Sharma turns up the heat on aspiring Tory leaders
CANDIDATES MUST AIM TO ACHIEVE ‘NET ZERO BY 2050’
BRITAIN’S climate minister Alok Sharma has indicated he may resign as Conservative leadership contenders equivocate on the government’s net zero target.
The intervention by COP26 president Alok Sharma came as temperatures in Britain touched 40ºC for the first time on Tuesday (19) after heat records tumbled across Europe.
Sharma told last Sunday’s (17) Observer newspaper the aim of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 was “absolutely a leadership issue”.
“Anyone aspiring to lead our country needs to demonstrate they take this issue incredibly seriously, that they’re willing to continue to lead and take up the mantle that Boris Johnson started off,” he said.
In the TV leadership debates so far, “green levies”, backed by Rishi Sunak to help pay for the legally enshrined aim of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 were questioned by fellow contenders Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt as Britons struggle with a cost-of-living crisis.
Asked if he could resign if candidates showed weakness on net zero, Sharma said: “Let’s see, shall we? I think we need to see where the candidates are. And we need to see who actually ends up in Number 10 (Downing Street).”
Under Sharma’s chairmanship, nearly 200 countries pledged at a UN summit in Glasgow last November to speed up the fight against rising temperatures, after two weeks of marathon negotiations.
But India and China weakened the language of the final text to retain high-polluting coal, forcing tears and an exasperated apology from Sharma as he brought down the gavel.
Asked about Sharma’s threat, Truss supporter and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith told Sky News: “I’m sorry he feels that.”
Truss still backs the principle of net zero but “we have to just put that slightly on the back-burner while we make sure people don’t suffer” from surging inflation, he said.
Asked whether she also still backed net zero, Mordaunt said on BBC TV: “Yes, but it has to not clobber people.”
However, campaigners note that the green taxes make up a small fraction of overall energy bills in Britain, which have shot up on the back of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
And they say the current heatwave gripping Europe and the UK is a reminder that climate change is an existential threat.
International environment minister Zac Goldsmith tweeted that with wildfires hitting Europe and temperature records being smashed, “it’s worth reflecting that there are still politicians being elected who think protecting our planet isn’t
cost effective”.