'A clear message Tories are rowing back on net zero'

Environmentalists attack Truss's 'shameful' climate stance

- SAPHORA SMITH

Liz Truss's speech to the Tory conference was a "shameful" display of a government not taking the climate and nature crises seriously enough, environmentalists have said.

The prime minister made only one mention of climate change in her speech yesterday, and the issue only came to the fore when she was heckled by Greenpeace campaigners who unfurled a banner asking "Who voted for this?"

"I think this is a clear message that she is rowing back on net zero," Joan Edwards, director of policy and public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, said of the speech. "Less than a year ago we were telling developing countries to do something about climate, and yet within less than a year, we're opening up gas fields that are full of fossil fuels that will be burned and will produce more carbon dioxide."

"It's shameful," she added.

"We are opening more gas fields in the North Sea and delivering more renewables and nuclear energy," Ms Truss told party members in Birmingham. "That is how we will protect the great British environment, deliver on our commitment to net zero and tackle climate change."

While Ms Truss reaffirmed her commitment to net zero, environmentalists and the Green Party objected to her labelling green campaigners as part of an "anti-growth coalition".

"This government is determined to wreck the climate with a dangerous drive to growth that is based on greater investment in fossil fuels that are destroying the planet," said Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski.

Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said Ms Truss seemed to be "obsessed with expensive, divisive and dirty forms of energy".