UK acutely vulnerable to environmental breakdown

The IPPR thinktank has warned that UK policymakers remain woefully unaware of and ill-prepared for parallel threats posed by the climate crisis and destruction of nature, despite growing awareness over the last year.

Following a year-long investigation, a new report finds that the UK is ‘acutely vulnerable’ to the impacts of the climate and nature crisis and unprepared for the policy challenge ahead.  

However, the report concludes that the overall environmental crisis has already reached critical levels due to the ‘historic disregard’ for the destruction of nature. Soil has been degraded, species are going extinct, and oceans are polluted. IPPR argues that this accelerating process of environmental breakdown will leave no area of human society untouched, with potential global consequences including persistent financial instability, food crises, and conflict.

IPPR’s own ‘traffic lights’ assessment of the UK’s readiness for the urgent and pressing demands imposed by environmental breakdown paints a stark picture of a country ill-prepared for the shocks ahead, and failing to undertake action on the necessary scale. The report identifies 21 measures of readiness and concludes that the UK is failing fully to meet any of them. It is making only partial progress in 15 areas (amber) and almost completely failing in the remaining six (red).  

The thinktank is calling for the establishment of a Royal Commission on Preparations for Environmental Breakdown, which should assess the UK’s preparedness, covering everything from supply chains and resource management to foreign and security policy. It would also establish the criteria by which the UK’s preparedness can be assessed. The body would also play a vital role in conveying the necessity and scale of action required, to policy makers and the public.

The report also recommends: a Sustainable Economy Act, to bring all economic activity into line with ambitious targets for cutting environmental damage; a new minister for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to champion sustainable development at the very top of government; a fair environmental foreign policy – recognising the UK’s historic contribution to environmental damage; and lowering the voting age to 16, thereby expanding the franchise to those with the most at stake in the future of the planet.

Laurie Laybourn-Langton, IPPR Associate Fellow, said: “It’s becoming increasingly clear that the UK was not adequately prepared for the coronavirus pandemic. The threats posed by the environmental crisis could also emerge quickly and could overwhelm our capacity to respond. So the pandemic gives us a window into a future increasingly beset by the consequences of environmental breakdown.  

“In the UK, we are not ready for this future – far from it. But all is not lost. We can be better prepared for environmental breakdown. And the changes we need to make to our society and economy are exactly those that can also make a happier, healthier and fairer world.”  

Luke Murphy, head of the IPPR Environmental Justice Commission, said: “The lights on the environmental dashboard are flashing red. As we recover from the Covid-19 crisis, we must not accelerate headlong into another crisis for which we are not prepared. The UK should use the recovery from Covid-19 to transform its economy, to address climate change and increase preparedness, and tackle wider inequalities – all of this can and should be done at the same time.

“But the UK is not alone. Countries around the world are unprepared to tackle the crisis of environmental breakdown. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the UK can take a lead as host of COP 26 to try and help build an era of unprecedented global cooperation and a brighter future for all.”