Watch as Crawley's parliamentary candidates faced a question about the environment and climate change from St Wilfrid's student Kate O'Mara ahead of the General Election 2024.
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00:00It is very clear that the world faces many challenges, but one challenge which affects every single human is climate change.
00:09This causes a high recycling rate, a well-being garden and a lot of EV charging points and water-saving devices.
00:16But what are your parties going to do to save the planet?
00:21What's new?
00:22Well, the Green Party have been fighting climate change since 1984.
00:30Before that, the Ecology Party, which goes back to the mid-60s.
00:34Scientists have been telling us for decades now about the climate, what global warming is taking place.
00:42We have had agreements in COPS, there are copies in the science, to try and hold it to 1.5 degrees average centigrade.
00:52Now, we're not doing that because we're still in this war.
00:562023 was the warmest year on record.
01:00We have seen 40 degrees in this country two years ago in the summer.
01:06In Saudi Arabia at the moment, it's over 50 degrees centigrade.
01:10I have a friend, an old student friend of mine, who is from India. He called me from India.
01:16It's 48 degrees centigrade out in India.
01:18Now, if that's not telling you something's happening, you really need to look at that.
01:24Because we, as a society and as a country, need to start recognising that climate change is a big issue.
01:32There will be parts of the world, a fifth of the world, 20% of the world's land masses could be uninhabitable in 10, 20, 30 years' time.
01:42That means there could be mass migration.
01:45When we talk about migration, well, we'd be talking millions, not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.
01:50It'd be millions of people who are moving out of those areas because it's too hot, too vivid and uninhabitable.
01:57We have to do things.
01:59Like we talked about transforming our economies into a green economy and getting to net zero of carbon emissions by 2040, possibly 2050.
02:10We need to really accelerate that process very quickly.
02:13We need to look at our industries and our agricultural processes so we can change those so they are green and environmentally friendly.
02:21If we don't, all the worst things you might have heard about will happen, more than likely.
02:27Now, we've got time. We've still got time.
02:30But you are people who probably may have to make the decisions.
02:33Because when you get to a particular time in your life, you're the people who are in power or in positions of influence to start making the decisions.
02:42But our generation have got to help you along the way.
02:46You shouldn't be having to make those decisions, but we should be the ones doing that.
02:50We're not. Countries around the world are making little progress, but only very small progress.
02:57There's this sort of nitpicking around the edges.
03:00We're not doing enough. We've really got to get a move on on this.
03:03This country especially. We can't afford not to take action now.
03:08And if we don't take action now, we will face very bad consequences.
03:13Okay, thank you Ian. If we have to take action now, I think we should move on.
03:16Thank you for your good point.
03:18Of course, I can make it out.
03:21I haven't really seen that it's a huge point in the selection so far.
03:27Why is that?
03:29Well, I was a bit wrong.
03:31I think it tends to focus on the bits of the developments the public are most interested in.
03:36And I'm afraid to say that if you go door to door, we have...
03:39It doesn't really come up in the bill set.
03:41And I think it's a touchy point.
03:43I was talking about Labour saying it's important to listen to young people.
03:46But the reality is that there are so many people who do not want to have problems in this country.
03:50It's facing down the line.
03:52The Labour Party is pretty clear about this.
03:54We've got to speed up the pace of dealing with climate change.
03:56We do not have time to drag our feet on this.
03:59All the evidence, and more and more evidence comes out all the time,
04:02shows that this is going far quicker than anyone imagined.
04:05It's causing more damage than anyone imagined.
04:08And to that extent, we're looking to see what we can do to speed up across our system.
04:11The bits we need to do in order to make things livable.
04:14That means making sure transport is switched over.
04:17Conservatives recently brought back a timeline to get everyone switched over to electric cars.
04:23We think that's a mistake.
04:25You've got to make sure that people have got transport that is renewable,
04:29if we're going to be able to limit carbon emissions.
04:31You've got to make sure people's houses are insulated,
04:33because an enormous amount of energy is expended to heat escape from people's homes.
04:38We've put £6.6 billion aside to insulate people's houses.
04:42We're rolling out a renewable source of energy far more quickly.
04:46We're going to have clean energy by 2030.
04:48That's the goal.
04:50We're opening up the National Welfare Fund to help decarbonise the industrial sector.
04:54These are the key sectors you've got to get through in order to be able to do all this.
04:58So we're speeding up across the piece all the bits we've got to change.
05:02It's not as fast as I'd like it to be.
05:04That's the honest truth.
05:05The reality is that we've got less money now than we had before.
05:09We had a Prime Minister who called his trust and decided to do a final experiment with the economy and crash the whole thing.
05:14But the end result is that we've got less money now to do this in the approved cities.
