Forget polar bears – the new Friends of the Earth boss prefers talking about Palestine

Sam Hall, director of the Conservative Environment Network, believes Rehman’s stance could be damaging. The former policy adviser to Michael Gove, when the latter was secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs, says Rehman’s loud championing of social causes will polarise the climate campaign.

The diversity the environmental movement actually needs, Hall says, is “political diversity” – more supporters from the Right. And Rehman’s politicised words, he warns, will “lose people”. One thing climate change is not, Hall insists, is “woke”.

But, “linking it to woke issues risks portraying it as such, alienating people on the Right of the spectrum, and drawing people into a culture war which risks polarisation.

“To have climate policy that is to endure and succeed you need buy-in from across the political spectrum; that’s going to include people with socially conservative views who might find some of these Left-wing ideas around race and social justice off-putting.”

This is all the more important when Reform threatens to kibosh climate action altogether – a threat Rehman says “keeps him awake at night”.

Focus, Hall argues, should be on “finding the pragmatic solutions we need in an economically sensible way”.

He insists: “You have got to see business as part of the solution; they are the ones who are going to be innovating and investing in the solutions we need. I would argue we want to take a more market-led approach to tackling climate change, which creates the incentives and frameworks for the private sector to deliver the solutions, rather than one that is statist, which overrides consumer preference and risks crowding out the private sector.”

The messaging, he says, should be: “Wanting to hand on a good inheritance to our children and grandchildren; wanting to protect our landscapes and nature; wanting to enhance our security by being more self-reliant on our own sources of safe, reliable energy. Those messages are much more compelling.”

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