We’re deep in political party conference season here in the UK and, given I hold a political position in my city, you won’t be surprised to know I’ve been watching the Kremlinology of each party unfold, with a particular interest in Sustainability issues. This week it was the turn of the Labour Party who swept to power in early July with an industrial policy largely based on the adoption of clean power.

It’s fair to say Labour have had a bit of a rough ride of it since the election with public spats over accepting freebies and who gets paid what. But what is more concerning to me is a different row.

Last week at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference, a number of Unions fired a couple of shots over Labour’s green bows. Their beef was about the running down of the North Sea oil and gas industry (no new exploration licences) and the switch in UK steel-making from coke-fired blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces (which require fewer employees). Now on one level this is understandable – it is the role of Unions to protect their members’ jobs. But on another, can they explain how we are to tackle climate change without weaning ourselves off fossil fuels? Do they want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

The Unions were joined in their condemnation by unlikely bedfellows – Conservative and Reform UK politicians and the right wing press, heaping pressure on the fledgling Government not to run down the fossil fuel industries.

And this is the political crunch. Posing in hi-viz by a wind turbine or a solar array is bread and butter for the modern politician. But saying ‘no’ to things we take for granted – oil, gas, coal – is much, much harder. Net Zero and Energy Minister Ed Miliband made a plea for the Unions to join the green jobs revolution in his speech on Monday. Yesterday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that GB Energy, the Government’s vehicle for delivering clean power projects, would be based in Aberdeen, current home of the offshore oil and gas industry. This location has been trailed for months, but the high profile announcement was clearly designed to draw the sting to an extent.

Credit to Miliband and Starmer – their speeches made it clear that this was the path they had chosen. Let’s hope they don’t get diverted off it.