Tory conference chooses culture wars over coherent policies for environment

What does Rishi Sunak mean exactly when he says he will challenge the status quo and take “a new approach to net zero”? His headline speech to the Tory party conference spoke about the sense of responsibility that his party feels for the environment.

But simultaneously he is arguing that his policies will end a (make-believe) war on motorists.

And while cancelling the Manchester HS2 branch and building roads may feel like a lovely thing to do for a small group of drivers, it will potentially lead to all sorts of environmental problems elsewhere.

Cancelling high-speed rail to build more roads is not just a betrayal of the promise to “level up” the north, but also a weakening by stealth of net zero policies. Transport produced 24% of the UK’s total emissions in 2020, and remains the largest emitting sector in the UK. Encouraging more traffic will only increase these emissions, and will make the country more unpleasant and polluted to live in.

For a start, we already know that building more roads means more traffic – study after study has shown the way in which traffic grows to meet the available space, and five years after any road is built, traffic volume has increased and congestion is as it was originally.

We also know it means more air pollution and less land for green spaces and housing. Sunak’s “approach” means continuing to burn fossil fuels for longer and delaying the changes needed for our planet and future economy.

He has promised that the UK will still meet its climate targets, all while refusing to say how it will be done. He presumably knows by the time they come around, he will have long departed the world stage.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, summed up the government’s views on the environment by choosing to fly from London to Manchester on a flight that took half an hour. His team said initially he decided to fly because he had an important meeting with the Japanese ambassador on Sunday morning but he then told the BBC that he thought his train had been cancelled.

Even Jacob Rees-Mogg believed the carbon-belching transport method to be a folly, telling the Guardian it does not save time because of the waiting times either side of the flight. Private aviation fan Sunak drove to Manchester, eschewing his beloved helicopter.

The net zero secretary, Claire Coutinho, said “net zero is a religion” for Labour and accused Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, of being a “radical”.

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, can always be relied on for a reactionary comment, and she used her speech to attack net zero as a “luxury belief” held by the wealthy elite – ignoring that it is the wealthy elite in the global north causing the majority of the emissions that are inflicting misery on poorer countries.

The environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, praised Sunak’s decision to roll back on net zero and told a lunch for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation she disagrees with the right to roam campaign – saying “the only things that have a right to roam are farmers, pigs and their cattle”.

Meanwhile, Michael Gove insists that a “green Brexit has been delivered”, citing farming reforms, the 25-year environment plan (which the Office for Environment Protection says he is now undermining) and Coffey’s widely derided “plan for water” to reduce sewage spills.

The atmosphere has been muted. Unlike under Liz Truss, where there were frenetic fights over fracking (though she did pop up again this year to inform us we need to frack to reach economic greatness), delegates seem to be aware that any idea this government puts forward will most likely be short-lived, as they are resigned to losing the general election next year.

It is hard to fathom how politicians could turn such a crucial issue, our livable planet, into a misinformation-filled culture war waged in the hope of a less embarrassing election failure. Let’s hope Labour has a more positive case to make next week.