Dale Vince and Hassan Damluji discuss COP30
At the annual global climate conference COP30, Keir Starmer was right to highlight the sorry state of affairs in the UK today, where the fight against humanity’s greatest threat has lost its political consensus. But this consensus has not simply “gone”. It has been deliberately and systematically dismantled by political and corporate actors whose interests are served by weakening support for net zero policies and environmental protection.
And here’s the cruel irony: we now have all the technology we need. Getting to net zero is not just an environment imperative it’s an economic one too. Clean energy is cheaper and more efficient than ever before. With it we can halve our energy bills and drive down the cost of living. We can power our homes, cars, and industries without it ‘costing the earth’ – in both meanings of that phrase. But we are being held back by the deliberate confusion and mistrust being sown by those with something to lose.
Fossil fuel lobbies have bankrolled disinformation campaigns to sow doubt about climate science and the viability of alternatives. Their influence over policymaking keeps us reliant on fossil fuels, increasing the perceived costs of transition and dampening public support. It is not coincidence that anti-net zero Reform UK reportedly received over £2.3 million from “oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers” between 2019 and 2024, amounting to about 92% of the party’s donations in that period. The recent giga poll commissioned by Ecotricity of over 45,000 people highlights how misleading arguments about the viability of a green transition are undermining support. Two in three believe the climate crisis is man made and threatens their family’s future, but nearly half now believe the cost of achieving Net Zero is too high.
The climate crisis is a collective action problem that depends on mutual trust. If people or nations believe others won’t act, they see little point in acting themselves. Why should my country cut emissions if others don’t? Why should we fund clean energy if global emissions won’t fall enough anyway? There becomes an incentive to serve short-term narrow self-interests over common interests.
New polling from Global Nation shows this problem is growing, with global solidarity weakening across generations, genders, and income groups. In just the last year we find people are less likely to agree that their taxes should contribute to tackling global problems, or that they want international institutions to enforce solutions on issues like the environment. We are entering a low-solidarity world—one where our sense of shared purpose and willingness to act for the common good on global problems are in worrying decline.
Those who profit from extraction and environmental destruction understand this perfectly. Undermining trust, solidarity – and with it, – consensus on tackling climate change is their most effective strategy for preserving wealth and power. And today’s information environment makes this terrifyingly easy. Never has it been so simple for the powerful and wealthy to engineer political support for whatever serves their narrow interests. Make no mistake: the far right has turned climate change into a wedge issue not in service of the public, but of their funders who are proving a crucial asset in their quest for power.
But here is the hopeful part. With a majority ultimately backing climate action in the UK, we have the power to bring back a political consensus. Climate action must now extend beyond making greener choices and work to restore trust across our communities in a green agenda that can and will protect jobs, deliver a stable prosperous economy, and protect this country’s future for generations to come. Political parties may pander to their funders, but the buck stops, as they know, with voters.
By Dale Vince and Hassan Damluji
Hassan Damluji is the founder of Global Nation, Senior Fellow in International Relations at LSE and author of The Responsible Globalist (Penguin 2019).
I’d be more impressed if Dale Vince was telling us precisely how his energy company Ecotricity is going to provide people on low incomes living in Victorian terraces and 1970s tower blocks how they can replace their gas-boilers. Because neither the Department for Net Zero nor the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government can.