{"id":25514,"date":"2025-10-03T01:58:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=25514"},"modified":"2025-10-03T01:58:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:58:44","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-climate-policy-britain-needs-clean-power-not-culture-wars-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=25514","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on climate policy: Britain needs clean power, not culture wars | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

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L<\/span>et\u2019s scrap Britain\u2019s successful climate law so we can burn more gas, lose investment and have higher bills. Crazy as it might seem, that is the message of Kemi\u00a0Badenoch\u2019s new energy strategy. The Conservative leader proposes to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act in favour of a plan to \u201cmaximise oil and gas extraction\u201d, and remove all legally binding carbon targets. It\u2019s pitched as pragmatism. But it\u2019s a lurch into ideological self-harm.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s energy problem isn\u2019t its climate legislation, which is admired globally, backed by industry and supported by the public. It\u2019s that this country remains too dependent on volatile fossil fuels. Emissions targets are not the reason for high bills. It is gas prices, which skyrocketed after Russia invaded Ukraine. They set UK electricity prices. In Europe, they don\u2019t \u2013 that\u2019s why bills are lower there. Rather, Mrs Badenoch is choosing to follow Donald\u00a0Trump in rolling back climate goals and seeing\u00a0electricity prices in the US rise, not fall.<\/p>\n

In Britain, she is mimicking Reform UK in a race to the populist bottom. It\u2019s a culture war stunt \u2013 turning climate doubt into tribal identity. And it\u2019s pathetic: a retreat from 17 years of Conservative climate leadership. The former Tory prime minister Theresa\u00a0May rightly condemned it. This isn\u2019t pragmatism \u2013 it\u2019s the abandonment of a successful industrial strategy, a gift to polluters and a blow to corporate confidence. It shatters a rare cross-party consensus that made Britain a global leader.<\/p>\n

Contrast that with Ed Miliband\u2019s Labour party conference speech, delivered the day before Mrs\u00a0Badenoch\u2019s announcement. The energy secretary offered a full-throated defence of the green transition as both an economic necessity and a moral mission. He argued that clean energy is the foundation for a new economy \u2013 one built in the interests of working people, with unionised jobs, lower bills and public ownership. He named the rightwing billionaires standing in the way \u2013 notably Elon Musk \u2013 and cast Labour\u2019s green agenda as a battle for the future against misinformation and oligarchic wealth.<\/p>\n

The most significant part of his speech wasn\u2019t about energy at all. It was his rejection of trickle-down economics and austerity, the twin failures behind decades of stagnation. By doing so, he used clean energy not just as climate policy but as a Trojan horse for a deeper transformation \u2013 a blueprint for a post-crash greener, fairer social democracy. Mr Miliband\u2019s pitch went far beyond cautious technocracy. It was a story about whose interests the economy serves, and a subtle dig at Labour\u2019s current orthodoxy on growth.<\/p>\n

The politics of transition are hard. Mr Miliband didn\u2019t spell out in his speech how Labour would shoulder the costs of structural change, though on the conference fringes he worked hard to turn tensions with trade unions into\u00a0partnership. He still faces the pressure of high\u00a0bills in a cost of living\u00a0crisis. Building an affordable clean energy system must be the goal of the government \u2013 not just Mr\u00a0Miliband. Mrs\u00a0Badenoch\u2019s absurd plan\u00a0is\u00a0anti-science and a reckless attempt at framing net zero as elitist. In an age of cynicism, cautious technocracy won\u2019t win hearts.<\/p>\n

Mr\u00a0Miliband\u00a0offered\u00a0conviction and hope. Speeches\u00a0can inspire, but it is delivery that keeps\u00a0people onside. That is Mr Miliband\u2019s test \u2013\u00a0and\u00a0Britain can\u2019t afford for him to fail.<\/p>\n