Prime Minister Andy Burnham has warned that the consensus on both science and climate change has “gone”.
Addressing other world leaders and delegates at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey, he said that despite this, the UK was ready to begin a “new era of British leadership” on the climate change issue.
But environmental campaigners at the summit said the PM had to back up his warm words with stronger actions.
In recent months, the UK government has announced policies which critics say have weakened its green credentials, such as reducing support for heat pumps, approving the Jackdaw gas field and doubling down on support for Heathrow Airport’s expansion.
Burnham opened his speech on Thursday by talking about the heat experienced in the UK this past summer.
He said “it was not normal” – in fact it was the hottest on record, made 130 times more likely because of climate change, according to the Met Office.
Hundreds of schools were closed, cereal harvests were down 11%, and ambulance services were inundated with calls beyond levels seen during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a result of the threat to people’s health and homes, the PM said he was creating the UK, and the world’s, first climate security envoy, Dame Madeleine Alessandri.
Alessandri, the former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said: “Climate change and nature loss are increasingly shaping the security environment in which the UK operates.”
As a result this was “placing additional pressure on resources, economies and communities around the world”, she added.
This will be seen as a strong indication of the focus of the UK’s priorities when it takes up the G20 presidency next year.
The current president is the US, which has been a notable absentee from the COP process over the last two years since President Trump withdrew the country from the most important global climate treaty – the Paris Climate Agreement.
Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, who identified 20 years ago that climate change could cost the global economy up to 20% of GDP if left unchecked, praised the PM’s words.
“The Prime Minister was right to identify climate change as a threat to security around the world, and the importance of investments in clean electricity generation as the best way of protecting households and businesses from the high prices and volatile markets for fossil fuels,” he said.