Thank you for that introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here at the Conservative Environment Network.
CEN has been at the forefront of the progress the UK has made on net zero and nature in the past decade. You have brought together a network of 150 MPs and peers and more than 500 councillors to push for more ambition on the environment. Half the Government advisers at DESNZ and DEFRA are your alumni. And most of our groundbreaking environmental policies, from the commitment to phase out coal, the introduction of subsidies for sustainable farming, and the ringfencing of water company fines for environmental improvement schemes are all the results of CEN campaigns.
The impact you have already had on our country’s environment policies is a direct result of the hard work of CEN’s first director Sam Barker. The keystone climate and nature policies that the Government has pursued in the last decade, from the 25 Year Environment to legislating for Net Zero, have only been possible because of the support for protecting the environment that Sam and CEN have helped to nurture within the Conservative parliamentary party. While I am sad to say I never got to know Sam, I know that he was a brilliant campaigner for green conservatism, arguing that free markets and innovation were the way to unlock progress on the environment and grow the economy at the same time.
When I was leader of the Conservative Party, I could have done with a Conservative Environment Network and as skillful a campaigner as Sam to help me make the case for green conservatism to MPs.
Environmentalism and Conservatism come from the same roots - the idea that there are some things worth preserving and handing down to the next generation. I know that Sam was fond of Margaret Thatcher’s quote that "no generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease".
But for decades after this remark, some people struggled with the idea that Conservatives had a responsibility to support nature - even after the 1997 general election, when Conservative MPs became a critically endangered species themselves.
As leader of the party, I set out to challenge this view through a landmark speech highlighting the links between conservatism and conservation. I warned that the left-wing or “Red-Green” approach to the environment, centred on heavy top-down regulation, high taxes, and state intervention was doomed to failure.
Instead, I called for a “Blue-Green” approach to the environment. One which recognised that only global cooperation could deliver meaningful change. That crises in developing countries and environmental destruction were often interlinked. That harnessing the power of the market to deliver the technological breakthroughs was essential for meeting our climate obligations. And that voluntary groups and charities were critical for maintaining and improving our local environment.
However, as with so many of my party leadership speeches, my “Blue-Green” proposals did not splash any newspaper frontpages – I didn’t have the foresight to hug a husky dog after making it.
It was only when the Conservatives returned to power and I was appointed Foreign Secretary that I had a chance to put “Blue-Green” conservatism into action. In 2014, I negotiated the London Declaration on the illegal wildlife trade, in which 42 governments committed to end the international trade in ivory and to treat poaching and trafficking as a serious organised crime akin to drugs and arms trafficking.
One of the reasons the summit was such a success was the personal support of the Royal Family. Prince William launched a new charity at the summit, United for Wildlife, which over the last decade has worked to stop the illegal wildlife trade. Since I retired from party politics in 2015, I have been fortunate enough to chair United for Wildlife. To date, through its international transport and financial taskforces, United for Wildlife has supported over 600 investigations, nearly 300 seizures of illegal wildlife products, and the training of over 100,000 people to target and tackle wildlife crime.
Government Record
Another benefit of retirement from party politics has been the opportunity to opine in my Times column about all the things that governments should do on climate and nature. In recent years I have backed CEN’s proposals for a “wildbelt” status in local plans; urged ministers to create a biodiversity and nature tech hub; and called for more support for innovative local conservation initiatives such as building with bricks suitable for swifts to make their nests in. I can confirm, no matter my taste in music, that I am indeed a “Swiftie”.
One of the nature columns about which I’ve felt most strongly I wrote last July, warning governments against deep sea mining. While we all understand the temptation for using minerals on the seafloor to make the batteries and equipment we will need for Net Zero, we cannot destroy our world’s marine ecosystems to achieve our climate goals. Deep sea mining would threaten only recently discovered species in the dark depths of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, interfere with whale populations, and contaminate deep sea fisheries, which is why I am pleased that Rishi Sunak’s Government has now backed an international moratorium on deep sea mining - a position we must continue to maintain in the new parliament.
There has been plenty to opine on. In the last parliament, we’ve had three different Conservative approaches to the environment. A period characterised by big headline announcements which we have needed to work through with greater detail in later years. A short period of backsliding, with plans to water down sustainable agricultural subsidies and support fracking. And, for the last year and half, we have had Rishi Sunak’s pragmatic approach.
