Moving climate up the global political agenda

Rebecca Willis has done a great service in confirming that there has long been a deeply rooted socially constructed silence on climate change among MPs (‘I don’t want to be seen as a zealot’: what MPs really think about the climate crisis, Long read, 21 May). However, there is a silence within that silence: namely the refusal of MPs who do engage with climate change to acknowledge it as first and foremost a global issue, and not merely an international or even national one.

It is no longer tenable for the world to rely solely on individual countries such as the UK to blaze trails towards net-zero emissions in the hope that others will voluntarily follow at their own pace. World leaders need to wake up to the looming security threats from burning fossil fuels (and forests) and start tackling them at their sources – in the first instance by setting enforceable controls on extraction of fossil fuels, akin to controls on nuclear arms.

Perhaps this is the “story on climate change” that Rebecca Willis discerns to be lacking on the political right (although its few advocates so far seem to be on the left). It need not be in conflict with the left’s desire for a “green new deal”, or any sane person’s wish for a sustainable world beyond the Covid-19 crisis.
Hugh Richards
Stroud, Gloucestershire

• Rebecca Willis’s excellent article portrays clearly why our government is unlikely to lead the world by example during its presidency role for the 2020 UN Climate Change Conference (Cop26). Ministers know that people will only vote for things that they want. With Covid-19, the public have willingly sacrificed many rights and liberties because the threat to their health and wellbeing has been repeatedly explained.

But the government consistently fails to explain that the world is headed for warming well in excess of the safe limit of 1.5 degrees which was identified in the IPCC special report in 2018.

We need degrowth, with regard to both population and all those non-essential indulgences that come with a significant carbon footprint. Already the UK cannot sustain its growing population with its own resources. If told the truth, the public will be selfless and courageous. We cannot negotiate with physics, we cannot say: “Hold on, we’re dealing with another crisis.” While the government continues to seek a return to business as usual, we are failing to set an example for other world leaders. An honest public awareness campaign, led by a cross-party emergency UK government and the media, would lead the way for the world at Cop26.

Thank you, Guardian, for your courage and honesty in reporting climate and environmental issues.
Barbara Williams
Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire

• Rebecca Willis’s article struck me as just not long enough. It revealed much about the shortsightedness of British politicians and citizens alike, and of the masters of British capitalism. The Nobel-winning Al Gore (unmentioned by Ms Willis) has the grasp and vision needed to tackle climate change; Keir Starmer promises to match those qualities.
Jinty Nelson
London

• Rebecca Willis’s in-depth article is enlightening and disturbing. It is an important exposé of how democracy is addressed, or not, in parliament and a wakeup call to the serious mismatch between the scale of the climate challenge and the response from politicians. I commend it to all who have children, as the planet we will leave them is in serious jeopardy.
Richard Vernon
Oxford