Climate Change

Conservatives are acutely aware of the threat posed to our way of life, our economy and our environment from dangerous climate change. From the very beginning of his leadership of the Conservative Party, David Cameron made clear that Britain must take a position of leadership on the global – as well as our own – environment. Conservatives were the first Party to call for a Climate Change Bill and worked hard to improve the legislation as it made its way through Parliament.
We believe that if we act now we can pass on a cleaner, greener planet to our children. Each of us as parents, grandparents, or simply as citizens of this world, owe that to the next generation. But the Conservative approach isn’t about creating new rules, extra laws and higher taxes to make people live in a more eco-friendly way. We won’t bring down carbon emissions by just telling people what to do – we’ll do it by making it easier for people and businesses to go green. That’s why we have developed policies to cut emissions and create green jobs. Our green policies include:
• offering every household a ‘Green Deal’ – an entitlement to up to £6,500 worth of energy efficiency improvements, paid for through savings in fuel bills over 25 years;
• protecting the Green Belt and areas of environmental importance to preserve our landscape and wildlife and stop unsustainable urban sprawl;
• not building the third runway at Heathrow – we believe that Heathrow should be better not bigger. We will also prevent new runways being built at Stansted and Gatwick;
• giving local communities stronger powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’, allowing local people to protect the character of their neighbourhoods from unwanted over-development;
• rolling out smart meters to every home so that families can cut their bills and get paid for generating electricity from renewable sources such as solar panels;
• creating new Green ISAs so that families can save and invest in the next generation of green technology companies; and
• working with local councils to pay the public to recycle, in contrast to Labour’s plans for new bin taxes which would fuel fly-tipping and backyard burning.
So that’s the choice at this election: five more years of inaction on the environment under Labour – or change with the Conservatives who have the ideas, the energy and the personal commitment to tackle climate change.