Action on climate change will be central to 'all' major policy, promises David Lammy in first big speech as foreign secretary
17 September 2024, 12:29 | Updated: 17 September 2024, 12:49
Action on the climate crisis will be "central to all the Foreign Office does", David Lammy said, as he argued that net zero became a "battleground" under the Tories.
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He has called for a "hard-headed" approach to the tackling the climate crisis in his first major speech in the role, adding that nothing could be "more central to the UK's national interests" than slowing climate change worldwide.
In the speech - held at London's Kew Gardens - he said action on the climate and nature is the defining geopolitical challenge of the era.
He confirmed he will be reinstating the UK Special Representative for Climate Change role and will create a new UK Special Representative for Nature.
He also announced his department's commitment to the "global clean energy transition", which he says will help countries "leapfrog" fossil fuels.
He wants to create an alliance of countries that share knowledge and tech to become greener.
He added: "So our goal is progressive, a liveable planet for all now and in the future, but we need a hardheaded, realist approach towards using all levers at our disposal, from the diplomatic to the financial.
"And I say to you now, these are not contradictions, because nothing could be more central for the UK's national interests than delivering global progress on arresting rising temperatures."
Mr Lammy went on to say: "The threat may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat, but it is more fundamental, it is systemic, it's pervasive and accelerating towards us at pace."
In the role, Lammy said he has witnessed events such as the devastation caused by Hurricane Beryl. In places such as the Sahel, South Sudan and Syria where temperatures are rising and making water and productive land even scarcer.
"These are not random events, delivered from the heavens.
"These are failures of politics, failures of regulation and frankly failures of internation cooperation.
"These failures pour fuel onto existing conflict and regional rivalries, driving extremism and displacing communities, increasing humanitarian need.
"It would be a further failure of the imagination to hope they will stay away from our shores."
The Foreign Sec also slammed the previous government for their record on the environment, calling them "climate dinosaurs".
"The truth is that in the last few years, something went badly wrong. Badly wrong, in our national debate on climate change and net zero."
He added: "Net zero became, under the Tories, a battleground. A battleground of the worst type of narrow-minded Westminster tactical warfare."
He listed the Conservative failures on the issue such as crashing off-shore wind, blocmking on-shore wind, moving the goalpost of electric vehicles, doubling down on oil and gas, leaving national parks in decline, and lakes, rivers and seas polluted with toxic sewage.
