Rishi Sunak's high-carbon lifestyle setting bad example over climate change: Yorkshire Post Letters

A recent report says that households in the UK are paying £600 a year more for food due to climate change.

Rishi Sunak’s response is that he’ll invest in research into climate-resistant crops. He’s hoping we can just adapt to climate change and says precious little about preventing it.

His high carbon policies and lifestyle are setting a bad example on the international stage and at home.

Tinkering with crop genetics is totally inadequate in the face of climate change. Whilst such research is likely to prove essential because we are approaching 1.5C warming faster than previously expected, to think that adapting our food alone will protect the world’s agricultural systems is nonsense. We will lose far more crops to climate change than we will by using some farmland for solar.

The Government itself has commissioned numerous reports that show we are being pushed in the wrong direction by a government devoid of backbone for the challenge of our generation. He should be reading his own reports that point out that net zero is the economic opportunity of the century.

Saving energy by building homes to a better standard with good insulation and heat pumps will save people money and increase our energy independence, too.

More active travel for shorter journeys will reduce emissions substantially and improve our health, reducing health care costs, but we need investment in safer cycling routes. I could go on; his own reports do.

We need a Prime Minister prepared to take the time to really understand what our actions will lead to for future generations. He thinks calling his two young daughters “the experts in his house” is enough but we desperately need more.