Shake up UK’s political system to tackle climate and nature crises or risk fuelling extremists and populists, IPPR report warns

Failure to act effectively against the growing climate and nature crises risks fueling extremists and populists from the shocks and chaos likely to ensue, according to an IPPR discussion paper published today.

But the UK’s current political system is “dangerously unprepared” to deliver the sweeping changes needed to tackle environmental breakdown, and needs urgent and radical reform, the progressive think tank says.

Among the problems preventing effective action, it identifies inadequate social infrastructure to cope with future impacts of the crises; an overly centralised system that limits understanding of challenges on the ground; low public trust in government to make necessary changes; and a political culture that focuses mainly on short-term problems.

The risk is greater because of the background political trends that include destabilisation of social and economic systems by climate change, growing popular discontent and less cooperation within the UK and internationally. All these add up to a heightened risk of a backlash against “progressive” policies as environmental breakdown gathers pace, the paper warns, and the growth across the world of nationalist political forces that exploit fear and uncertainty - including against refugees.

The paper calls for key reforms of the UK’s political system to make it better able to cope with challenges ahead, among them:

• The UK government and devolved nations should share more power with cities, towns and rural areas, combined with responsibility for action on environmental breakdown and the resources and powers to match. The paper notes that many local authorities have already declared climate emergencies and are reducing their emissions; but that there is no current requirement for them to do so, nor do they have sufficient resources or powers.
• Legislate for citizens’ juries and citizens’ assemblies to explore complex issues and feed their thinking on topics such as carbon budgets into formal decision-making by national and local government.
• Set up a new citizens’ assembly on environmental breakdown, along the lines of the current parliamentary assembly on climate change, but to be commissioned by the UK government, to report in November just before COP26, the next major international meeting on the climate and nature crisis.
• Establish a “long-time” citizens’ assembly to meet every five years, and specifically to consider how the interests of citizens of the future can be protected now.
• Commission a global study of the leadership challenge being bequeathed to millennial and younger generations, to help prepare them for the severe challenges they will face in a world where the mean temperature is expected to have risen by between 1.5 and 2C, and what rapid action can be taken now to support them.

Luke Murphy, IPPR Associate Director and co-author of the report, said:

“Environmental breakdown is the toughest political issue we as a society have ever faced, and our political system is dangerously unprepared and exposed to this threat.

“We must build a new politics that is better suited to responding to environmental breakdown, one that is green, local and inclusive. And one that helps in the vital task of re-building public trust in collective action.

“Delivering in practice will require a radical decentralisation of power across the whole of the UK and new deliberative processes which genuinely engage the public and incorporate their views more directly into decision making.

“Failure to reform our political system risks the threat of environmental breakdown being left unaddressed - and as the world becomes more destabilised, space for progressive politics could shrink, benefiting extremist groups and populist leaders at the expense of democracy and justice.”

Laurie Laybourn-Langton, IPPR Associate Fellow, said:

"The median age of a European leader is 52 and so, on current political trends, the millennial generation won't reach positions of leadership until the late 2030s and beyond.

“But by this point, the global mean temperature rise could be between 1.5C and 2C, exacerbating worsening breakdown in other natural systems. It’s impossible to imagine what the world will then look like because of damage already done – any more than we could imagine, last February, how the world would look now as a result of the coronavirus.

“The voice of younger generations must be heeded now if we are to avoid such a world. But young leaders also need all the help they can get to prepare for the unimaginable challenges they will face in an environmentally destabilised world."

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS