Rishi Sunak must end his attack on the UK's climate commitments. With the effects of climate breakdown being felt across the world, the UK's Prime Minister has declared that the only leadership he'll offer is to lead us into ecological disaster.
Announcing his climate wrecker's charter on 21 September, he scrapped or delayed of a host of measures designed to reduce our carbon emissions - from our move to electric vehicles, to the phasing out gas boilers, to future plans on recycling and curbing flights.
Then just a week after his original act of climate vandalism he made matters worse by approving the Rosebank oil field, the largest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea. Rosebank will cause emissions equal to the 28 lowest income countries combined.
Less than two years ago world leaders gathered in Glasgow for COP26 and committed to urgent action to keep our planet habitable and our future intact.
Tory MP Alok Sharma closed the conference by saying, “We can now say with credibility that we have kept 1.5 degrees alive. But, its pulse is weak and it will only survive if we keep our promises and translate commitments into rapid action”
The commitments to rapid actions are gone and that hope now lies in ruins. While the Prime Minister conceded the need for urgent action if we're to prevent ecological collapse, he proceeded to make every excuse in the book not to take it.
The message from the UK is clear - it’s business as usual for the fossil fuel industry and climate misery for the rest of us. The Tories are only thinking about the next election, and not the next generation.
These decisions will have a significant impact here in Scotland, cutting our funding for climate initiatives and making it much harder to change laws and regulations which will help us achieve net-zero. And they were made in Downing Street without any consultation with devolved governments. Meanwhile, in Scotland we’re trying to map out a plan to achieve net zero, but without the control over energy networks, pricing and the national grid that we desperately need if we are to make the full switch to renewable energy.
Where Scotland does succeed in taking a different path from the rest of the UK, the Tories have already shown that they plan to use the new UK Internal Market Act to scupper measures like the deposit return scheme.
Join our campaign to Save Our Future and write to the Prime Minister asking him to take urgent action on three areas;
- Commit to phasing out fossil fuels in our homes and transport
- Confirm an immediate end to new oil and gas licensing in the North Sea
- Give Scotland the powers to fully decarbonise our energy system
Do what Rishi Sunak won't and act to save our future today.