The anti-democratic pledges driving Net Zero
Local authorities across Britain have signed up to 'pledges' authored by green campaigning organisations. But what does the voter say?
Some of our new Climate Debate UK / Together Declaration research is featured in today’s Telegraph…
Councils make ‘undemocratic’ pledges in dash to reach net zero
At least 160 local authorities have made commitments to beat Government's 2050 target but face accusations of not consulting voters
Millions of taxpayers face an accelerated dash to reach net zero with at least 160 councils signing “undemocratic” pledges to beat the Government’s 2050 targets, The Telegraph can disclose.
Local authorities across the country have introduced curbs after joining climate campaigns, including closing streets to traffic, charging vehicles to enter city centres and removing parking spaces.
Research by Together and Climate Debate UK has now mapped the councils involved for the first time.
“The pledges are not just undemocratic, but antidemocratic,” the authors say. “The pledges’ principles and aims have not been contested in public. And the public have not been asked for their consent.”
Pledges include acting “sooner” than Westminster to reach net zero and committing to more “ambitious” plans of action.
This research builds on our report from late last year, “Clean Air, Dirty Money, Filthy Politics”, which looked at the role of green philanthropy in advancing air pollution scaremongering as a proxy battle of the climate wars. Behind the air pollution lobby were the same organisations that advance the climate agenda, but give the stalling of global and national climate policy, these campaigns sought to reformulate climate change as ‘air pollution’, to continue their circumvention of democracy by focussing on local politics.
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