General Election campaign is an opportunity to discuss issues and start to find solutions. However, so much of the media content has been about personalities and when policies have been put forward, they seem to have been little more than gimmicks to try and win a few more votes here and there, with no overarching themes emerging or truly joined up policy being offered by major parties. And with regards to the environment, so little has been said, one could be excused for thinking that all was well. But back in the real world, temperature records continue to be broken across the world, it was recorded in March that England had just had its wettest 18 months on record and our biodiversity continues to decline. The concerns that so many people across the country have about the environment are simply not being addressed in the General Election campaign.
I wonder how future generations will look back and regard us, our politicians and our media?