05:17Those timelines are brutal and we're going to have to re-speed things up.
05:21I guess that's the big issue with this election.
05:24Some of us view this as a priority for our species and every other species on the planet.
05:28Some people view it as something to fight a culture war over.
05:30That maybe we can draw a few more votes away to try and tell people that the EU is going to come and steal your car.
05:35Or that you're desperately going to be impoverished by any attempt to try and get a green.
05:40These aren't policies that are looking to people's best interests.
05:43These are policies that are looking to the only interests of the people who are trying to promote them.
05:47To give themselves a few more years of power before we eventually get all covered over with water.
05:53Thank you Peter.
05:54So, going back in my memory, a front bite from a member of a particular company,
05:59not to say what their accounts were in buying a policy, but to agree on something.
06:04Has there been a change of commitment to the public system?
06:08I think one of the things I can say, you know, very closely as a government,
06:13what we have achieved in the last 14 years is that we've decarbonised our country
06:18faster than all other G7 countries and probably EU countries.
06:23Our planet is very important.
06:25We need to give our planet a future, new and upcoming generations as well.
06:30Same time, Ian mentioned Saudi Arabia and Ian mentioned India.
06:35We live on a planet, we don't live in a bubble.
06:38We need to make sure that we give the vote, but at the same time,
06:43other people, other residents are not being punished for the policies.
06:48If we say decarbonise our country from R1 to zero, and if our neighbours,
06:53Germany, France, India, China, if they are pumping in the air,
06:59fumes, everything, it's not going to make much difference to our lives, you know.
07:03So that's why when Peter mentioned the Tamil Nadu electric cars, what happened?
07:09We were five years ahead of our European counterparts and we as a government decided,
07:14it's not fair on our people to pay more money to get newer cars,
07:19while just across the channel, they have five more years to do that.
07:23So we only brought ourselves in line to the European timeline.
07:28So we need to remember that.
07:31On the other hand, we have been, as a government, changing the offshore wind,
07:37nuclear energy, significantly we have increased our share of renewable energies.
07:43But at the same time, if we stop using fossil fuels, and if we close off our northern oil fields,
07:52and we import that oil from Saudi Arabia or Russia, or if we rely on those things,
07:58we are putting our country's security at risk.
08:02We need to make sure we strike a balance, we lead the world, but at the same time,
08:08we won't go back to stone age and we are not being penalised.
08:12Last point, I'm going to say about the ULAS, Peter mentioned the ULAS.
08:17As a borough councillor, we discussed the ULAS motion at one of our meetings,
08:23and one of Peter's fellow councillors, a Labour councillor, said that if it's in their power,
08:29they will introduce ULAS into the world, he is standing over there smiling,
08:33but that's what I'm telling you.
08:35If it's in Labour government power, you and me, and lots of us,
08:39the people who drive on our own roads, on our own town, will end up paying £12 to £15,
08:45which is not fair on us, so do remember this thing tomorrow.
08:50I was laughing, that wasn't quite what happened exactly.
09:05The climate is warming, indeed, but I think that our solution through this is technology.
09:12So we've developed recently a new cool thing called MNRs, modular nuclear reactors,
09:18they're about the size of some football fields, they take about two years to build in Britain.
09:24You're not scientists, that's a concern.
09:33So yes, building those, nuclear power plants generate zero carbon,
09:38and the energy is a hell of a lot cheaper.
09:41While climate change is important, sure, we need to remember that Britain produces
09:46less than 1% of global emissions of carbon dioxide.
09:50China's built 80 coal plants, I think it is, I wasn't ready for the question,
09:54I don't have the stat here, but I'm pretty sure it's 80 coal plants a year.
09:57While we are importing energy, which is what we're doing,
10:01we are outsourcing the pollution to places which have less effective pollution controls.
10:09So it's not actually fixing the global warming crisis at all.
10:13In fact, it's probably making it worse.
10:16So we need to be a bit smarter about this.
10:18Wind turbines are not the answer.
10:20They're so expensive.
10:22The turbine blades do not recycle, and they end up moving in breakouts,
10:27wind turbine blade breakouts.
10:29We use helicopters with de-icing fluid.
10:32You know, what's de-icing?
10:34Is that really ecologically sound?
10:36I mean, I don't know what's in the de-icing fluid, but they're spraying it over the water.
10:40Technology is the way.
10:42That's how we improve it.
10:44And with energy independence as well, we are disincentivizing places which might be using
10:50less effective pollution controls.
10:52Thank you, Tim Trost.
10:53And a final point on our final question.
10:58Yes, absolutely.
10:59The work that's been done on this issue hasn't been fast enough.
11:02And I don't know, frankly, if there's a way of doing it fast enough.
11:05So that's what's necessary.
