LightningMinion visited the Botanical Gardens in Cambridge to give a campaign speech entitled “A New Deal for the Climate”:

“The climate crisis is real and is already having drastic effects on the United Kingdom. In 2019, a sweltering temperature of 38.7C was recorded here, which was at the time the highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom. Last month, the temperature of 39.9C recorded here not only breached the previous record, but it wasn’t even the UK-wide record: Coningsby in Lincolnshire saw stifling temperatures of 40.3C, setting the new record for the highest ever temperature recorded in the UK.

The extreme heat was accompanied by an unprecedented dry season: East Anglia saw only only 5.4 mm of rain last month, which is the lowest amount of rainfall ever recorded in the region since records began in 1836! As a consequence of this unprecedented lack of rainfall, a drought has also been declared in East Anglia, with many reservoirs running dangerously low.

The yellow colour of the normally vibrant green grass here is a good indicator of just how damaging the climate crisis is. It has led to plants drying out, which has been especially devastating for agriculture: half of the potato crop is expected to fail as farmers are unable to irrigate them, and even crops which are usually drought-tolerant, such as maize, have also failed at many farms. Other crops, including sugar beet, onions, apples, hops, etc, are also expected to fail due to the dry conditions preventing the crops from being irrigated. As a result, harvests this year are set to be much smaller than usual, with some farmers being forced to make earlier harvests; and it is estimated that less crops will be sown this year than usual, leading to smaller harvests next year too.

This is having an effect on livestock farming too: crops being grown to feed livestock are dying out, forcing farmers to feed their livestock with the food originally reserved for the winter. This will push up food prices during a time when food prices are already high due to the cost of living crisis.

The extreme heat has also been damaging to infrastructure: a section of the A14 had to be closed for over 9 hours as the extreme heat caused the road to buckle; and emergency speed limits were brought in for railway lines, with some even being closed, over fears of the rails buckling. For example, no trains ran between here and St Pancras during the days of extreme heat.

The climate crisis is real and is having devastating effects; but the Labour Party has an ambitious plan to tackle the crisis. We will kickstart a Green Industrial Revolution to create millions of new, high-skill, high-wage, unionised jobs in deprived areas, and to decarbonise energy, industry, buildings, transport, agriculture and economy.

The energy industry has been the cause of suffering for many of you, with energy bills rising to ridiculous levels which would have pushed countless families into fuel poverty had the Central Line Coalition not delivered a 7 billion pound refund of energy bills. Meanwhile, energy giants like BP and Shell are posting record profits as they profit off the suffering of millions of low- and medium-income households. The Labour Party believes that this is unambiguously immoral and that vital utilities shouldn’t be run for profit, which is why we will take the energy industry into public ownership. We will then lower energy bills, ensuring that all households can afford to heat their homes this coming winter.

Furthermore, while the leader of the Conservatives calls for us to continue burning fossil fuels in power stations, a Labour government will invest rapidly and massively in renewable and nuclear energy production, including in solar energy, offshore and onshore wind energy, tidal power, and thermal nuclear fission power stations; and we will phase out the presence of all forms of fossil fuels from the energy grid. By doing so, not only will we tackle the climate crisis by decarbonising a sector which contributes 21% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions; but we will also reduce the wholesale cost of energy due to the expensive cost of burning gas and oil compared to renewables.

Another way we will reduce energy bills is by funding grants for home energy production, such as the installation of solar panels on roofs. This will mean that households have to buy less energy from the grid. We will also ensure that when households which have installed solar panels choose to sell their excess electricity to the grid, the grid buys this electricity at competitive rates, providing a further boost to households.

Labour will also back the passage of our Green Grants Scheme Bill, which will fund the insulation of homes, helping reduce the energy used to heat or cool the building and thus further reducing bills. In addition, the Green Grants Scheme will also fund a replacement of polluting natural gas boilers with low carbon solutions, including energy-efficient heat pumps and solar heating; and we will ban the sale and installation of gas boilers past 2030. We will also ensure that all new-builds adhere to the highest possible energy efficiency standards, meaning that all new homes will have the lowest possible energy bills.

This investment in domestic energy production and decarbonisation, along with reducing bills and greenhouse gas emissions, will also allow us to stop importing natural gas from despotic nations including Russia, further cementing the UK’s opposition to Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine in which Russian forces have caused death, destruction and massacres; and ensuring that Russia cannot retaliate against the UK’s opposition to Russia’s war crimes by shutting off gas exports to us, which would harm millions of households which rely on gas for heating and cooking.

Another key element of the Green Industrial Revolution will be massive investments into public transport infrastructure. The Labour Party has delivered the nationalisation of railway services, the electrification of the Guided Busway, as well as mass investments into high-speed, commuter, and regional railway projects; and will continue prioritising investment into public transport if re-elected to government.

A key part of Labour’s plans to invest in better railway infrastructure is the restoration of regional railway lines closed last decade by the architect Dr Beeching, who had an incurable phobia of railways and yet was the director of British Rail during the 60s. In the budget, the government announced the creation of a Regional Rail Revival Fund; and if I am re-elected to be your MP, I will push for this fund to be used to restore regional railways in Cambridgeshire, including the Cambridge to Colchester line, the line connecting March to Wisbech to Kings Lynn and Lincolnshire, and the restoration of the Snailwell Loop to allow Soham to be served by trains from Cambridge.

Another key part of public transport are buses. However, as anyone who has ridden a bus here will know, they are often late, even if there is literally zero traffic on the roads, and yet are ridiculously expensive. A Labour government will reform the provision of bus services to ensure that they are a reliable, punctual and affordable form of transport which is accessible to all, uses eco-friendly electric and hydrogen buses rather than polluting diesel buses, and is run by the public sector, and thus accountable to the public, instead of generating profit for wealthy shareholders.

We will also extend the decarbonisation of the bus fleet to road vehicles in general. While Solidarity wants to dither and delay on such a crucial issue, the Labour Party led the way in Parliament by legislating to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars past 2030.

A further vital part of the Green Industrial Revolution is reforming how Great Britain manages its water supplies to ensure that our management of water is sustainable both in the present and in the future. This is especially important here in East Anglia as it is the driest region in all of the UK; and it is also experiencing rapid population growth. Due to this, the region could be in a water deficit of 30 million litres of water per day.

To build a sustainable water system, a Labour government will fund the construction of a high-capacity water pipeline to supply the region with water from the wet East Midlands; and will build a series of new water reservoirs to further ensure that water storage levels never run dangerously low. These investments in a sustainable water system will ensure that the rare and ecologically important chalk streams in Cambridgeshire, including the Cam, aren’t being over-extracted by water companies, thus restoring the health of the streams.

The final part of our Green Industrial Revolution I’d like to discuss is agriculture policy. A Labour government will ensure that the carbon footprint of the agricultural sector decreases, including by funding projects to decarbonise farming technology, and reforming the agricultural subsidies system so as to encourage a shift to eco-friendly farming. This reform to agricultural subsidies will be accompanied by a generous multi-billion pound transition fund to further support farms in transitioning to eco-friendly and sustainable farming practices.

The Labour Party’s plan for a Green Industrial Revolution is an ambitious but realistic plan to tackle climate change which will ensure that the UK meets all greenhouse gas reduction targets, and reaches net zero emissions by no later than 2040. Our plan will also cut energy bills, improve connectivity, create millions of new jobs, and boost growth. Thank you all for listening and remember to vote Labour on Thursday for an ambitious plan to fight the climate crisis! Let’s keep Britain on track, and let’s endorse Raymentum!”