Labour’s new policy to cut emissions to net zero by 2030 has been slammed as “total tosh” by the secretary of state for business and energy.
Andrea Leadsom used her keynote speech yesterday (Monday) at the Conservative party’s annual conference in Manchester to attack the Green New Deal policy approved by the Labour party at its annual gathering in Brighton last week.
She said that the government is “working out the path to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
“Contrast that to Labour who last week announced net zero by 2030! Total tosh.”
But the secretary of state, who had a spell as minister of state for energy in David Cameron’s government, supplied no further details on achieving net zero in her speech.
Leadsom’s speech followed comments by Guy Opperman, pensions minister, that the Conservatives are the right party to implement the net-zero pathway because capitalism is the best way to deliver it.
While radical groups like Extinction Rebellion argue that capitalism and economic growth must be curbed in order to halt climate change, he told a fringe meeting organised by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum at the Tory conference on Sunday night that capitalism will solve the problem.
He said there would “no positive outcome” to the issue through “state control” and people telling others they know better.
“You have to use capitalism to solve the problem which means the Conservative Party is uniquely placed to solve this,” he said, pointing to the new rules on pension fund investment which are due to come into effect today (Tuesday).
These new rules on ESG (environmental social governance) mean that pension fund trustee will have to take account of climate change when making investment decision.
“If you are the pension minister you encourage people to think about the long term above all else but if we don’t solve climate change there won’t be a long term, which slightly undermines the point of my job as pensions minister. You can’t be a pension minister without being passionate about solving climate change,” Opperman said, adding that tackling climate change requires a cross government approach.
Vicky Ford, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on infrastructure, warned that the “mega investment” required by the National Grid requires is threatened by the prospect of renationalisation under a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour government.
She said: “That investment is not coming from the taxman: the worst thing that could happen is Corbyn wiping out the value of National Grid and disincentivising that investment.”