Despite the UK having its hottest day on 19 July, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in some regions, climate change has hardly had a role in the Conservative Party leadership contest. It was largely absent from Monday’s televised debate between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, the two remaining candidates to be the next prime minister. The argument goes that climate change is not considered a priority by party members, but new polling from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit suggests this is too simplistic – members are far more open to action than their prospective leaders seem to be.
Sixty-three per cent male and with a higher percentage of over-65s and over-50s, the Tory party is not representative of the UK public. In a recent YouGov poll for the Times, only 4 per cent of its members put reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 in their top three policy priorities. Truss and Sunak seemed to be playing to this audience on Monday. Climate change received just two minutes of attention in the hour-long debate. “What three things should people do in their lives to help tackle climate change,” the candidates were asked, allowing the former chancellor and the Foreign Secretary to get away with focusing on individual actions rather than their own policies.
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