Labour laments government’s missed climate deadlines

The government has failed to bring urgent plans to tackle the climate and environment emergency in time to meet the six month deadline set by Parliament.

The climate and emergency motion, passed by parliament on the 1 May 2019,  calls on the government to ‘lay before the House within the next six months urgent proposals to restore the UK’s natural environment and to deliver a circular, zero waste economy’.

The Labour Party has said that, since that declaration, the Conservative government has failed to pursue policies adequate to the scale of the crisis, accusing the government of instead continuing to pursue policies that are damaging to the natural environment in the UK and abroad.

Examples they provide include: maintaining the ban on onshore wind while forcing through dangerous fracking that will scar our environment; pursuing local government cuts that have seen record amounts of litter on our streets while prosecutions for fly-tipping are at a ten year low; and creating a ‘hostile environment’ for renewables, leading to clean energy investment plummeting in the last three years.

Sue Hayman, Shadow Environment Secretary, said: “By ignoring the climate and environment emergency, Boris Johnson has shown that he cannot be trusted to save our planet. This election is our last chance to stop the climate and environment emergency. The next Labour government will usher in a Green Industrial Revolution to tackle climate change. Labour has a radical, credible plan for tackling the climate crisis and creating a million good, unionised green jobs across the country.”