Carla Denyer
Appearances
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
It was pretty grim watching the speeches at the various inauguration ceremonies. I'm not surprised. We knew this was coming. He told us that he was going to do all this stuff. I think this is a really pivotal moment for the UK government. the UK government has to decide which way it wants to face.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And I will be really worried if we see anything more from number 10 that looks like cosying up to Trump's government when I and the Green Party are really clear that we would do a lot better if we turn towards Europe and towards governments that are far from perfect, but for the most part have, I would say, more shared values with the UK.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I do understand that when you're in government, you are responsible for diplomacy that goes beyond just your personal views and your political party. But one can be polite without cosying up. It was concerning yesterday to see Number 10 refusing to comment on Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement. Like that's...
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
even if they don't want to comment on Trump or Musk as people, surely they can comment on policy decisions that their government disagrees with.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Probably some of those consequences are going to come down the track anyway because of the decisions, various decisions that have been made over the first six months of this Labour government on everything from being very slow and partial on their decisions on suspending arms sales to Israel, the two-child benefit cap, an almost endless list of things where I've seen people in my constituency and more broadly basically saying, this isn't what I expected, Labour.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
It's a cross-party project, really. So proposed by a Lib Dem MP with co-signatories from Greens, Plaid Cymru, SNP, Labour, Conservatives. It's not often that you find people from all of those parties ready to work together and agree.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And although there's been various versions of this bill, the main three principles that have been consistent throughout them are, firstly, the law must keep pace with the science, the climate science especially. The Climate Change Act 2008 was groundbreaking in its time, but it's really out of date now.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
It was written in a time when we thought that keeping climate change within two degrees was enough. The climate science is now super clear that that is not the case. We need to keep within 1.5 if we possibly can. That door is closing fast, but if we possibly can, or at least as close to it as possible, and that requires a different set of policies.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
The second fundamental principle in the bill is that climate and nature are so interrelated that we have to tackle them as one, having completely separate bits of legislation that don't interact at all. puts the government at risk of making decisions that will be good for climate, but bad for nature and or vice versa.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And the third is democracy, basically, that people should have a voice in solutions. And so there's a section in the bill around using a climate assembly or a climate advisory council so that the government can be advised by what the public has an appetite for, which I think is really important because the fastest way to decarbonise is to bring people along with you.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And actually loads of polling shows that the public have got much more of an appetite for urgent action on climate than I think most politicians realise. But you have to make sure that you do it in a way that puts the responsibility for paying for it on those with the broader shoulders.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And you don't accidentally design a policy that means that those on the lowest incomes are put in a more difficult situation, of course. And so that's where the Climate Assembly comes in.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Yeah. And the less sunny part of this story, let's say, is that with still only a couple of days to go until we debate and hopefully vote on this bill, we still don't know if we have Labour support. Right. I see. But...
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
We have the support of individual Labour MPs, including some co-sponsors. We have the support of nearly 200 MPs in principle. Nearly 200 MPs signed a pledge before or since the election saying that they would support this.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
So the big question is whether all those people that in the run up to an election said that they would support it are actually going to put their bum on a seat and support it when the moment matters.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
The climate science isn't going to budge for politics. The climate science is that we must stay within 1.5 to have a good chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
but also that every fraction of a degree matters. So very depressingly, we found out that 2024 exceeded 1.5 degrees. But because of the intricacies of the atmosphere and the climate and how it works, that doesn't necessarily mean we've permanently passed it. Right. And even if we have, we should have policies that aim to haul it back as much as possible. So I still think it is...
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
a good idea to be ambitious. We still need policies that are in line with 1.5 and we need it in legislation if we possibly can. Why do MPs always reach for legislation when it could just be regulation? You may have noticed that ministers don't tend to go, oh, yes, co-leader of the Green Party told me to do it, so I'll get on with it.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
So so trying to get cross party support through a bit of legislation that is hopefully non-controversial to a very large number of people is just one of the stronger levers that we have available. Private members bills often don't make it onto the statute book, but occasionally they do. This could. And I think now's the time.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I think it probably would, because one of the important clauses in the Climate and Nature Bill is that the UK government would have a responsibility to reduce emissions associated with aviation and shipping. So one of the big problems with current climate legislation is that aviation shipping are dealt with separately through international agreements, but ones that are pretty ineffective.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And so every country is able to go, yeah, yeah, we've got loads of airports with loads of planes setting off from them, but that's not a problem because aviation shipping is excluded. It's like, well, it's still your citizens taking off in planes owned by British companies from British airports emitting carbon dioxide in British airspace. I think it might be your problem a little bit.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And the Climate and Nature Bill doesn't have a line saying thou shalt not expand airports, but it would make it very, very difficult to meet the legal requirements while doing so.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Worth noting as well that the Climate Change Committee, which is the government's official independent advisor on climate, has said there should be no net airport expansion and that the government won't be able to meet its targets if it does that. And of course, people need to travel.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
But the thing to have at the top of your mind when thinking about airport expansion is airport expansion benefits the super rich. The wealthiest 1% are responsible for 50% of global aviation emissions. And so airport expansion overwhelmingly benefits those people.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Meanwhile, the people living under the flight path dealing with the noise pollution and the air pollution locally, as well as those at the sharp end of climate change, are overwhelmingly rich. those at the other end of the spectrum.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
What do you say? The benefits for the economy are probably overstated. The New Economics Foundation did a really helpful analysis of this years ago when... my local airport at home and in my constituency, Bristol, was proposing to expand. And it may do that again, it looks like, or try to. They found that the majority of the new jobs that would be created were low quality jobs.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Yes, of course, if you've got an increased number of passengers going through an airport, you do need more people to serve you sandwiches and coffee. But if instead the government invested in expanding rail in the UK and better international rail connections and so on, then guess what? More people would need to buy sandwiches and coffee in the rail stations. So it doesn't generate very...
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
good quality jobs, and those jobs aren't inherently attached to aviation, they could go to wherever else you invested that money.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Which is why this has to be about government changing policy and changing legislation to make the greener thing the most convenient and the most affordable thing. Yeah. rather than having a go at individuals for choices that sometimes they don't have complete freedom to make. Thank goodness rail is going to be brought back into public hands now.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
That's been a Green Party policy since forever, as long as the investment comes with it. Yeah. But there's no tax on aviation fuel. There's no VAT on plane tickets. There's additional direct subsidies connected to domestic aviation on top of that. The tax regime for private jets is a bit too generous. There are lots of political choices that successive governments have made to
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
that have created this unfair situation we're in now. And it's so important for us to remember that the economy is not this naturally occurring phenomenon that we just have to live in. The economy is created by humans. And if it's not working for us, we can change it.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Greater Manchester, you'd have thought. Greater Manchester.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I've seen the conspiracy theories about what caused the... Oh my God. No, I haven't.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Yeah, the thing that I and the Greens and wider environmental movement has been saying for decades is that, you know, those on the lowest incomes, those in the global south who've done the least to contribute to climate change will be at the sharp end of it, but no one can escape it. And we are getting to the point where... That is happening now.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
Yeah, I have. So there are two Conservative co-proposers to the Climate and Nature Bill. And actually, they've been some of the more proactive, I would say, in terms of lobbying their peers and making the case.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
And their being part of the team, even though there are vast swathes of policy where we don't agree, their being part of the team has added a richness and a greater understanding of how we can persuade more MPs. So our overlap is slimmer, certainly, between Greens and Conservatives. There are some areas we can work together. I don't know overall how many Conservative MPs will back this bill.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
I suspect it won't be high. But there are some people in pretty much every party that get it. And we have to work cross-party if we're going to tackle this crisis. Will it get rid of the shit in the sea? So maybe the nature part of it would. But I think what is more likely to help with that is bringing the water companies into public ownership.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
The campaign Zero Hour that are pushing the climate and nature bill, they have a template on their website. So you can just go on their website and email your MP or you can just send them a one liner saying climate and nature bill, please be there and vote for it on Friday. That's the key message that they need to see that a lot of their constituents care about this and are watching what they do.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
There are a lot of MPs that need a gentle kick up the bum and the electorate are the people in the position to do that.
Pod Save the UK
Trump 2.0: Fear and Loathing in DC
It's an honour to be here and I'm very grateful for the invitation for the inauguration. You got a direct invitation from Mr Trump. I'm very looking forward to attending the rally tomorrow. And you're here with Lawrence Fox as well? We happen to be on the same flight. Did you travel together?