(CN) — British Foreign Office Minister Zac Goldsmith resigned from government Friday morning in protest, accusing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of being “uninterested” in environmental issues and causing “paralysis” in British action on climate change.
In a scathing resignation letter released on Friday, Goldsmith — a prominent environmentalist in the ruling Conservative Party — eviscerated Sunak, stating he was “horrified” that the U.K. had “visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature” under his leadership.
In particular, Goldsmith critcised Sunak for attending a meeting with billionaire Rupert Murdoch last week rather than showing up at a global climate finance summit with other European leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz.
“I will never understand how, with all the knowledge we now have about our fundamental reliance on the natural world and the speed with which we are destroying it, anyone can be uninterested,” Goldsmith said. “But even if this leaves you personally unmoved, there is a world of people who do care very much, and you will need their votes.”
Dismissing Goldsmith’s concerns, Sunak said in a press conference Friday that he was “proud of the record of the government” on climate change. But Goldsmith’s letter was pounced upon by opposition climate minister Ed Miliband as a “devastating indictment of Rishi Sunak and his whole government on climate and nature.”
Goldsmith becomes the first minister in the Sunak administration to resign in protest at the prime minister’s leadership. But many in government view the timing of his resignation as highly cynical, coming just a day after he was reprimanded by a parliamentary committee for obstructing their work.
Goldsmith is a prominent ally of the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who continues to be a thorn in the side of the Sunak administration. Goldsmith was elevated to the House of Lords — the U.K.’s second parliamentary chamber — by Johnson in 2020, and by contrast he praised the Johnson administration's approach to climate and the environment in his letter.
However, the recent resignation of Johnson from Parliament has riled his allies. The former prime minister was forced out of the national legislature after a bipartisan committee found that he had lied to MPs about his knowledge of parties taking place at the heart of government while he was in office, and in defiance of coronavirus social gathering restrictions in place at the time.
In an appendix to the committee’s report, Goldsmith was named among a series of parliamentarians who had attempted to undermine the integrity of the investigating committee. He had previously called the process a “witch hunt” and a “kangaroo court.”
Sunak alluded to as much in his response to Goldsmith’s letter, writing: “You were asked to apologize for your comments about the Privileges Committee as we felt they were incompatible with your position as a minister of the crown. You have decided to take a different course.”
But Goldsmith has since denied the prime minister’s claims, and rejected the idea that they formed the basis for his resignation, stating that he is happy to publicly apologize to the committee.
Whatever the true reason for Goldsmith’s resignation, the accusation of “climate apathy” is likely to be very unhelpful for Sunak, and deepen splits in the Conservative Party over the government’s environmental agenda. A number of MPs on the ‘green-wing’ of the party are already unhappy at a lack of progress made on climate and nature since Sunak entered office in October.
Alok Sharma — who acted as president of the United Nation’s COP26 Conference held in Glasgow in 2021 — is among a group of senior parliamentarians said to be pushing the prime minister for a “bold and positive environmental agenda” to be rolled out in time for the next general election, expected next year. During the Conservative Party’s local election drubbing this past May, many previously safe council seats were lost to the Green Party, highlighting increasing environmental awareness in the party’s rural heartlands.
At the same time, climate sceptics are also sharpening their knives on the backbenches of Parliament. Members of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group are pushing Sunak to scrap the government’s carbon emissions trading scheme, describing it as a hidden tax which is adding further pressure on to already strained household bills.
The resignation also follows a damning report from the bipartisan Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on issues of climate and nature. The report, released Wednesday, said the U.K. is going backwards on environmental policy.
Echoing Goldsmith’s criticism, the report stated that “the U.K. has lost its clear global climate leadership,” and claimed that “worrying hesitancy” and “a lack of urgency” at the top of government over the last year was pushing the country further away from its stated net zero climate aims.
In particular, the committee highlighted decisions to open a new coal mine in Cumbria, and issue wide-ranging new licenses for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, as “utterly unacceptable.” It also highlighted failures to rollout household insulation, heat pumps, electric car charging points, alternatives to aviation, steel decarbonisation plans and new sources of renewable energy as major obstacles to the country's climate aspirations.
Chris Stark, head of the Climate Change Committee, said: “What’s missing is the kind of political leadership. You’ve got a series of strings being pushed across government and no one at the top pulling it up to raise it to the political priority that is required.
“Until that happens, this program is going to run into the sand.”
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
