The current political rules are an obstacle to securing a liveable future, and until the rulebook is torn up, we must all be alert to the possibility that, rather than being the agents for real change, we are colluding in maintaining the status quo.
The environmental NGO sector must challenge the economic and political rulebooks or risk colluding in maintaining the status quo, according to outgoing Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.
Lucas was speaking to an audience of senior representatives from the environmental campaign sector at an event hosted by think tank the Green Alliance at an event billed as her “farewell speech”.
The Brighton Pavilion MP announced last summer that she would step down from her seat at the 2024 general election. She spoke of her “frankly exhausting” schedule. Being the only MP from her party meant effectively being the “frontbench spokesperson on absolutely everything”.
Having to understand the implications of every vote, and needing to make an informed, evidence-based decision every time, leading to “long and challenging” days and nights working, she said.
Mainstream issue
Lucas was clear that the conversation around the environment had changed since she was elected as the first Green Party MP in 2010. Back then, she reminisced, the outgoing Labour government had been intended to permit a third runway at Heathrow, and build more coal-fired power stations.
The incoming prime minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg meanwhile mentioned environment just once, and climate not at all, as they launched the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
“Simply making the case that Britain should be powered by renewables not fossil fuels was a daily battle, but we kept fighting, and together, we have won some of the big battles,” she noted. “The Kingsnorth coal fired power station was never built, there is no third runway, and fracking never took off. Together, we found ways to create a growing political platform for environmental issues.”
“We went through an era where Cameron, as prime minister, dared dismiss environmental concerns as 'green crap' to an era where net zero is now a legally binding commitment, and we managed to build a cross-party consensus to such an extent that Parliament came together to declare a climate emergency,” she said.
As depressing as it was to see the Tories “setting light” to that consensus in a “desperate lurch to the hard right”, the sector should not underestimate the fact that in the past 14 years, they had succeeded in changing the conversation around the environment.
It was now a mainstream political issue, frequently ranked in the top five of voters’ concerns, she said. Across the young and old, left and right wing, and sectors including scientists, lawyers and students, people had come together to demand change,
She praised the NGO sector for their constant support during her 14 years as MP. “If I have done this job even halfway effectively, I've done it standing on all of your shoulders,” she said.
Status quo
However, she admitted disappointment that the environmental movement had not succeeded in changing the rules of politics. It had “focussed on small incremental wins, rather than the overall direction of travel, valued a seat around the table over speaking truth to power, overlooked radical analysis of the interconnected nature of the challenges we face in favour of short-term fixes, and kept a distance from rebels and rulebreakers and instead play it safe,” she said.
The current political rules are an obstacle to securing a liveable future, and until the rulebook is torn up, we must all be alert to the possibility that, rather than being the agents for real change, we are colluding in maintaining the status quo.
“The current political rules are an obstacle to securing a liveable future, and until the rulebook is torn up, we must all be alert to the possibility that, rather than being the agents for real change, we are colluding in maintaining the status quo.,” she said.
The environmental movement shied away from talking about issues such as resource use, transport and food “for fear of being shut out, or sounding too radical,” she said.
The movement was still allowing one narrative to dominate the political discourse - that prosperity was defined by the unending quest for GDP growth, which had become “overriding, all consuming, all destroying”.
“There’s no way to seriously address the triple crisis of climate, nature, inequality without transforming the economic and political systems,” she said.
Lonely voice
However, when she had bought up these issues in Parliament, Lucas admitted: “I have frankly often felt like a lonely voice, without collective cover and policy support about how it could be done. When I have put my head above the parapet, it did sometimes feel to me that some of you were keeping yours down in damage limitation mode.
“I understand that instinct, but at such a serious moment in human history, we can't afford to settle for anything less than what the science demands,” she said. This meant taking on and changing the system and the power structures that enable it, and funding that by properly taxing wealth and redistributing it, she added.
“Friends, we urgently need to close the gap between what's scientifically and ethically essential, and what is currently deemed to be politically possible,” she said.
Social justice
In order to win the debate, environmental campaigners needed to spend more time talking to those who were yet to be persuaded, rather than “talking to each other on Twitter”, she said. Environmental NGOs should also be prepared to drop their brands and work together in a more deeply collaborative way, she suggested.
They also needed to place a much stronger emphasis on social justice, which should be at the heart of everything the movement does, she said. “That whole fairness dimension isn’t sufficiently embedded, and it won’t be embedded if we’re not serious about funding the transition.
"We cannot allow ourselves any examples of where transition has happened on the back of the poorest people, and that means serious money on the table,” she said.
The environmental movement needs to have a broader agenda, she said. “You do need to care about the wealth tax, you do need to care about the redistribution of funds, otherwise this is simply not going to happen, it just isn’t. That joined-upness has got to be taken forward in the next 14 years, because we haven’t got it right in the last 14.”
The Green Party this week launched its election manifesto, which outlines its proposals for a wealth tax.
Click here to read the Ecologist’s review of 'Another England: how to reclaim our national story' by Caroline Lucas.
This Author
Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76.
