Miliband BREAKS RANKS With Burnham As UK Burns

Heatwaves and wildfires are on the top of the news agenda at the moment. On Thursday, we saw the hottest day of an already record-breaking year. It was 38.1 degrees in Q in West London. And these were some of the dramatic scenes broadcast into our respective living rooms. >> Let's just bring you back to these live pictures that we are getting from the Sky News helicopter this evening. And they show serious fires that have broken out in Stourbridge in the West Midlands. And uh there was a fire that it involved the golf course there um and several fields there. But that fire, as you can see there, has crossed roads and is now um seriously affecting seriously impacting uh residential areas. >> Firefighters were called to this part of Stourbridge at about 1:30 yesterday afternoon. And what's really striking when you talk to people who live here is the speed at which the fire took hold. It started off in a field, then blew onto the golf course which is next to us here. And then the wind changed direction and sent it towards houses down here. Now we know it's more than 10 houses that have been gutted by the fire that happened here yesterday. People who live here have been telling us it was carnage. Um that they can't believe something like that happened in this country. And it was more like being in a film. >> Right, I've got to get out of there now. I've got to go. So that's it. That's the house going up. >> That was footage from Sky, the BBC, and social media of those I mean really apocalyptic-looking fires in Stourbridge on Thursday. Um now you might have thought scenes like that would put fires front and center of the political agenda. Um you might have expected that Andy Burnham would use this opportunity to really talk about climate change and the threat it faces to our health, our safety, our living standards. However, um the new Prime Minister has been very reluctant to talk about climate change. He doesn't think it fits um with the messaging that he's trying to put forward um in his new government. Um and we aren't the only people to have noticed this silence. Um today 50 green groups, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, have urged Burnham to break his silence on climate change. There is though one key figure in the new government who is speaking from a different script, someone who hasn't decided that climate change are two words that shouldn't be said in public. Um this is Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband. >> This isn't normal. All this, all this. These heat waves are sending us a message. We can all agree that national security is the first responsibility of any government, and the climate crisis is now a serious national security threat to the British people. Heat waves, wildfires, droughts are all going to become more common. But the good news is we can act. As Foreign Secretary, I will work with countries around the world to build a coalition for action. At the United Nations in September, I'll be bringing together foreign ministers to discuss how we respond to this new national security threat. And when countries work together, we can bring down emissions, slow temperature rises, and help people adapt to the warming world. I feel this so deeply. We owe it to future generations to act. Our planet is sending us a warning signal, and we are going to listen. Now for Ed Miliband, of course, Foreign Secretary was a bit of a consolation prize. He wanted to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Um that was the job he'd been prepping for for years. I think he planned to go into the Treasury and turbocharge Britain's transition to net zero. Um, but can he now as foreign secretary make more of a difference than he could have done as chancellor? Are the opportunities even bigger, even wider? Well, earlier today I spoke to Simon Lewis. He's professor of global change science at UCL. >> It's much trickier, I think, to be impactful on the international stage if your government is not performing on the national stage. So, it's going to be tough for Ed Miliband if these two new oil and gas licenses, Rosebank and Jackdaw, get approved. And it could be very soon. Then he's going to have a real trouble telling the rest of the world, "Hey, we need to get our emissions down." If they're also back home granting new licenses for, you know, 25 years worth of new oil and gas emissions. >> And and who would that matter to? Because obviously the argument for Jack Doran Rosebank, I mean there are a number of arguments for it, but when it comes to climate people say, "Look, Britain's emissions aren't that significant even if they open these new oil and gas plants." And it's not as if Xi Jinping really cares what the UK government is doing and when it comes to the North Sea. Um, I mean do you disagree with that or who What What countries would be influenced, let's say, by us giving those um two gas and oil fields the the go-ahead? >> So, I think we we all know that the uh UN process is is quite bogged down because it is consensus-based. And real leadership is required. And there's a parallel process now with this road map to transition away from fossil fuels. Had its first conference