Despite the UK hosting this year's COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow that kicks off today, the pressing topic of a green future was almost entirely absent from the government’s new Budget.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak failed to include any significant points about climate breakdown. This ambivalence is set against a backdrop of strong warnings this week from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization that the decarbonisation targets being set by many governments are far too low to keep global temperatures below a 1.5°C rise, with a catastrophic rise to 2.7°C over this century most likely. The prognosis, therefore, is for progressive climate breakdown, with rapid increases in the frequency of severe weather events.
Equally surprising was the lack of concern in the Budget about the other pressing global challenge, the pandemic. Sunak’s whole presentation was couched in terms of the UK moving towards a bright new post-COVID world. The difficult days of the pandemic are over, and we can return to our old lifestyles – indeed, for much of the UK, especially England, we already have.
