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Tea, Crumpets, and Carbon

This Friday, Zac Goldsmith, the UK’s minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate, and Environment resigned citing ‘the government’s apathy towards environmental issues’.

Manage the messy energy transition and the even messier legacy of empire? Sounds like a little much if you ask us.

According Goldsmith, Rishi Sunak showed that he was ‘simply uninterested’ in climate policymaking and progress ground to a standstill in the recent months.

The timing is tough as the UK moves in to election-zone in the run-up to a vote just over a year from now. It’s clear the environment will be a hot topic.

Goldsmith has a point. Over the last six months Rishi Sunak’s government has had a number of climate related issues:

• Goldsmith claims a $11.6B pledge on climate spending is being ignored

• The PM planned to skip COP27 before backlash forced a u-turn

• The government heavily toned down anti-hunting legislation

• The government reneged on pledged funding for conservation

Before you start feeling too sorry for Goldsmith, remember, in politics, things are always political.

Number 10 pushed back on Goldsmith’s cited reason for resignation and implied that the real reason for resignation was that Zac Goldsmith had been caught up in Boris Johnson’s Prime Ministerial mishaps.

In other words, Sunak said ‘I was going to fire you anyways…’ Awks.

Regardless of the true nature of the resignation, Zac Goldmith is shining a light on the lack of effort the UK is putting in to the climate transition. Instead of taking leadership on a global stage, things have cut back to near zero and something’s got to give.

‘til next time.

The Strawman