PM Keir Starmer

I was listening to Matt Chorley’s politics show on BBC Radio 5Live yesterday and, in the context of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, they covered current polling on the UK public’s attitudes to climate. The conclusion was that the environment had fallen down the list of public priorities from a top concern two years ago in the aftermath of the sweltering heatwaves across the country to nestle in a second tier of concerns. This is one of the frustrations of the human mind when it comes to the climate – we freak out when a singularly bad weather event happens and demand action, but think “Ah that’s OK again” when things just get incrementally worse. I guess the poor people of Valencia are probably in the upswing of public climate concern this autumn as we watch on from afar.

Superficially at least, the climate doesn’t appear to be a top global priority just at the moment. UK PM Keir Starmer is cutting a somewhat lonely figure at COP29 as most of the industrialised nations’ leaders stay at home and focus on their domestic woes – in many cases the threat from the populist climate change-denying right. Much of this I put down to ‘optics’ – Starmer came to power in July on the back of a pretty green manifesto so he has the time, the opportunity and the motivation to show climate leadership. Others in a more precarious position may feel that it is the wrong time to be flying around the world for worthy causes, particularly as COP29 is not a pivotal conference, and they want to be seen to be at home dealing with bread and butter issues.

Like many in the Sustainability movement, I get frustrated when the climate isn’t seen as a fundamental priority above normal political cycles. Newspaper articles which ponder whether having a stable environment for our children to live in is ‘too expensive’ make me grind my teeth. But we have to face up to the reality: the human psyche is attuned to immediate danger, be that physical, economic or political, so we will always be buffeted by short term noise – “events, my dear boy, events”. Keeping politicians, business leaders and the public focussed on the long term signal will always be our biggest challenge.

Sometimes I think Sustainability is like rugby, grinding through phase after phase of brutal ‘hard yards’ before a gap opens up and a player gets to streak through to score a try. Likewise, we need to keep working hard, heads up, looking for the opportunities to make a breakthrough – and sometimes this will come against the run of play.