Richard Short is the Deputy Director of the Conservative Workers and Trade Unionists.
With COP30 all but failing to reach any consensus on fossil fuels and with the three biggest contributors of global greenhouse gases not even turning up there needs to be a serious rethink on how the world deals with climate change.
The Conservatives have been at the vanguard of warning about the dangers of climate change since Margaret Thatcher addressed the United Nations in 1989 with her dire warnings of what failure to do so would mean for the world, and she pulled no punches.
Kemi Badenoch needs to embrace the spirit of Margaret Thatcher and has already signalled a fundamental rethink of the UK response to the problem of climate change with reining back on net zero. She must also seize this opportunity for a lasting commitment to tackling global climate change conflated with rebuilding the UK’s manufacturing and industrial base.
The response from the world community to Margaret Thatcher’s cautionary speech was immediate by some, mixed by others and non-existent by most. The UK response was immediate, as was that of our western partners.
A major response was to export Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions to the developing world. This was largely incidental as China was already rapidly expanding its ‘Special Economic Zones’ making them very attractive to international markets. Businesses took advantage of the huge economic benefit of relocating manufacturing to China and western Governments revelled in the subsequent fall in GHG emissions for their respective countries. Globalisation moved on apace and China has become a location of choice for manufacturing.
As China’s dominance of manufacturing has normalised over the years the benefits of consequential exporting emissions have been plateauing. The flaw of reporting domestic emissions, almost as a climate change KPI, has honed into view. More recently the western world has been looking for ways to reduce its own contribution to global GHGs and resulted in what we see today. In the UK policies have been introduced which can only have, at best, a marginal effect on our national emissions let alone global emissions and this is the rub.
We have been left with a concoction of measures ranging from punitive fines on boiler manufacturers to build heat pumps with the Clean Heat Market Mechanism to commitments to ban the sale any new cars with an internal combustion engine by 2030 and a plethora and fiendishly complex arrangements in between, all with the promise of getting us to net zero. Introduced by a previous Conservative Government they at least deserve some credit for rolling back on some of these measures but with Ed Miliband making it his obsession to get the UK to net zero faster than anyone else, the Government drive to get the UK GHG emissions down has restarted with reckless abandon.
When Margaret Thatcher gave that speech to the United Nations she was clearly and unambiguously talking globally to a global audience and in her quote “the problem of global climate change is one that affects us all” she was looking for a global response to a global problem. Fast forward to 2025 after commitments made at a succession of COP conferences but also with China no longer gifting reduction in GHGs to the western world the response was to go it alone locally which is absolutely contrary to Margareth Thatcher’s vision.
The approach taken by Labour is the climate equivalent of unilateral disarmament where the only one to lose will be the ones that disarm. The approach by Reform UK is akin to climate denial and infantile quips of “net stupid zero”. The Conservatives are not climate change deniers nor are they unilateralists and, on both fronts, never have been.
For decades we have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope and need a multilateral approach. Kemi Badenoch has a once only opportunity to reset the narrative on the Government response to climate change and to get back to the spirit of Margaret Thatcher’s groundbreaking 1989 speech.
For decades the UK has been exporting its manufacturing and, by consequence, exporting GHG emissions. Kemi can realistically conflate UK industrial growth with tackling climate change.
The UK GHG emissions per capita are around 4.4 tons per capita per year with China over double that with 9.2 tons. China is still reliant on coal for the majority of its energy production which is so much more polluting than gas which produces 40% less GHG. This may explain a great deal why the Chinese were absent from COP30. In contrast the UK energy production from coal is effectively 0%. By repatriating manufacturing to the UK, although there will be an inevitable corresponding increase in UK emissions may be to the 7 tons per capita we see in Germany and Poland, but the global emissions will just as inevitably fall with the shift from coal to gas just by repatriation.
For repatriation of industry back to the UK to happen, an incoming Conservative Government must be serious about regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from industry. Regulation requires industry to pay for every tonne of carbon emitted above their free allowance. These allowances are currently being traded at around £40 per tonne.
The equivalent scheme in China is only £8 a tonne. Even with projected increases prices will not reach the level UK businesses have to pay. This further incentive for businesses to locate their manufacturing outside the UK must be addressed to bring industry back.
While some may argue that measures to reduce the cost of emissions allowances or increase the free allowance cap might incentivise increased emissions, evidence has yet to emerge that emissions trading has been responsible for any reduction. Outside of the EU, the UK now manages its own emissions trading scheme which can operate dynamically and quickly respond to fast changing policy of an incoming Conservative Government.
The UK began the industrial revolution due in large part to the geological advantage of vast coal deposits and a burgeoning industry poised to exploit it. In 2025 the UK is again sitting on vast energy reserves in the form of shale gas. A new Industry Repatriation Act can combine the return of manufacturing exploiting this bounty of energy, rebuilding of our skill base and a meaningful impact on global emissions.
This is not radical. It is exactly what Margaret Thatcher was calling for. We just need a leap of faith to seize the narrative and for that the part needs to have faith in its leader to be as bold in 2025 as her predecessor in 1989.
