Farmers need support to help us transition to net zero - Yorkshire Post Letters

Recycling may be a good thing to do but by itself it’s not going to save the planet. And canvas shopping bags won’t either, especially since they became another unwanted item thrust upon us by marketing teams.

Many people who want to make a difference are at great risk of being diverted into spending their energy and time sweating the small stuff and making limited headway.

If we are serious about countering climate change then the big-ticket items are energy, transport, agriculture, and heating and cooling.

Mostly these are not areas where we can succeed through ‘personal choice’.

And the ‘free market’ that gets talked about doesn’t exist either: there are plenty of well-funded marketing teams and lobbyists looking after the vested interests in the oil industry, the farm supply chains and the car industry, who are spending a lot of money to make sure the market is never free and always operates to maintain their profits.

If we want to transition our electricity supply away from fossil fuels, then we need a reform of the wholesale energy market and progressive support for investment in new technologies like wind, solar and batteries.

This is how we guarantee the UK’s energy security.

If we want agriculture to look after our food security and biodiversity, but also reduce their reliance on huge inputs of agrochemicals, nitrogen fertiliser and diesel for machinery, then we need to support farmers to move to the most effective farming practices that achieve this. We also need well-designed farm subsidies.

To support a transition to heat pumps we need to link the significant energy savings with financial savings for bill payers.

To do this we need a reform of domestic gas and electricity unit prices that stops punishing consumers who use electric heating with extra charges.

If we want to decarbonise transport we need to set regulations for the car industry that stop the current arms-race of bigger and bigger SUVs and helps our domestic producers to produce small, cheap electric cars that will provide a serious alternative to Chinese imports.

None of this can be delivered by ‘personal choice’ in terms of what we buy and how much we recycle. It depends on having an active and forward-thinking government.

We urgently need a new government that will see its purpose and role as actively managing our economy to keep the UK competitive during the inevitable transition.

This requires new legislation, new ideas and regulations, and a can-do attitude to change that allows us to introduce the new and phase out the old fossil-fuel technologies as soon as possible.

For anyone who wants to live in a prosperous, modern society that has energy security, food security and clean air, the most significant personal choice you have is deciding to vote for whichever party understands these challenges and has the energy to tackle them.

After the election, we can all carry on recycling, while the government looks after our big interests on our behalf.