Why our failure to heed Margaret Thatcher's 40-year-old climate warning is about to get real
With the world already experiencing ‘crop failures, intensified natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks’, climate change is a growing threat to the UK’s ability to feed itself
Humanity is “changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways,” the speaker told the United Nations. “The environmental challenge which confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out,” she added. “We can't just do nothing. Time is too short for that.”
Some might imagine these are the words of Greta Thunberg or someone of her ilk. However, they were actually spoken by the Conservatives’ Conservative, former research chemist Margaret Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, in 1989, nearly four decades ago. And if time was short then, it’s much, much shorter now.
It’s certainly true to say that the world did not “just do nothing”. However, unfortunately, in response to scientists’ warnings about the need to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions, humanity collectively decided to almost double them, with the total rising from just over 20 gigatonnes in 1989 to nearly 38 gigatonnes in 2024.
No other credible explanation
There are a myriad of different reasons – good, bad and indifferent – for every new kilo of carbon. But the fact remains that each one is changing the world in increasingly “dangerous ways”.
According to the Berkeley Earth Global Temperature Report, 2025 was the third warmest year on record with an average temperature of 1.44 degrees Celsius higher than the average between 1850 to 1900. “The last 11 years stand out as the 11 warmest years to have been directly observed,” it adds.
While there are some natural factors, the majority of the increase is the result of the dramatic rise in greenhouse gases caused by human activity. There is no other credible explanation and that remains a significant problem for those arguing against taking action to stop this process from continuing.
Of course, they could try to claim that global warming is a good thing. However, with the world expected to soon hit 1.5C of man-made warming and start to experience the climate we were advised by scientists to avoid, this may not be a tenable argument for much longer.
A frightening analysis
Some of the reasons why we must act were outlined in a recent report, entitled “Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security”, published by the UK Government, but reportedly produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee, which oversees MI5 and MI6.
In these fragile times, some may demand a trigger warning at this point as what I’m about to relay may be frightening. However, what’s more scary is the number of people who are refusing to face the reality of what is happening.
“Ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse (irreversible loss of function beyond repair)”, states one of the report’s ‘key judgments’. And this is a problem not just for exotic species of animals we’ve vaguely heard of but for our ability to feed ourselves.
“Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity. The world is already experiencing impacts including crop failures, intensified natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks,” the report says. “Threats will increase with degradation and intensify with collapse. Without major intervention to reverse the current trend, this is highly likely to continue to 2050 and beyond.”
UK unable to maintain food security?
The report warns that, unchecked, this process is likely to result in “geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources” – a particular problem for countries, like ours, that import much of their food.
“Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food,” it adds. “The UK relies on imports for a proportion of both food and fertiliser and cannot currently produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets.”
However, perhaps even more worrying are the changes we cannot see. Writing in the journal One Earth last week, several leading climate scientists underlined growing concern about temperatures rising high enough to trigger “self-reinforcing feedbacks” – essentially the point at which the natural world joins humanity’s relentless drive to raise global temperatures.
“Uncertain tipping thresholds make precaution essential, as crossing them could commit the planet to a hothouse trajectory with long-lasting and potentially irreversible consequences,” they wrote.
Mindlessness of ‘net stupid zero’
So when politicians talk about “net stupid zero”, they really do need to explain what is so stupid about it. It might be “net difficult zero”, but that’s a different thing.
Do they, like Donald Trump, think global warming is a “hoax” perpetuated for decades by scientists all over the world? It’s obviously not.
Are they arguing with the science that first established the influence of greenhouse gases on the climate in the 1800s? If so, then a Nobel Prize awaits for their Earth-shattering new theory. Again, obviously, it doesn’t.
Perhaps, like Trump’s false claims about the 2020 US election, they think someone has rigged the thermometers or the expansion of mercury is fake.
Then there’s the claim that the UK, home to just under 1 per cent of the world’s population, doesn’t need to move towards net zero because we produce just under 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions... The flaw in that argument should be as obvious as all the above.
Thatcher wrote later in her life that, towards the end of her time as Prime Minister, she became “seriously concerned about the anti-capitalist arguments which the campaigners against global warming were deploying”.
She was right to be worried. It is capitalism that will save the world, not hard-left fantasies about ushering in nirvana by the unlikely means of ending economic growth.
However, I feel confident Thatcher would never have resorted to such a mindless slogan as “net stupid zero”, an arrogant shrug of the shoulders to a real problem that we have no choice but to face.
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