Last time we discussed country actions in terms of climate change, it was the positive move of the Australians of electing Malcolm Turnbull. Now we may have what is being widely viewed as a setback, as new British PM Theresa May closes the Department for Energy and Climate Change. From CommonDreams:
May shuttered the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on Thursday and moved responsibility for the environment to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The decision comes the same week as the U.K. government’s own advisers warned in a report that the nation was not ready for the inevitable consequences of climate change, including deadly heat waves and food and water shortages.
“This is shocking news. Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new prime minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change, one of the biggest threats we face,” said Craig Bennett, CEO of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “This week the government’s own advisors warned of ever growing risks to our businesses, homes and food if we don’t do more to cut fossil fuel pollution.”
CommonDreams may be dedicated to the Progressive movement, but actions such as this affect everyone, conservative and liberal, communist and anarchist, from London to Shanghai to San Francisco. The question is the direction of the affect, as it’s not clear to me the purpose of this new Department within the British government – the Climate Change section may be entirely subsumed by the Energy and Business sections and become ineffective, or (on the positive end) it may influence future regulations of companies doing business in the UK. I poked around but did not find an explanation of the change.
May’s views on climate change are not entirely clear.
