That’s True Too

Failing the First Test of Climate Leadership?

What an extraordinary summer. Record-breaking heatwaves and drought. Deadly wildfire sweeping across Europe and beyond. A death toll in the UK of some 3,000 people as a result of the heat so far this year. And still, there remains the steady drumbeat of threats to extend drilling for new oil and gas in the North Sea – and the obscenity of record profits for the oil and gas companies.

If an alien were to visit from another planet – or even a child from a future generation – and witness the current discourse, they’d think we were utterly mad, wantonly reckless, and criminally irresponsible.

‘Cognitive dissonance’ is the polite term that might be deployed to describe the insanity of the current debate in these sweltering dog days of summer. Rank greed and hypocrisy are less polite ones. Apparently, in government, the term of choice is now ‘pragmatic’.

Andy Burnham, we are told, is going to take a “pragmatic” approach to the North Sea. Well, I’m sorry to break it to him, but climate breakdown doesn’t give a flying fig as to whether soaring emissions are a consequence of pragmatism or principle.