It is really important to understand that people want to do the right thing. We have seen that throughout the covid pandemic. Most people in this country when they see that there is a problem, and boy people are they seeing that that there is a problem with the climate, as the met office has told us, they want to do the right thing. Allegra Stratton did her best to give people some ideas, now you can argue about whether they were the best or the worst ideas, but she at least tried to respond to the aspiration of most people in this country to do the right thing. I think that was brave of her. I think that the criticism of her came from fairly predictable quarters.
It is true that each individual is not going to make a difference, we are not going to save the planet all on our own. What matters about the kind of leadership that is given is that if we all do lots of small things, the kinds of things that Allegra talking about, and a wider range of other things that she didn’t mention, if we all do them together they add up to a massive contribution. But even that is not enough, because the government has to play its part, and to the big things like changing the power system and changing the transport system. Only governments can do that. But those changes by governments will only work if individuals play their part, and individuals will play their part if they are given the right lead by politicians. I’m not sure that we are getting that sort of lead from politicians at the moment.
These are some excerpts of a discussion I took part in for LBC. The full discussion can be heard here: