Even though most of the people voted for left wing parties, what they got was a government more backward than the previous one, especially when it com
Even though most of the people voted for left wing parties, what they got was a government more backward than the previous one, especially when it comes to climate change.
MP Sammy Wilson of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) claims that the climate change is a myth based on some no good research. More than 750000 people have signed a petition against a deal with the DUP who are far from progressive in social issues area including LGBTI rights and abortion.
Because of Wilson’s attitude towards climate change, the DUP has been described in the media as ‘climate change deniers, but aside from Wilson, the rest of the party’s attitude has been dangerously indifferent on the subject. The party’s manifesto has a section about sustainable energy for NI in which they made a passing statement about renewable energy, but haven’t made any real claims in supporting it.
When it comes to voting, most of the DUP members have been absent from the environment related votings and when they did vote, their results were mixed to weak. Even though it has way higher greenhouse gas emission than its share in the UK population and GDP, Northern Ireland is still the only part of the UK which doesn’t have legally binding climate change targets. That Northern Ireland stance has often been blamed on the DUP lobbying. James Orr, in charge of Friends of the Earth in NI, has said that the Northern Ireland has become the dumping site of the UK and that it is mostly because of the DUP influence.
Sammy Wilson, again, is the most enthusiastic in the DUP lines when it comes to renewable energy and climate change, at least according to his voting record, but he was usually on the dangerous side since he often voted against measures to prevent climate change and to tax the polluters. He has signed Early Day Motion which supports the use of coal and has criticized the anti fracking activists arguing the UK needs to use all of its energy potentials.
Even though at the beginning of its mandate, the government said that its intention is to leave the environment in better shape than it was before, the results are quite bad. They were inactive on air pollution, they backed fracking, and wanted to sell forests. Changes in the cabinet do not give hope since May put Greg Clark in the secretary which is responsible for climate change prevention, a man whose voting record regarding the problem is simply terrible. Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment (among others) tried, while he was the minister of education to drop the climate change from the geography curriculum.
To conclude, the climate for environmental protection is very bad at the moment in the UK, and we have to start dealing with the problem soon since the World Health Organization prognoses that between 2030 and 2050 there will be 250000 deaths to climate change every year.
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