PM's green policy changes "classic example" of climate delay
An academic at the University of the West of England is criticising the Prime Minister
The Prime Minister's (PM) announcements on environmental policies this week were a textbook example of "climate delay".
That's according to a lecturer at the University of the West of England (UWE), which has just become the first in the UK to offer its students a free course on the climate emergency.
"Climate delay" discourse is defined as when a person or group accepts that climate change exists, but argues inaction or inadequate efforts to tackle it are justified.
"The use of the costs to people of climate policies, the cost to ordinary people, that's a classic delay discourse that is used as an excuse not to take appropriate action on climate change," Laura Macallister, lecturer in social marketing at UWE, told Greatest Hits Radio.
On Wednesday, (20 September) Rishi Sunak made several announcements on green policy including that a ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars would be delayed from 2030, to 2035.
He also said the phasing out of fossil fuel boilers would be moved from 2026 to 2035 and that landlords would no longer be forced to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties.
The Prime Minister also declared he was scrapping various other policies including taxes on meat to encourage greener diets and compulsory car sharing, though none of those ideas had been seriously discussed in government.
As such, critics accused the PM of dishonesty in suggesting he was having to act to prevent them.
"My students tell me all the time about how worried they are about climate change and it breaks my heart," Laura said.
"It's really sad to hear that often they feel quite hopeless about the future and their future careers.
"So what's really nice is to be able to get involved in something like this that not only gives them the facts about what climate change is, how it was caused, it also helps them to build resilience and the skills to inspire action in others as well, which is, we know a really helpful way to cope with the rising levels of anxiety that young people are feeling about the climate crisis."
"Unacceptable costs" to Brits
In his speech on Wednesday Mr Sunak insisted the UK was already ahead of allies in reducing emissions and could not impose “unacceptable costs” on British families.
“The risk here to those of us who care about reaching net zero, as I do, is simple: if we continue down this path we risk losing the consent of the British people,” he said.
“And the resulting backlash would not just be against specific policies but against the wider mission itself meaning we might never achieve our goal.
“That’s why we have to do things differently.”
The Prime Minister said he wasn't abandoning any of the targets and that the UK would still become net zero by 2050 but he also said the debate about achieving net zero had “thrown up a range of worrying proposals”.
He said: “Today I want to confirm that under this Government they will never happen."
Laura though, says students and the wider public are very concerned about the impact of inaction.
"We know that it's something people are worried about," she said.
"We've seen in recent surveys of young people that many are very concerned about (the) climate.
"We know that the general public are very concerned about the climate...
"This (the new course at UWE) is a way of empowering people with the facts and helping them deal with the rising levels of concern and anxiety and actually do something about it."