Tag: Political will

Counting on … day 148

22nd September 2025

Lack of political will can also worsen the impact climate change. Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, UCL explains it thus: “The IPCC’s summary entirely avoids the phrase “natural disaster”. This reflects decades of work explaining that disasters are caused by sources of vulnerability – such as unequal and inequitable access to essential services like healthcare or poorly designed or built infrastructure like power plants – rather than by the climate or other environmental influences.

“The [2022 IPCC] report states, with high confidence, that “climate change is contributing to humanitarian crises where climate hazards interact with high vulnerability”. In other words, vulnerability must exist before a crisis can emerge. Climate change is not the root cause of disaster. The report explains that places with “poverty, governance challenges and limited access to basic services and resources, violent conflict and high levels of climate-sensitive livelihoods” are more vulnerable to climate change impacts.”

“The report explains that disaster risk and impacts can be reduced by tackling fundamental issues which cause vulnerability, no matter what the weather and climate do. It places high confidence in risk management, risk sharing, and warning strategies as key tasks for adapting to climate change.” (1)

(1) https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-how-politics-not-climate-change-is-responsible-for-disasters-and-conflict-178071

Counting on … day 147

19th September 2025

Interestingly, lack of political will is seen as a key factor in the failure of governments to address climate change. 

“Political cowardice is hindering European efforts to face up to the effects of the climate crisis, even as the continent is pummelled by a record-breaking heatwave, the EU’s green transition chief [Teresa Ribera]  has warned.…A major part of the problem, she added, was that some political parties “continue to insist, quite vehemently, that climate change does not exist”, or else say that taking decisions to adapt to environmental realities is too expensive. ‘You can’t tell people that climate change is the great existential problem of our generation, and then say, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to do anything”’. (1)

Whilst here in the UK, successive governments are reluctant to enact the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee – a committee set up by Parliament and tasked with researching how the UK can successfully transition to net zero, mitigating our environmental footprint and adapting our infrastructure commensurate with the already built -in  impacts of climate change. Twice now Friends of the Earth and Client Earth have challenged the adequacy of government plans in the courts and won the legal argument. (2) The government has now to issue a new climate plan which should be published October 2025. (3)

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/02/political-cowardice-hindering-europe-climate-efforts-eu-green-chief-teresa-ribera

(2) https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/whats-uks-climate-plan-and-why-do-we-need-new-one

(3) https://friendsoftheearth.uk/latest/govt-publish-new-climate-action-plan-october

Counting on … day 146

18th September 2025

Introducing alternative ways of managing our economies will require a high degree of political will – and especially the willingness to shift from short term (before the next election) to long term goals. 

One organisation that has done research on how this can be achieved is Nesta (a UK innovation agency for social good).

“Why long-termism doesn’t often happen…Part of the problem is that so much of our system of government pushes in the opposite direction. Decision makers get stuck in “firefighting traps”, a symptom of which includes focusing on the urgent instead of the important.

“Rather than simply indulge in well-intentioned hand waving about the need for greater long-termism in government, we need practical ways of encouraging future thinking that are hardwired into the system. Fortunately across the globe there are pockets of government innovation where we can find just that.”(1) 

Do read the full article. And ask questions when we next have elections – how will the candidate/ party ensure better long term planning to ensure intergenerational justice?

  1. https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/how-to-build-long-term-thinking-into-government/