Time to quit the past and face the future

PM Johnson’s “enthusiasm” for climate change starts with free holidays and ends with private jets, just as his business sense starts with obscenely expensive wallpaper and ends with Peppa Pig.

He reduced CopOut 26 to a farce where delegates were outnumbered by fossil fuel lobbyists waiving money, and rewarded with contracts and subsidies. We need to stop new exploitation of fossil fuels, oil, gas, coal, shale, fracking, acidisation, and nuclear power now if we are to keep global warming to below 2.5C, because we are already long past 1.5C. Far from “doing our bit”, this government has expanded fossil fuel exploitation at all levels.

Eating less meat brings health benefits, eating less junk food would do far more, especially the sort dependent on agribusiness, monocultures and excessive use of fertilisers, antibiotics and unacceptable animal husbandry practices.

Supporting our local farmers is essential, undercutting them with cheap imports and substandard practices is not.

Current EV-car batteries are guaranteed for 5-8 years but expected to last 10-20 years, reasonable when only 20% of

UK cars on the road are over 13 years old. The idea that we need to be “forced” to fit solar panels is disingenuous when more than 60% of people would willingly fit them if they could afford it, and over 70% would use community solar and wind schemes.

Nobody is suggesting we “get rid” of our fossil fuel resources. Left in the ground they will still be there for future generations; the real question is, will we? Only a NIMBY would begrudge the sight of sustainable wind farms in favour of toxic nuclear power stations with their future pollution and vulnerability to flooding and rising sea levels.

As for solar wind farms... Why would you cover good agricultural land when you can replace roofs with solar panels?

The time for “stepping back” is long gone. We know what needs to be done. We know how it can be done. The problem is a government too corrupt and dishonest to do it, and an establishment who would rather bask in the empty rhetoric of past imaginary glory than face the real problems of today and accept our collective responsibility for it.

Susan Hill Okehampton, Devon