Green groups call on Burnham to end silence on climate change

More than 50 green campaign groups, left-leaning think tanks and other progressive lobbying organisations have come together to call on the prime minister to break his apparent silence on the climate crisis.

The initiative, which has been organised by youth campaign group Green New Deal Rising, calls on Andy Burnham to publicly recognise the scale of the climate crisis, name its cause and take strong and effective action to tackle what they describe as “this grave threat to our lives and livelihoods now and the lives of our children and grandchildren in the future”.

In a letter to the PM, the 50+ groups say that unprecedented extreme heat is now acting as a direct brake on the UK economy – closing schools, crippling regional transport networks and pushing an overstretched NHS to the brink. “We are writing to ask why you have remained silent on the driving cause of this extreme weather – climate change – and the only viable solutions – restoring nature and rapidly achieving net zero,” they say.

The groups point out that climate change is a leading concern for the UK public and its effects are wide ranging and catastrophic. “From failed harvests, unsafe working temperatures, dangerously hot homes and firefighters stretched to breaking point, this crisis is directly impacting the lives of people across the UK and the world now. It can no longer be treated as a distant or abstract issue.”

They are calling on the PM to show leadership “that speaks honestly about the nature and complexity of the challenges we face this year, and in the years to come”. While the signatories to the letter welcome Andy Burnham’s decision to hold a COBRA meeting in response to this summer’s extreme heat, they criticise the PM for not naming climate change and the burning of fossil fuels as the cause of the increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

“Without naming the cause of our rapidly changing environment, you will be unable to adequately prepare the country for the adaptations it will need to make and the efforts needed to cut carbon emissions rapidly,” they tell the prime minister.

The groups, which include Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, The Climate Coalition, Marine Conservation Society, Stop Rosebank, the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, The Democracy Collaborative, War on Want and many more, also warn Andy Burnham that he is in danger of “losing an opportunity to connect with the British public who are deeply concerned about what they see is happening to the world around them”.

Click here to read the letter to the PM and the list of organisations that have signed it.