Restrictions on deep sea mining are just one of the many areas in which the UK has made significant progress in the last 18 months. We’ve become the first major economy to halve its global emissions - and at 4.7 tonnes of carbon per capita, the last time emissions were this low was 1858. Ministers have announced a new carbon border adjustment mechanism, to incentivise other countries that export to the UK to follow our lead on decarbonisation. Furthermore, the UK became the first country in the world to introduce Biodiversity Net Gain, requiring all major housing developments to deliver at least a 10% benefit for nature.
As I argued in my “Blue-Green” speech, we need to ensure we have both “a realistic international framework and good domestic policy” which seek “to work with the grain of human instincts and the free market”. Our current pragmatic and international approach is one that I can support. Provided that we stick to our 2050 Net Zero target and continue to take sufficient measures to meet this, it is fair enough to say that the UK cannot phase out fossil fuel cars faster than the rest of Europe.
In the new parliament we need to take our pragmatic and international “Blue-Green” approach to preventing climate change and nature loss even further. CEN has already supplied many of the ideas for doing so, not least of all their proposals for restoring British woodlands. Published last week, their woodlands manifesto calls for new Forestry Creation Zones to cut red tape for targeted locations for tree planting and regular reviews of the generosity of sustainable farming incentives for tree planting. Having planted seven thousand trees around my home in Wales, I am a keen supporter of new woodland creation and hope that CEN’s policies here will be reflected in our party’s election manifesto.
Greater action on the environment is becoming even more necessary because climate and nature are becoming ever-more intertwined with many of the other great issues that matter most to both our country and our party. The UK’s security, prosperity, and society are all now closely linked to climate and nature policy. This means that whatever the future is of conservatism, the environment must remain at its heart.
Security
The environment has become interlinked to our national security. In one of my first speeches as Foreign Secretary, I warned that as the world became more interconnected “the impacts of climate change in one country or region will affect the prosperity and security of others around the world.” Since then things have only deteriorated. In Syria, droughts forced farmers into the cities, exacerbating the tensions that spilled over into civil war. In Iraq, water supply shortages led Iraqi farmers to join ISIS in order to provide for their families. And in Mali, displaced farmers are increasingly joining the jihadi insurrection there.
Climate-driven instability in these regions not only fuel terrorism but also migration. Analysis by the think tank Onward has shown that 3 million people, consisting one-third of those living in the UK today who are foreign-born, have come from the most climate vulnerable countries. And many of the people who have crossed the Channel in the last five years come from countries ravaged by both conflict and climate change, including 15,000 Iraqis, 8,000 Syrians, and 5,000 Sudanese. The UK and other western countries will be unable to cope with ever increasing levels of migrants from such places.
The UN forecasts that between 2022 and 2050, the population of Sub-Saharan Africa will increase by 80%. Three of the five countries across the world that will increase the most in this period are already suffering from both conflict and climate change: Nigeria, the DRC, and Ethiopia.
It is fanciful to think that such parts of the world will be able to cope with greater populations even as resources reduce. An effective migration strategy or security strategy will always require an effective climate change strategy.
The same is true for nature loss. We do not know whether Covid-19 arose from a Chinese wet market or a high-risk laboratory in Wuhan. But we do know that many infectious diseases have originated in animals, such as SARS, avian flu, Ebola and HIV. And that ecological disruption, from the illegal wildlife trade to deforestation forcing wild animals and people into the same areas, are increasingly exposing people to zoonotic diseases.
The Government has already warned that the chances of another devastating pandemic in the next five years is up to 25%. Tackling the illegal wildlife trade and nature loss globally must be a crucial part of the world’s preparation for the next pandemic. Wherever Covid-19 began, Covid-29 could begin in the shipping containers of wildlife traffickers or the deforested lands of the Amazon basin. So an effective biosecurity strategy and plan for preventing the next pandemic, will require an effective strategy to prevent nature loss.
Our energy security also remains intertwined with climate change and nature loss. The impact of Russia’s illegal invasion on Ukraine has already led countries around the world to reconsider their energy security needs. And Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and Iran’s reckless behaviour in the Middle East all raise further concerns about global energy supply chains.
