Their divisive approach does not help the environment, and only creates misery by disrupting people’s lives. We must champion a conservative approach if we want to unify Britain and decarbonise the economy.
These protesters want to seize the broad consensus on environmental action and push for undeliverable change.
For many of them, it’s not about halting climate change but scrapping capitalism and replacing our democratic institutions with unelected citizens’ assemblies.
Spreading division won’t drive progress. Insulate Britain is Extinction Rebellion’s destructive cousin. They took an uncontroversial topic and made it toxic.
Reckless protests on the motorway and stopping people travelling did not protect a single home.
Just Stop Oil is without doubt their most disruptive iteration. It is causing a great deal of harm to people’s lives, as it shuts down petrol pumps across large swathes throughout Britain at a time where people are already struggling to pay the high cost of fuel.
Their efforts to bring communities to an impasse will not strengthen public support of net zero or clean energy sources.
It would not be possible to stop British new oil and gas licenses overnight. We are rightly moving quickly away from expensive oil and gas in the UK, but we shouldn’t make ourselves more reliant during the transition on insecure fossil fuel imports to keep the lights on and homes warm.
Instead of defunding Putin’s army, they would make Britain more dependent upon volatile energy supplied by oil-rich autocrats.
There is another way. My Conservative Environment Network colleagues, I and I have long advocated for this alternative in Parliament and in our constituencies.
We can save the planet and unify Britain by a smooth transition to net zero. This reduces the cost of decarbonising the economy and maximizes the economic rewards.
However, reducing our emissions – and while we recognize that there is still much to be done to reach our net zero goal – does not mean we have to accept XR’s most extreme demands.
This would only lead to economic destruction and division. Instead, we can take advantage of this opportunity and transform the economy, creating new skilled jobs, and clean industries through a green Industrial Revolution.
We can accelerate environmental action and reap the economic benefits of combining private sector innovation with government leadership to drive positive change.
This transformation is already taking place on Britain’s roads. People are buying electric cars faster than anyone could have predicted. In 2021, there were more fully electric vehicles than ever before. This is a 76% increase over the previous year.
At the same time, 7,500 new public charging points were installed, a growth of 36 per cent.
This acceleration in electric cars is due to our bold plan of ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars by end of the decade.
It has prompted car manufacturers to make more electric cars, making them cheaper and more efficient. The government has committed to installing 300,000 public charging stations by the end 2030. Private sector innovation can facilitate this transition while expanding consumer choice.
Similar to the quiet revolution in British energy production, it has been going on for a decade. The price of renewables has fallen significantly thanks to the private sector and the Contracts for Difference auction scheme.
Since 2010, the cost of new solar power has plummeted by 88 per cent, offshore wind has fallen by 73 per cent, and onshore wind is 57 per cent lower.
New solar or wind power is four times cheaper than producing electricity by burning gas at today’s energy prices.
The new Energy Security Strategy will ensure that 95 percent of our electricity production is low-carbon within eight years.
This means affordable, clean and domestic power for British homes as well as British businesses. This would not only slow down the process of oil and gas licensing, but also make our country more dependent on corrupt regimes for energy.
Extinction Rebellion is not the vision people want for Britain’s economic future. It is not necessary to stop climate change.
These are warning signs of the potential damage that the left will inflict on our power if they accept environmental leadership. We must reject their divisiveness and unite Britain behind a conservative approach in order to achieve net zero, and build a greener, more prosperous country.