Conservatives should of course want to conserve the planet. But we need to remain down-to-earth about the limits of this country’s moral influence and the global impact that further cutting Britain’s carbon emissions will make.
In the long term, by supporting a thriving free market and creating the conditions for growth and innovation, we can achieve the greener future we all want.
Achieving energy security and affordable bills does not have to be mutually exclusive with growing our offshore wind sector.
The approach taken by Labour is the climate equivalent of unilateral disarmament where the only one to lose will be the ones that disarm.
Every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Every year of delay compounds the risk. Climate change is not just a problem for the future; it is a process already underway, and we are accelerating towards thresholds we will not be able to reverse.
We seek to conserve all that is best in our society, our institutions, our natural environment and our world. In recent years, however, we have carelessly allowed the left to take the lead.
Policy can be changed, and markets can be reformed; but any pretence that this can be done in a manner similar to that of the last twenty years must be discarded. Nor should we pretend that it can be done without breaking some furniture.
To be taken seriously and to ultimately defeat the left’s statist approach, Badenoch and Coutinho need to quickly set out a credible alternative plan.
Any climate policy that depends on curtailing liberty is a betrayal of conservatism and, bluntly, must be rejected.
It’s “impossible to think we haven’t got some influence, as to what proportion it is I’ve no idea”, he says.
It is symptomatic of the kind of shallow thinking that has got us into our current energy predicament, with prices rising inexorably, deindustrialisation well underway, and wholesale economic collapse looming.
There is a certain intolerance and dismissal of positions as ‘not really Conservative’ when they are part of that Conservative tradition. Cutting ourselves off from this just makes our problems worse and narrows the Party’s base. It is even, if I dare turn the argument around, not very Conservative.
There is something so quintessentially Modern Britain about publishing a report calling for a bold break with the status quo and disowning it immediately to help your successor get through one PMQs.
When it comes to climate change, pretty much everything should be on the table as the party seeks to craft a policy platform that decarbonises the economy, boosts our energy security and keeps bills low.
Oversight, accountability, and reform are essential. Some past spending has raised legitimate concerns but a serious governing party should be unapologetic about internationalism as a tool of soft power, national security, and not retreat into isolation or protest politics.