Is Lord Deben UK’s Leading Climate Spokesman?
Lord Deben, may have stepped down as head of the UK government committee on climate change (CCC), but the Brits have not heard the last of his pronouncements on the environment. The former Tory Cabinet Minister is emerging as a radical critic of the UK energy industry in general, and large-scale nuclear in particular.
In his first formal action since leaving the CCC, Deben has joined the likes of Swampy, and former Extinction rebellion spokesmen Rupert Read and Julian Thompson, in supporting the Climate Majority Project (CMP).
The new group has the same line on the climate emergency as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil – but does not follow the same tactics.
“The whole idea is a very good one,” he tells me in a phone call. “You put together all those people who don’t want to hold up the traffic but do put climate change first. If it veers off the straight and narrow I will say so publicly.”
Rather than blockading the streets, the CMP calls on individuals to do the “many smaller things” needed to reduce pollution and carbon emissions. That, says Lord Deben, includes contacting your MP.
In a speech to eco-activists at the Glastonbury Festival last month he demanded to know who of the 200 audience had contacted their own MP about climate change within the previous 6 months. “Out of the whole lot there were only three. Its no good moaning about these things. You must make sure that all MPs of all parties cannot go to their surgeries without hearing a clear view of what can be done. We can all do that. You cannot ask government to do things unless you have done all the things you can do yourself.”
He cites Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, her seminal 1962 book on the dangers of pollution, as a major influence on his leadership on the environment. He is also a religious man, a Catholic who sees his faith as tightly woven with his social calling.
On the day we spoke, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister was reacting to media stories commenting on the Uxbridge by-election. A narrow Tory victory over Labour was taken as evidence the public were not behind Net Zero policies like the London-wide ban on older vehicles .
“We are in a dangerous moment. In The Times today, for example, it says ‘don’t lets frighten people about climate change’ – but you know that behind that is a desire to avoid doing anything too difficult.”
Meanwhile the first Green council in rural UK was recently elected near Deben’s farm in North Suffolk. But “it has just said its minded to turn down a planning application for a new solar farm. It was almost the first decision they made!”
From his vantage point of 10 years at the helm of the CCC, Deben is probably the best-informed green …