Starmer looked away from the climate crisis. Burnham must not
4 min read
We haven't heard much from the prime minister-in-waiting about the defining issue of the age.
As Keir Starmer’s premiership draws to a close, talk turns to his legacy. Even as an opposition MP, I recognise his achievements: the Renters’ Rights Bill and Workers’ Rights Bill delivered meaningful protections and undid decades of regression.
Beyond the many U-turns and poor judgements, from disability benefit cuts to the winter fuel allowance, as well as the failure to uphold international law and impose comprehensive sanctions on the Israeli government, history will judge our leaders on the defining issue of the age: the climate and nature crisis. If we are to use that as a yardstick, this Prime Minister has abjectly failed to meet the moment. The Climate Change Committee says so themselves: the government is not moving fast enough to reduce emissions and protect households and businesses from volatile fossil fuel prices. We are woefully ill-prepared for the changes in the climate which are already here.
We recently experienced our second intense heatwave in two months. In 2022, a comparable year, the death toll from extreme heat was around 3,000 people. Homes are flooding, and schools, hospitals and care homes are overheating. Climate breakdown is not a distant prediction. The Global South has already been living with its impacts. It is already here.
The sustained campaign by climate deniers and fossil fuel companies, financially backing Reform and the Conservatives, has had an effect. The cross-party consensus behind the Climate Change Act was one of Britain’s proudest political achievements. Abandoning it now would not just be a policy failure. It would be a moral one.
Andy Burnham should not repeat Starmer’s mistake of treating climate and nature as second order. I welcome signs he’ll govern in a less tribal, more collaborative way, which matters for restoring trust in politics. On climate and nature, however, he has said very little. My message is clear: climate resilience and nature restoration must be central to his programme, and Green MPs stand ready to help deliver it.
That starts with ruling out new oil and gas fields. Drilling at Rosebank alone would generate around 200m tonnes of CO2, more than 28 low-income countries emit in a year combined, without lowering bills or improving energy security.
The UK has some of the least energy-efficient housing in Europe. Better insulated homes mean lower emissions, lower bills, and greater resilience to both heatwaves and cold snaps. We need heat plans for every town, city, and county throughout the nation.
The London Heat Plan unveiled last month is the start of what we should be doing throughout the country, driven and funded by Downing Street, whether in London or Manchester. That means investing in our infrastructure. It means installing air conditioning in hospitals, care homes, schools, and prisons where needed. It means retrofitting the homes most at risk and redesigning our towns with more tree cover, shaded rest spots, and public drinking water.
None of this happens without long-term investment, and that same instability is undermining the clean energy transition that should fund it. Stop-start grant schemes have hit a renewable sector that, per CBI research, contributes £105bn to our economy annually, supports over a million jobs, and has nearly half a trillion pounds of investment in the pipeline.
The next PM must meet the moment: speed up the transition to net zero and start restoring nature in one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth. Denmark shows what’s possible: after decades of straightened rivers and drained marshland, restoring the Skjern River to its natural course brought wildlife back within years. Nature restoration isn’t separate from climate resilience. It’s part of the answer. We need the next prime minister to invest in both, properly, now, or he will push this crisis onto the next generation, making it harder, costlier, and eventually too late to stop the worst of it. The technology exists, and the economics are overwhelming. There is no case for delay.
Burnham will either be the prime minister who finally provided the political will this crisis demands, or he will be judged as Starmer will be: as a leader who knew exactly what was coming and looked away.
Adrian Ramsay is the Green Party MP for Waveney Valley