in Colombia uh this year. And it could lead that. It could provide a real leadership role as a, you know, middle power country who's has a good track record compared to other countries in terms of climate. You know, officially our emissions since 1990 are 54% down. Uh by other measures, a quarter down. Not enough. And uh certainly not in line with 1.5 degrees C, but significantly better than many other countries. So, could provide leadership there, but not if we're giving oil and gas licenses out to hope. >> Could you give a bit more context to this treaty? It has been mentioned on the show before, but this is a sort of coalition of the willing, isn't it? Separate from the COP process and for countries who have committed to move away from fossil fuels and I think to not um sort of develop any new fossil fuel sites. >> That's right. There's a frustration in the climate talks that things get bogged down by what, for example, Saudi Arabia is is is willing to sign up to, which is very, very little. So, now we all agree that we need to get to net zero emissions as a world. And until that happens, the climate impacts get more and more. So, you know, I'm seeing sweltering here in the 30 wave in a row in London. And that's going to get worse and worse on average until we get to net zero emissions and then it'll stay at that point. And people know what the science is, but there's a bunch of countries that want to get things done and want to lead the transition. And there are some countries that do not want to and actively want to oppose it, particularly United States, Saudi Arabia. So, therefore, the countries that that want to get something done have moved to a parallel process, complementary to it, to work out actually how do we do this that's economically feasible and practical and doesn't leave anyone behind. >> And what countries are part of that treaty? I know the first conference was in Colombia. Who's Who's part of this coalition of the willing? >> There were 57 countries. It was co-led by Colombia and the Netherlands Um and then a bunch of countries from Europe, bunch of countries from from South America and of course all the small island states are the kind of the major groupings. >> We often speak to you sort of at COPs. So we're often looking for an expert to talk to at one of the big COPs and and you're often there and you're a great speaker so we get you on. So I suppose with that sort of perspective from recent history what has the UK's role been when it comes to international climate diplomacy? Have been Have we been one of the good guys or the bad guys? Somewhere in somewhere in the middle? >> I would say overall one of the good guys on the spectrum. Um we obviously had a lot more power and leverage when we were part of the European Union. Now we're a bit isolated uh because we don't have this big group backing behind what the United Kingdom is saying and and very recently we've had a much more problematic because we've had big cuts in the aid budget. You know, we're now down to 0.3% of GDP and you know, that's having big impacts because the UK can't or is unwilling to contribute to mitigation, to adaptation in particular and to the loss and damage funds so that you know, these massive impacts in small island states that you know, just are very very difficult to adapt to. How we're going to pay for that? And we can see that adaptation problem here. You know, we have enormous issues with adaptation of our hospitals, of our farming, of our landscapes, of our homes. And who is going to pay for that? How is that going to be paid? Across the world is a very live live issue and and a very a very important one. >> From what you've said so far, it sounds like you're suggesting that you know, Ed Miliband might have his heart in the right place. He might you know, I believe he genuinely cares about climate change and he's passionate about this. But the position he's going to have to put forward or the baggage he comes with when he goes to any meeting with a foreign leader or his his counterparts, foreign secretaries of other countries, is that we're a nation that's considering opening new oil and gas fields. And we're a nation that's just cut our development budget from 0.7 to 0.5 then to 0.3%. And so in fact, you know, this is one of the worst situations Britain has ever been in in recent history when it comes to our ability, capacity to pursue climate diplomacy. >> I would agree with that except Ed Miliband is a very impressive political operator. And he's shown that in his previous role on net zero and climate and before that when he was in government in in 2008. So if someone can do something about that, you know, he has great leverage in the Labour Party and in the cabinet to stop these two oil and gas fields and explain the kinds of impacts uh on the UK standing for essentially almost no jobs, no impact on on bills, and uh and and very very little income to the Treasury. It doesn't make any sense for these to go ahead on their own terms, never mind with the climate and the international perspective. And then I think on aid, the cut to 0.3% was supposed to be temporary. Now if Ed can get some commitment about how that turns round, that would be very good. And