Copyright scotsman
Keir Starmer has stressed the UK is “doubling down on the fight against climate change as an investment in future generations” and “an investment in improving the lives of working people here and now” in a speech ahead of the COP30 summit in Brazil. The Prime Minister admitted the previous cross-party consensus on global warming was now “gone” but insisted the science was “unequivocal” and the economic benefits were real. “My message here is that the UK is all in. Because we know you don't protect jobs and communities by sticking with the status quo, you don't meet a challenge like climate change by standing still. You do it by embracing change, embracing the opportunities, and doing so together,” he said. Providing goods and services for the global transition to net zero could be worth £1 trillion for British businesses by 2030, he claimed. The overall message will be shared by many forward-looking investors and companies, including some alerted to the business opportunities by a landmark 2006 report by economist Professor Nicholas Stern. It concluded the costs of tackling climate change were far outweighed by the costs of inaction. “Now the conclusion is even stronger,” Stern wrote on a recent article in the Observer newspaper. “We have in our grasp an approach to growth and development which breaks the link between economic activity and environmental destruction...” he said. “This is not a story of growth forever but of growth over the next three decades...” Importantly, Stern added: “Degrowth is not a realistic option. We won’t get to net zero through zero consumption.” The economic fantasies of the hard-left and the demonisation of ‘Big Oil’ companies – whose economic strength is sorely needed – will never deliver the planetary-scale transformation that is required if we are to minimise the damage caused by our warming atmosphere. And as oil and gas jobs decline, Scotland must be canny enough to seize the economic opportunities within its grasp – most importantly by becoming a global leader in marine renewables. Decisions we make now may well determine whether we capitalise on Stern’s 30-year window of growth or watch as others take advantage and it passes us by.