11:07Liberal Democrats, we're committed to getting to net zero by 2045.
11:13So in doing so, what we'll do to get there is a lot of us have touched it already.
11:22Make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with what we call a 10-year emergency upgrade program.
11:30So to make sure the houses are properly insulated, to make sure that the inefficiencies that have
11:36been there for a long time are not causing that issue to get worse.
11:41And that will start with free heat pumps and free insulation for those on low-income incomes.
11:49And we want to commit to making sure that all new homes are zero carbon.
11:55Because in the developer-led planning world that we live in at the moment, that's not
12:00being considered on a wider level.
12:04So what we need to do is make sure that the homes that are now being built, which a lot
12:08of them are, are suitable to help us get to this objective.
12:12We want to drive a rooftop solar revolution by expanding the incentives for households
12:19to install solar panels and to give them a fair guaranteed price to pump it back into
12:26the international grid.
12:28And finally, we want to invest in renewable power, which we've touched on a bit already.
12:37So actually 90% of the UK's electricity is made from renewable sources.
12:43Without taking a bit painful steps, we're not going to get to that objective in 2045.
12:49We're not going to get anywhere near that.
12:52So yeah, that's where we are on that.
12:55I think broadly we're in a fair agreement on that.
12:59It actually doesn't look particularly nice.
13:01Would you actually take action?
13:03Would you take action?
13:04Okay?
13:05Thank you, Lee.
13:06And so we've approached the end here.
13:08I'm just going to ask you all to think about one and no more than two sentences.
13:13I'm not forgetting that this is going out to school.
13:15We're also going out to just what people call it, also the wider world down here.
13:20The last part of the message again is the wider world should vote for you.
13:25Just to say, Zack, what's your point?
13:29Tomorrow is election.
13:31Polls are saying that they were going to get a super majority.
13:34What I would say, some of you sitting here are eligible to vote.
13:37Some of you sitting listening at home are eligible to vote.
13:40You have listened to all of us.
13:42Do your research.
13:43Please go and vote.
13:45Whoever you think will best represent you on 4th of July.
13:50I think I'm the best representative of Crawley.
13:53And vote for me on 4th of July.
13:55Thank you, Zack.
13:56James Charles.
13:58I am a software engineer and project manager.
14:01That's been my career for the last 20 odd years.
14:04I solve problems, complex problems, to a deadline and a budget.
14:08I'm not a trained politician.
14:10I'm not a trained public speaker.
14:12I'm not a trained liar.
14:14If you think that we should have more engineering type minds in government,
14:20rather than people who prefer to talk about issues and write about them at extensive length,
14:25then vote for me tomorrow.
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15:28I really appreciate it.
15:29It's been great.
15:30It's been great.
15:31So I made a point in my opening statement about the fact that it's very much like labour
15:45against people in government and all that.
15:47One on one, one for all.
15:48So, now we've seen each and we've seen Zach kind of take my place in the debate and chat with each other because they're the two main parts of the front.
15:58Now, it doesn't have to be like this. It's been like this for decades. If the Conservatives go into opposition, they'll just blame Labour for the mess that they've left the country in, and it'll go around the surface as a civil war.
16:12We'll have a Liberal Democrat tomorrow, and you'll be voting for a party that has built its standing to where it is now in the local politics.
16:20We don't have the media coverage, apart from me and my head, David's falling into the river. We don't have the media coverage or the business backers to get us where we are now.
16:31We've had hard-working local politicians to get to us. That's what we've built ourselves on, that's how we do our work, and I think we should go out tomorrow and vote for a Liberal Democrat. Thank you very much.
16:43Well, I think we've all been here to listen, haven't we? What we've heard about, we've heard that people are concerned about food banks and poverty in this house.
16:53We've heard that people are concerned about the future of their jobs, about state funding for local schools, about the demonisation of migrants and ethnic minorities in our politics, about climate change and the risks that are currently posed to us.
17:06The reality is that, at the end of tomorrow, either Zaka or I are most likely to be the MP in court.
17:12That's simply what all the results of our whole series of townshows.
17:17The last time Labour won here, he won by just 37 votes.
17:21The only time the Conservatives have won for each other council, it was in a draw, which flipped the coin to decide who won council.
17:28Do not underestimate the impact that your vote could have.
17:31If you think everything is going brilliantly, and your question suggests that it doesn't, feel free to risk having another Conservative government on Friday.
17:41If you want something to change, and if you want someone who cares passionately about this town, and has not just spoken about it but has spent 16 years of their life trying to make things better for people, I'm very welcome to work with you to try and do that.
17:54I'm very happy to answer the questions at the end of this, but thank you so much for participating.
17:58Just make sure, whoever you vote for, that you go out and you vote.