Nature will not wait for a general election, warns UK's former climate change envoy John Ashton

The popularity of green policies is now up for debate after the Uxbridge by-election results

The UK’s former climate change envoy says nature will not wait for a general election, as wildfires continue to rip through the Mediterranean.

Dozens of people have died and thousands have been evacuated in Algeria, Italy and Greece as temperatures reach above 44 degrees Celsius. This comes only a week after the three English by-elections, where green policies ended up taking centre stage.

The Conservatives managed to hold on to Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip with less than 500 votes, in part because constituents disagreed with Labour London mayor Sadiq Khan’s proposals to extend the city’s ultra low emissions zone (Ulez).

Firefighters tackle the raging wildfires in Greece. Image: Sarah George/Press Association.

This has brought the issue of green policies and their popularity to the forefront, but John Ashton, the former special representative for climate change at the UK Foreign Office, warns nature cannot wait for politics.

He said he believed the general public actually wanted governments to move faster on tackling the climate crisis, despite the outcome of the Uxbridge by-election.

Speaking on BBC Good Morning Scotland, Mr Ashton said: “We are seeing one of the most surreal spectacles in British politics for a very long time. We literally have a ring of fire burning around the Mediterranean and the leaders of the two main Westminster parties are having collywobbles about green policies.

“It seems to me, and to anyone with common sense, the message from the Mediterranean is to double down, not water down, green policies. Remember we wouldn’t be having this conversation unless a small number of people voted Conservative rather than Labour in Uxbridge.”

Mr Ashton said party leaders needed to stop denying how serious the climate issue was, and instead focus on spending money to combat rising global temperatures.

He said: “There are a lot of people hard hit by the Ulez scheme. That’s not to say it is not urgently necessary, as a lot of people are dying from poor air quality – I think Mayor Khan is doing exactly the right thing.

“But more could have been done to protect the people really being hit during the cost-of-living emergency. The best way to deal with these worries is not to pretend it is not an issue, it is to address it and have policies that make it easier for those hardest hit by the transition.”

This comes as Labour look at what went wrong in the Uxbridge by-election, with the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner fearing people will vote against green measures that impact their finances during the cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Ashton, however, disagrees with this assumption. He said: “Labour are ahead of the Tories on green ambition, but I think both of them are way behind where the public is, not ahead. The public is looking at Greece and getting pretty scared by it.

“People like me are accused of zealotry and being on a crusade, but you can’t negotiate with nature and pause climate change to get through a by-election or even a general election. You can’t negotiate this phenomenon.”