Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
Reacting to Labour’s plans to chase narrow economic growth over other priorities, Adrian Ramsay said:
“The transition to a green economy provides major opportunities which we must grasp – opportunities for warmer homes, lower bills and good new jobs. The Green Party would invest in the technologies we need to ensure a sustainable and secure future.
“But we would not be chasing growth for growth’s sake. We need to ensure our economy works in a way that safeguards our climate and enables nature to flourish.
“And we need to make sure the economy we are building is fairer as well as greener.
“This is why we would secure the investment needed to restore our public services by asking the very richest in society to contribute more. Even modest changes to the tax system for the wealthy could make a big differences – and only the Green Party is pledging to do this.”
A man wades through flood water in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, in November. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
Winter downpours also made 20% wetter and will occur every three years without urgent carbon cuts, experts warn
The seemingly “never-ending” rain last autumn and winter in the UK and Ireland was made 10 times more likely and 20% wetter by human-caused global heating, a study has found.
More than a dozen storms battered the region in quick succession between October and March, which was the second-wettest such period in nearly two centuries of records. The downpour led to severe floods, at least 20 deaths, severe damage to homes and infrastructure, power blackouts, travel cancellations, and heavy losses of crops and livestock.
The level of rain caused by the storms would have occurred just once in 50 years without the climate crisis, but is now expected every five years owing to 1.2C of global heating reached in recent years. If fossil fuel burning is not rapidly cut and the global temperature reaches 2C in the next decade or two, such severe wet weather would occur every three years on average, the analysis showed.
The experts behind the study warned that work to protect the populations of the UK and Ireland was still “sorely lacking” and poor and vulnerable people were hardest hit. For example, dehumidifiers provided to dry out flooded homes were not used by some because of high energy costs, while others could not afford to replace losses of frozen food after storms cut power supplies.
The analysis, conducted by climate scientists working as part of the World Weather Attribution group, compared how likely and how intense the wet winter was in today’s heated world with how likely it would have been in a world without high levels of carbon emissions. Warmer air can hold more water vapour and therefore produce more rain. Hundreds of “attribution studies” have shown how global heating is already supercharging extreme weather such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and storms across the world.
“The seemingly never-ending rainfall this autumn and winter across the UK and Ireland had notable impacts,” said Dr Mark McCarthy, a climate scientist at the UK Met Office and part of the WWA team. “In the future we can expect further increases – that’s why it is so important for us to adapt to our changing climate and become more resilient.”
Dr Sarah Kew, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and also part of the WWA team, said: “The UK and Ireland face a wetter, damper and mouldier future due to climate change. Until the world reduces emissions to net zero, the climate will continue to warm, and rainfall in the UK and Ireland will continue to get heavier.”
I’m not concerned with the headline topic but Miliband makes claims that need to be fact checked:
“If every country in the world adopted Labour’s position [on deciding not to issue new oil and gas licences] it would have a transformative effect on the debate,” he said.
Is it Labour’s position not to issue new oil and gas licences? If it is, are they likely to abandon that position since the Labour Party seems to abandon every policy to be more Tory? Why position instead of policy? Because position can be abandoned easier?
Miliband said the party’s plans to ban new oil and gas licences are “the most progressive position of any major country in the world” but that the transition in the North Sea has to be properly managed to protect those working in existing fields.
So, it’s already qualified by Miliband in the very next paragraph? “… the transition in the North Sea has to be properly managed to protect those working in existing fields.” sounds like you and the Labour party are full of shit Ed.
later edit: What about Rosebank? Are the Labour party going to stop Rosebank? The Labour party are definately full of shit on climate if they’re going to let Rosebank continue.
Rishi Sunak on stopping Rosebank says that any chancellor can stop his huge 91% subsidy to build Rosebank, that Keir Starmer is as bad as him for sucking up to Murdoch and other plutocrats and that we (the plebs) need to get organised to elect MPs that will stop Rosebank.