he could also use his considerable leverage to, you know, make the point as he sort of is implicitly say, "What's the real threat here? Is it an invasion by Russia?" I mean currently in the UK at the moment, we've got huge fires. We've got people losing their homes to fire. We've got huge fires in agriculture and natural bits of of the UK. We've got hospitals overheating. We've got train crashes. This is the kind of impact that Russia could only dream of. And it's here now because of climate change. And we're much better investing in reducing emissions and doing the adaptation and changing to electrification and renewable energy to produce the electricity and helping the world go on that direction rather than funding ever more armaments for a much more distant threat than climate change is which which which the Russian In my opinion, it is. It's more distant than this very real, very now climate impacts. >> And so does that mean you think it's smart for In In the video Ed Miliband released yesterday, he was saying "My commitment is to national security. That's the highest priority of any government. But given my highest priority is national security, that's precisely why I care so much about climate change." Do you think that's the right framing? I mean, you know, at the extreme end, this probably won't happen, but you could imagine him sort of saying, "Well, you've committed to 3% of GDP on defense. Maybe if we have a more expansive notion of defense, we can put some of that towards climate investments." I'm not sure if that would get past some of the right-wing newspapers, but I don't know what you think about that. >> Yeah, I'm not sure I'm not sure it would would get past, but I I think that um noting that it's a security uh issue for the UK, whether it's food security, whether it's our energy supply security, whether it's our ability to transport things, you know, in these new higher temperatures and under these new climate impacts, then I think, you know, yes yes, it is a national priority. And that by saying it's national security, that's how you get buy-in from senior civil servants, buy-in from GCHQ, uh uh buy-in from other um you know other ministries to be able to have the kind of comprehensive approach that's needed to adapt to these ever-changing conditions because I think we all just have to remember, and it's hard to remember, that in 10 years time, these conditions and these impacts are going to look good unless we do something about both the emissions and adapting to this new world that we've created. >> I suppose more as a climate scientist now in terms of what we can expect over the coming 12 months because as far as I understand, the heatwave we're seeing at the moment is partly was largely of course driven by climate change and then also driven by El Nino, which is a cyclical natural phenomenon. And also my understanding is that we're we're kind of only in the beginning of the El Nino. So the worst could be yet to come over say the next 6 or 12 months. So what should we expect over the next 6 or 12 months? What will the rest of this El Nino have in store? >> One correction there is that the current heatwaves are not related to El Nino. It's only just getting started. You know these these heatwaves are driven by more emissions in the atmosphere and then we always have had heatwaves, but what we're having now is heatwaves on top of already much higher temperatures and therefore the spikes that we're seeing are like outside the comfort zone, outside the tolerance that UK society was built for. We have hospitals that are built for a given temperature range and now we're increasingly going outside of that temperature range. And that's the same for all of the infrastructure that's been built up in the UK over the last I mean, you know, hundreds of years and certainly decades so that it's it's no longer kind of exactly fit for purpose because what we're seeing is, you know, we have a band of of of tolerance, and we're now poking outside that band of tolerance. Uh in terms of the El Niño, so it's unclear whether it's going to be this strongest ever El Niño or not quite. We're still seeing how it's evolving. And the UK is not massively affected by El Niños. It's not the kind of place like uh like California, which has like massive changes in weather patterns, or Peru, uh or East Africa, and or or or parts of the Amazon. Uh so, what we'll mainly see, I think, is uh uh huge impact on food production. Uh because we will have an abnormal weather in many places in the world. So, we can expect further food price inflation. And we can also expect um more events like this uh typhoon in China, where almost a million people were evacuated because they got a third of a year's rain in in in in uh in one day. So, we'll just have more unusual extremes. And in some places it will be much drier, and in some places it will be much wetter. But it The impact on the UK is most likely to be um uh but via food. And uh 2027 will guaranteed be a record year for global temperatures, almost guaranteed because the El Niño will go on top of existing climate change. And um uh and and we'll see uh natural ecosystems temporarily stop absorbing carbon, so we'll see a big increase in the amount of carbon that we put into the atmosphere is in the atmosphere because of because of the changes in the environment. Essentially, the tropics will absorb less carbon than it normally does. >> And why is that? I know you're you focus on tropical forests. So, I mean, maybe you can relate it to that, but why is it that hot weather means that these places won't absorb carbon? Is it because the forest burned down or or what's going on there? >> It will be partly, yeah. People will use the dry It's partly because it's hot, but also dry. And the places where it's dry, then you can convert the forest to other land uses. So, some people will So, cattle ranchers in South America will take that opportunity to clear additional lands trying consolidate lands for for cattle production, for for example. And and higher temperatures mean that um respiration costs of plants are higher. So, they're they're absorbing carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and then releasing it through respiration. And that respiration costs go up as the temperatures rise. So, that's the kind of basic basic point. >> So, the So, the I'm going to put this in really stupid person's sort of language, but the the plant is more The plant is more stressed. It has to work harder. Therefore, it absorbs less carbon. >> Exactly. >> Perfect. >> perfect way of putting it. >> I'm happy that you you reinforced me that was that was not a completely ridiculous thing to say. Um let's link this up as a final question. Um sort of putting aside Rosebank and and Jack Dorney I suppose putting aside the the aid budget because those are both things that Ed Miliband's going to have to negotiate with with with Andy Burnham. It's going to sort of be about power struggles within cabinet, I suppose. Purely as foreign secretary, what are the things that Ed Miliband can basically do of his own accord just using his intellect and charm, I suppose. Does it relate to sort of protecting tropical rainforests? I mean, what can he do when he's going and meeting other global leaders? >> Well, he's already announced that he's you in UK envoy for the World Bank and that he is personally going to do that job rather than giving it to a junior minister. So, that's really important because the World Bank is um under siege from the United States in particular to stop its climate-related finance for global South countries. So, that is a very important fight internationally that Ed Miliband knows about and has put himself in the center of because he can do a lot of good there for the climate debate. Um, I think that's one crucial thing and then obviously, you know, he will be able to provide uh some some leadership because he's very able against Saudi Arabia and the other blockers in the international climate talks because he's got a lot of experience of how to do that and he was and he's been quite effective in the past in doing that, but it's, you know, it's limited, but it's important that someone does it and someone who's very passionate and able can do it. >> That was Simon Lewis speaking to me earlier today. Um, and we do have a bit of an update on the story because Andy Burnham has said the words climate change. Um, he well, do that again. That was Professor Simon Lewis speaking to me earlier today and we do have an update for you um because Andy Burnham has now today said the words climate change. Um, it was on a visit to Stourbridge. >> You know, we have to face up to the changing climate and I think we need a different debate about that. There's no point denying where we are. We need to face up to it. We we more clean energy. Uh, we need to see that transition accelerate. Uh, those are all of the issues that, you know, are now in discussion, but the Cobra meeting earlier this week, I think has enabled us to mobilize resource today to individuals, uh, to communities, and to our fire and rescue services, uh, and we're very, very grateful to them. >> So, he does still seem pretty reluctant to talk about climate change, right? So, it was mentioned briefly. He talks about clean energy, but then he's obviously moving on quite quickly. Um, that's what he thinks as as Prime Minister is visiting people who've just sort of immediately lost their homes. He doesn't want to be seen to be making political points. Now, I don't think talking about climate change should be seen as making a political point, but but clearly some people do. Um, but yeah, just for whatever reason, this has now become habitual. He does not want to talk about this. Um, we should say that there has been another update, which is, um, that not only is he discouraging the use of disposable barbecues, he's banning the sale of disposable barbecues, um, for the time being, um, while we're still in drought. Um, lots of people are suggesting it's not really ambitious enough, um, as a means, uh, to to I suppose protect us from climate change, but also, I mean, I'm definitely not opposed to it. Um, disposable barbecues when we're in a drought do seem like an unnecessary risk. Um, obviously, I'd advise everyone when you're out this weekend, don't start any unnecessary Well, well, don't start any fires, necessary or unnecessary. Uh, have a picnic instead.