Given the febrile geopolitical atmosphere, the Prime Minister was right to grant new North Sea oil and gas licences to secure our energy supplies. Now I’m no Trump-supporting Republican who thinks we should “drill, baby drill”. Long-term energy security can only be delivered by renewables. As Boris Johnson has argued, the UK should aim to become the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of wind power. Only by investing in renewable energy and the infrastructure to trade electricity with our friends and allies in Europe, can the UK attain true energy security. But in the short-term it makes sense to use local fossil fuels to secure our energy supply chain, as long as we remain on target for our Net Zero goals.
The transition to renewables invites its own security risks. China dominates the renewable technology market. In 2022, China accounted for 56% of installed wind power capacity globally, up from 37% in 2018. The country accounts for 80% of global solar panel production. And Chinese companies dominate the mining and refining of cobalt for electric vehicle batteries. In the race to Net Zero, the UK and the West have become more dependent on China for our energy security than we ever were on Russia.
This dependence on China raises obvious problems. Given the economic impact of decoupling from Russia after their invasion of Ukraine, is it wise to depend so heavily on a country that has committed to absorb Taiwan, by force if necessary? Some countries such as the US are considering deep sea mining as a way to avoid dependence on Chinese supply chains for critical minerals. But clearly we cannot destroy marine ecosystems to meet our climate obligations, and the UK Government is to be commended for supporting the moratorium on deep sea mining.
So again, an effective energy strategy will require effective geopolitical, trade, and supply chains strategies.
Technology and growth
Britain and the West face an extraordinary challenge. We must decarbonise our economies and protect nature but without leaning too heavily on technology produced by China. Fortunately, there is another area of policy with which the environment is becoming increasingly intertwined: technology and growth.
Our greatest hope for the environment is technology and innovation. Advances in AI and genetic engineering can reduce climate change and nature loss. Battery manufacturers are using AI from Microsoft to halve the time it takes to develop new, more efficient batteries for electric vehicles. In South Korea, scientists have grown beef cells in rice grains - a vital step towards an affordable and environmentally friendly form of protein. Here at home, conservationists are using AI to monitor and protect hedgehog populations, while scientists at the Roslin Institute explore the use of genetic engineering to control grey squirrel populations.
These technologies can also be used to help us adapt to climate change and nature loss. Scientists have already used genetic engineering technologies to produce virus-, bacterial- and fungal-resistant crops that can cope with extremes of heat and cold, as well as increasing their yields. Google DeepMind’s AI model GraphCast can predict weather patterns that outperform 90% of the targets used by existing systems, which will help to spot extreme weather patterns caused by climate change before they can happen.
And these technologies also offer a potential route around dependence on China. Last November, Northvolt succeeded in developing a sodium-ion battery that uses no lithium, cobalt or nickel with an energy storage capability close to that of mainstream lithium batteries.
Imagine how fast we could decarbonise if we found a way around China’s stranglehold on global critical minerals supply chains. Or imagine what it would mean for the UK’s economy if we were the country to make a climate tech breakthrough of this magnitude and commercialise it.
Leadership on science and technology is critical to the future of the UK’s economy. In a world where single companies like Denmark’s Novo Nordisk or the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company account for a significant proportion of their country’s GDPs, our country’s economic future will be decided by whether we can start up and scale up the next generation of tech giants.
That is why Tony Blair and I have put aside our political differences to urge in a series of policy papers that both parties make science and technology our “new national purpose”. Like two old guys on a park bench, setting the world to rights, our papers explore the building blocks we need to become a science superpower. Training or attracting the world’s brightest minds in science and technology. Faster regulators. Access to capital to scale up start ups. Greater ambition in each of these areas will turbocharge the development and commercialisation of climate tech, as well as economic growth.
To its credit, our party already recognises the important role of technology in meeting our environmental obligations and growing our economy. Rishi Sunak’s government is investing £20 billion in carbon capture, usage and storage technology. We have invested £120 million in a Farming Innovation Programme to seed funding for new, sustainable farming technologies, from new ways to reduce or eliminate pesticide use through to projects to reduce emissions from livestock. And Ministers recently announced new funding for AI technologies to accelerate decarbonisation of our electricity markets and transport network.
Even so, in the new parliament we will need to double-down on tech and further its applications towards climate and nature. This will require greater public spending to develop sovereign capabilities in keystone technologies like AI and quantum computing. It will require action to unlock private investment through pensions consolidation and more generous venture capital allowances. And it will require training or attracting world-leading experts in technology through our universities and visa system, alongside skilled technical workers to install everything from heat pumps to insulation. An effective growth strategy will require an effective strategy for harnessing the potential of green technology.
Health and society
But delivering on our environmental obligations will take more people power than just tech and technical workers. Everyone will have to do their bit, because the environment is also intertwined with the health of our society.
The links between the health of our environment and the physical health of individuals in our society has long been understood, but are increasingly coming to the fore. Air pollution has been linked to both repository and heart problems, while our bodies are increasingly becoming polluted with microplastics, found to damage human cells in laboratory settings. And alongside the well-understood links between nature loss and zoonotic diseases, experts are now warning climate change will speed the growth of bacteria and with it the speed at which they develop antimicrobial resistance
Links between the environment and mental health are also becoming clearer. Access to nature has become an increasingly recognised factor in people’s mental well-being, with doctors offering green social prescriptions to treat depression. Meanwhile, experts on children’s mental health like Jonathan Haidt have warned growing rates of mental illness are at least in part a result of the decline in outdoor play and access to green places which older generations took for granted.
This decline in mental health and active participation in society is also contributing to the crisis facing our environment. In 1998, I noted that “local environments are often best protected by local voluntary action”. But the “little platoons” of Edmund Burke’s conservatism spoke, are needed more than ever to pick litter out of rivers, plant trees, and monitor bird populations. Volunteering and group membership rates are essential. The active citizens who protect our environment can’t be replaced by activist citizens, who think ranting on social media or throwing paint at buildings is supporting the environment. Effective strategies to improve physical and mental health or restitch our social fabric will require effective environmental strategies.
Conclusion
So to conclude, our environment is inextricably linked to three of the other great issues that matter most to both our country and our party: our security, our prosperity, and our society.
That is why a Conservative “Blue-Green” approach is so necessary. We need the kind of pragmatic, evidence-based, and ambitious but deliverable policies that only the Conservatives can offer. Policies that drive forward renewable energy without increasing our reliance on Chinese supply chains. Policies that use the power of free markets, capital, and innovation to deliver breakthroughs in technology to make it easier and cheaper to deliver Net Zero. Policies that promote active citizenship and personal responsibility, over the empty gesture politics of left-wing agitators.
Labour and the Left understand the need to protect our environment but are as ill-equipped to deliver the necessary action as they were 25 years ago when I warned of the impacts of “Red-Green” environmentalism. The Left believe our environmental objectives can be met through state interference in people’s lives, but this only serves to alienate them. The Left lacks the pragmatism to work well with those who do not share their views, and struggle to take ordinary people and other countries with them on the environment. The Left too often fail to cultivate the entrepreneurialism required to make significant breakthroughs in climate tech. The Left are the parties of cities and suburbia, knowing little of our countryside, our woodlands, our hedgerows – and still less about how best to protect them. And too many on the Left have abandoned their movement’s traditional values of community for American gesture politics, and now favour environmental activism over environmental action.
So it’s up to us, the Conservative Party, to deliver on Net Zero and nature. That the environment is now a factor in so many of the other fundamental issues facing our country means that every Conservative, no matter their political priorities, must support ambitious action upon it.
If you’re a liberal conservative who prioritises issues like mental health, volunteering, and international development, know that progress on the environment is critical to unlocking progress on each of these issues.
If you’re a security hawk, know that we will only be able to reduce our dependence on China by cultivating our own climate tech industries. If you want to cut migration, know this will only be possible if you support fragile developing countries in Sub Saharan Africa to cope with climate change.
And if you’re a libertarian free marketeer, know that there is no more significant anti-growth coalition than those who fail to recognise the gold mine of prosperity that leading on green technology would be for our country.
Looking ahead to the next election, let us make that case for a UK that meets its climate and nature obligations, that places energy resilience over dependence on autocrats, that embraces the benefits of science and technology, and that promotes the value of our social fabric.
Armed with policies proposed by CEN, from stamp duty rebates for home energy efficiency improvements to new Forestry Creation Zones to support tree planting, let’s push forward a Conservative agenda for the environment and leave our world a better place for the next generation. After all, as Sam would have reminded us, "no generation has a freehold on this earth”.
Thank you.
This speech was delivered by Lord William Hague on Tuesday 21st May 2024 at the Conservative Environment Network's third Sam Barker Memorial Lecture. Views expressed in this speech are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Conservative Environment Network.