During the election there has been little media discussion of what the various parties will do to address the environment and the nature crises, however all the parties have policies that will effect the environment and nature. This page and the links will get you up to speed on where the parties stand and where the Richmond and Northallerton Prospective Parliamentary candidates stand. Please make sure you know how to vote to gives us the best chance to tackle the climate and nature emergencies.
PPCs Statements
On 21st June we emailed all PPCs asking them to send us short statement setting their views and priorities for tackling the key environmental challenges that face us. So far we have only received responses from 3 of the PPCs which you read on the North Yorkshire Climate Coalition website:
Hustings
CASaV helped to organise a hustings focusing on what our candidates would do for climate and nature:
Watch the recording of the Pre-election Climate Crisis Meeting with the Candidates.
Surfer Against Sewage and Save Our Swale held a hustings to question the candidates on how they would tackle the pollution of our water by sewage pollution.
Watch the recording of SAS and SOS hustings – Friday 21st June – 7pm Richmond Falls
The Richmond and Northallerton prospective parliamentary candidates were invited to the pre-election Climate Crisis meeting on Friday 14th June 7.30pm at Osmotherley Village Hall and on YouTube. You can watch the recorded YouTube LiveStream.
Background
The General Election has been called for 4th July and it will be a very important election for the climate and nature. For the first election since 2008, there is no longer a political consensus on what should be done to tackle the climate and nature crises. This means that your vote will determine the urgency with which these crises are tackled.
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages is a member of the Friends of the Earth local action group network, so in order to avoid breaching electoral law while other groups such as Greenpeace, Zero Hour, Wildlife Trusts, National Trust, RSPB, Climate Vote, etc. have views of which party are best, here we will focus on FoE’s public communications.
No matter what you feel is the most important priority for a new government, everything from defence to food is impacted by climate change, pollution and nature loss. For this reason we all need to seriously consider each parties’ climate and nature policies when we choose who to cast our vote for. FoE aims to provide you with some guidance which will evolve as the parties policies are announced and evolve.
Party Manifestos
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace joined forces to rank the political parties manifestos on issues which are important to both improve nature/environment and provide happiness for humans. The results are in:
Full details of how the ranking was carried out and the specifics of why the scores are what they are is on the Friends of the Earth website.
It is worth bearing in mind that the chances of each of these manifestos being implemented are not equal as sites such as ElectoralCalculus make clear. It is unlikely that the Green manifesto will become policy, far more likely that the Labour manifesto will. While the Labour manifesto may be 4 x better for the environment and nature than the Conservative manifesto, it is still only half as good as the Green manifesto.
After the election CASaV will still need to lobby our representatives to do the best for environment and nature, so locally our MP will still be important as a major route to having our voices heard in government.
How you vote is up to you, but hopefully this information and some of our, FoE’s and Greenpeace’s thought will help you to come to the best decision for climate and nature.
Before the Manifestos
While we were still awaiting the parties manifestos but all the parties have made many statement on their policies. So there was already a lot a material to work through to understand where your vote would do the most good for the climate and nature. FoE put together a short article which ranked the parties announced policies – 29th May 2024 – Green policies and the general election: who leads the pack?
In 2023 FoE created a list of items that needed to be addressed in parties’ manifestos – Friends of the Earth’s demands for the general election. The 40 manifesto asks are what needs to be carried out in order to address climate change split into 3 topics: climate and energy crises; healthy and nature-rich environment; protect and enhance democracy.
The climate and energy crises: requires a pragmatic approach to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, so this focuses on housing and transport, providing national security while honouring our commitments to the rest of the world.
A healthy and nature-rich environment: tackling pollution in all its forms, increasing the land/sea available to provide biodiversity, while ensuring our international policies drive improving international environmental policies.
Protect and enhance democracy: while this may seem odd for an environmental group, it underpins much of what is required. The easiest part is a planning system which works and is resourced such that environmental protection is real. FoE have been labelled extreme by some politicians for asking for change, so it is important to protect our democracy and increase real devolution, while ensuring accountability.
29th May 2024 – Green policies and the general election: who leads the pack? shows how each of the main 4 parties score on each of the 40 topics to help you understand which party addresses your priorities best.
Voting for the party that meets your priorities best in our constituency may not result in any change in climate policies, as the candidate will not be elected, so you may decide to vote for the candidate whose party has better policies than the favourite candidate, but has a better chance to win than the candidate of the party that meets your priorities best.
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 