In his first address to Tory MPs as incoming Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has said that the Tory party is facing an ‘existential threat’, and that it must ‘unite or die’. He also said that stability and unity is the only way we will overcome the challenges we face and build a better, more prosperous future for our children and our grandchildren.

While his first declared priority is tackling the economic crisis, he says he intends to run an ‘environmentally focussed’ government.
Good luck to him with achieving stability and unity, but rather more serious than the fate of the Tory party is the fate of our planet, on which all our futures depend regardless of our individual political leanings. The stakes could not be higher, and not just for future generations. The world’s climate is already changing for the worse, as long predicted, and urgent action is needed to save us from the course we are on.

Truss’s disastrous few weeks as PM included a refusal to address the issue of insulating the UK’s many old and leaky homes – in spite of it being part of the Tory’s 2019 manifesto; plans to scrap more than 500 environmental protection regulations inherited from the EU – many of which the UK itself helped to draft; new ‘Investment Zones’ with minimal regulation to constrain development, scrapping the new farm payment system that was previously claimed to be a Brexit bonus; and re-starting fracking.
Small wonder she incurred the wrath of conservation groups whose total membership exceeds eight million UK citizens, aka voters. Truss may have now stepped down, but Sunak’s own record on the environment leaves much to be desired.

As Chancellor he is said to have been focussed more on the costs of environmental action rather than the benefits, and with apparently no regard for the catastrophic costs of inaction.
His reluctant windfall tax on fossil fuel companies contains loopholes that encourage more investment in oil and gas. He stood in the way of a nationwide programme of housing insulation, simply because of its upfront cost to the Treasury. Never mind the cost to all those who despite government support will struggle with heating bills this winter, as many do every year.
During the 2019/20 winter – before covid – the Office for National Statistics reported 10,320 excess winter deaths, mainly from respiratory and circulatory diseases that are worsened by living in cold conditions. Every one of those unnecessary deaths is a tragedy, and the preventable diseases add to the burdens of our already overburdened, understaffed and underfunded NHS.
Perhaps Sunak is going to treat us to Tory u-turns in a positive direction. If so, it will be most welcome. I’m not holding my breath.