OPINION - What's behind the weird silence on climate change this election?

We all have different theories about when it felt like the world started going insane. I personally plump for when David Bowie died in January 2016. Ever since, the news cycle has been unrelenting, starting with Brexit and a certain orange-tinted American president. After that, no sooner did the Covid pandemic abate than wars started in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza. That’s not to mention this year’s important elections at home and across the Atlantic.

All of which is to say that there are plenty of things you can choose to worry about just now. But could it be that the ongoing global omnishambles means that an even bigger trend is flying under the radar? This year, there have been a series of freak events with a common link, but which our politicians aren’t keen to talk about.

The first you will have noticed: the endless rain. Like many, I’ve counted at least half a dozen “false Springs” – sunny days followed by yet more downpours (although, fingers crossed, the sun is out now). Last month, a study found the type of unusually wet weather we have had is ten times more likely due to man made global heating. Yes, it’s been depressing, but it’s also been expensive for farmers, and caused destructive flooding. And sadly, the grey skies are only going to get more common.

But around the world, freak weather has been far worse. In parts of Northern India, temperatures have hit 50C, with officials declaring it the longest heatwave since records began. There have been dozens of deaths, and schools have shut early for summer. In April, there were biblical rains in Dubai, with streets underwater, and similar in Brazil, displacing more than half a million people. Record temperatures are currently scorching North America.

It’s weather is coming to Europe too, with heatwaves in Turkey, Cyprus and Greece. The tragic death of much-loved health expert Michael Mosley, who collapsed from what is thought to be heat exhaustion on the Greek Island of Symi earlier this month, brought it home again. Temperatures just shouldn’t be reaching 40 Centigrade in early June. On a day to day level, effects can be felt at the supermarket: the price of olive oil has spiked, as weather makes it harder to grow olive trees.

And despite the warning signs. It’s notable how little talk of climate change there has been this election campaign. The Tory manifesto gently avoids the subject, promising a “pragmatic and proportionate” attitude to Net Zero, and no more green levies. It’s also mealy mouthed on new onshore renewable energy like solar and wind farms, not wanting to upset people who live near possible sites.

Labour are slightly better, pledging to create Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company, which will supposedly be paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants. However, they’re vague on the figures, and have carefully turned their back on their more radical plans to spend £28 billion a year “kickstarting a green industrial revolution”. Keir Starmer spends his time promising not to raise tax, while understandably, many journalists prefer to ask him about NHS waiting times.

Elsewhere, the Lib Dems say they would like to get to Net Zero five years earlier than our current 2050 target, and “put climate change at the heart of a new industrial strategy”. But leader Ed Davey made no mention of global warming in his summary of his party’s ambitions.

The Greens, of course, aren’t afraid of the topic. They would implement a frequent flyer levy, “to reduce the impact of the 15% of people who take 70% of the flights,” and ban domestic flights for journeys that take less than three hours by train. They’d also like an economy-wide carbon tax that they say would also apply to airlines, as well as spending 1.5% of national income on climate finance, giving emerging economies a greater say over how the money is spent. However, the party don’t get a huge amount of air time, can often be found infighting about other things.

Part of the reason politicians avoid shouting about the climate is us – the voters. Consumer habits aren’t changing much: this month Heathrow airport announced a new traffic record, with 81.5 million passengers over the past year. With the cost of living crisis, and the rolling global omnicrisis I mentioned earlier, most of us don’t want to think about climate change. Many feel, relatably, that our own efforts will do little to halt the global problem. But sadly, we won’t be able to ignore it forever, and only political will can really make a difference. Polls show the public have realised that none of the parties are properly tackling climate change. Unappealing though it is, climate change should be higher up the agenda this election.