Labour wants UK to be first country in the world to declare climate emergency

Labour will force a vote on Wednesday to try to make the UK the world’s first country to declare a climate emergency.

Senior party figures confirmed they will use their opposition day in the Commons to move the environment to the top of the agenda.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Extinction Rebellion protests in London and other cities, in which 1,100 were arrested, had been a “wake up call” and he would urge the Government to act.

He said: “The inspiring climate ­activism we have seen in recent weeks must serve as a massive and necessary wake-up call for rapid dramatic action.

“Only concerted government intervention through a Green Industrial Revolution can deliver this scale of change. We can and will harness the power of new technologies for social and environmental justice.

“For young people the climate emergency is the cause of their generation.

“We in older generations must face up to this ­seriously.

“We have to have a much more focused and serious approach towards climate change and the damage we’re doing to our planet.

“We want a world for those in countries worst affected by and least to blame for climate change – and our young people.

“On Wednesday the UK Parliament will have the chance to be the first in the world to declare an environment and climate emergency, which we hope will trigger a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the world.”

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, who gained world ­recognition over her school strikes to highlight the cause, backed Labour’s stance.

Greta, who visited London this week, said: “It is very hopeful that a major European political ­party has woken up to ­propose a declaration of a national climate emergency.

“It is a great first step because it sends a clear signal that we are in a crisis and that the climate and ecological crises must be our first
priority. We cannot solve an emergency without treating it like an emergency.

“I hope other UK parties join in and together pass this motion in Parliament and that political parties in other countries follow their example.”

Mr Corbyn will use an Opposition motion on Wednesday to push Parliament to act with urgency to avoid more than 1.5C of warming, which requires global emissions to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching “net zero” before 2050.

Last year UK carbon dioxide emissions fell by 2 per cent.

At that rate we would not reach levels compatible with net zero before 2100 – far too late to avoid dangerous climate change.

Shadow business, energy and ­industrial strategy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said: “Winning slowly on climate change is the same as losing.”

Labour’s demands reflect the findings by the world’s leading scientific body on the issue, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says that to avoid dangerous climate change the world will need to take “rapid and far reaching” action to decarbonise.

David Attenborough has pushed climate change up the national agenda.

Now Labour is developing plans to capture the economic opportunities of the low carbon economy.

The party backs a Green Industrial Revolution providing high-skilled good jobs in every region of Britain, especially former industrial towns and cities.

Research commissioned by 20 ­governments found that without action on climate change tens of millions will die by 2030, with more than 90 per cent of those deaths being in the global south.

Britain is also suffering alarming species decline and missing nearly all its biodiversity targets, with cuts of almost half to Natural England undermining attempts to protect wildlife, air and water quality.

Labour’s motion will call for a range of measures to meet the ­emergency.

Proposals include ­targets for mass roll-out of ­renewable and low carbon energy and transport.

They will also call for proper funding for ­environmental ­protection to ­reverse the trend in species ­decline and ­for plans to move towards a zero-waste economy.