Guest election blog – Lib Dems by Sophie Pavelle

I’m a Devon-based author (Forget Me Not, Bloomsbury 2022) and science communicator. I have worked in the NGO conservation sector since leaving university, most recently for Beaver Trust. I’m an Ambassador for The Wildlife Trusts and sit on the RSPB England Advisory Committee. My writing appears in The Guardian, National Geographic Traveller, New Scientist, The Independent, and BBC magazines.

Having been born in the USA I have dual citizenship between the States and the UK, first voting in the 2013 US election, and later in the 2015 UK general election. I’ve often felt torn between viewing voting as both a privilege and a frustration. Voting increasingly feels like casting a line into a dark and dirty political lake, only for it never to be bitten. Come the 4th July 2024, I hope my vote may count towards fairness, honesty, deliverance of positive change, and tighten the government’s grip on the climate and biodiversity crisis with serious teeth.

This is my review of, and my thoughts about, the environmental implications of the Liberal Democrat Party’s election manifesto.

Things I like:

• ‘Fairness’ is certainly declared front and centre for this party throughout their manifesto, sometimes loyal to their namesake as demonstrating broad-mindedness. When it comes to these green ambitions, we’re promised ‘a fair deal’. So far so good – nature thrives on an ecological balance between give and take. Perhaps we’re learning?
• The economy and environment are entwined: I am pleased (or relieved?) to see the environment and the economy being written of in tandem, perhaps reflecting a renewed understanding of the interconnectedness between nature and society. A call and response. The Lib Dem’s recipe for their proposed ‘strong ‘and ‘fair’ economy reminds me of that of a functioning ecosystem. A lively, progressive environment that is built on ‘stability’, strengthened by small businesses in the food chain upholding ‘long-term productivity’ for those keystones at the top – the ‘industries of the future’. ‘Renewables’ and ‘bioscience’ sectors even get a mention. Will the ‘innovation and ingenuity’ this party references so readily as solutions to a brighter future, mean that UK academia will be more swiftly summoned and supported as part of our economic and environmental arsenal? Stranger things have happened.
• Economic recovery cannot happen without tackling the climate emergency, it’s at the heart of our industrial strategy, the Liberal Democrat’s suggest. The Liberal Democrat’s bluntly remind us of the Conservative’s abandonment of climate commitments as leading to a loss of confidence in green investment and technology. The climate is hot. But money is hotter. Could the environmental nightmare become the capitalist’s dream?
• Climate change presents an ‘existential threat’ demanding courage and urgent action. This manifesto test drives some buzz words to raise the environmentalist’s brow. They have at least read the key headlines of the latest State of Nature Report (2023), outlining how one in six UK species now risk extinction. They tease examples of the threats to mitigate, like wildfire – a good example of an increasing event for UK landscapes that is all too easy to deny. Met Office data (2023) shows how a 2°C rise in global temperatures will double the days the UK experiences ‘very high fire danger’, pushing the wildfire season into late summer and autumn. Wildfire is a blazing truth we must confront.
• A total abolition of greenhouse gases by 2045 ‘at the latest’, is what this party proposes will expedite the UK towards its net zero ambitions – the same deadline as they set themselves in their 2019 manifesto. Back then it was all ‘stop Brexit’ and a plea for a ‘brighter future’. Whether the same target date demonstrates consistency or complacency remains to be seen, but this party has raised their target of electricity generated by renewables come 2030 – from 80 per cent (2019 manifesto) to 90 per cent. Ambitious. The clock is ticking.
• An ‘Emergency Home Energy Upgrade Programme’ assures free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households, of clean transport, cycling and walking networks. As a cyclist at the dodgy end of Britain’s roads, my tyres and I appreciate the promise of pothole repair. But I’ll relax once I’m not brushing shoulders with bin lorries in my swerve to avoid a crater.
• National and local citizen assemblies are offered as a means to empower and sustain public input, to power-up smaller, more agile corporations in decision making. There is opportunity for the individual to integrate as part of the community fabric and influence decision power on the climate and energy policies outlined by the Lib Dem’s. This focus on people has a chance of indirectly benefitting nature by fostering the most human of acts: conversation, participation, storytelling and gathering. By giving space for us to find and nurture personal connections with the environment, gives us the support we need to act in its favour. The RSPB has seen positive results with this interactive approach that reaches a cross-section of society in their citizen assemblies, as part of the People’s Plan for Nature. Dare we see this as a chance to actually do?
• Farmers are ‘key allies’ in tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis, as well as the proposal of more funding (an extra £1 billion per year) for Environment Land Management schemes (ELMs) – which will support farmers in woodland, peatland and waterway restoration, as well as natural flood protection. Seeing ‘species recovery’, ‘carbon storage’ and ‘food’ for the table mentioned in the same breath was reassuring. Nature’s sustenance ensures that of our own.
• A new Clean Air Act will be passed (revising the current one from 1993) overseen by the appointment of a new Air Quality Agency, presumably in response to data (2022) from the World Health Organisation showing that the UK’s annual average levels of air pollution are four times greater than the legal limit.
• More funding allocated to the Office for Environmental Protection, the Environment Agency and Natural England can only be a good thing. The Conservative party has infamously slashed Natural England’s budget by over 60 per cent, making an already difficult job as an environmental watchdog, near impossible.

Things I don’t like:

This party’s manifesto often feels lopsided  environmental policy. There are glimmers of ecological understanding and a grasp of the nuance of the UK’s environmental needs. And compared to other political parties they offer specific and varied examples of how they might deliver some pledges.

But this weight is unbalanced. ‘Net zero’ decorates sentences like a wilting garnish, to the point where its significance as a binding target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement is diluted. We need zest.

Things that appear to be missing:

• Detail is lacking in places I need it, like in their grand statement that they will ‘double nature by 2050.’ OK – am listening – double how? To them, what is it they see as ‘nature’ exactly? The seduction of tree planting? Or restoring lost predator/prey dynamics? Reconnecting land with sea? Or protecting grasslands, woodlands, peatlands, kelp forests, rainforests in policy as an interconnected system? How can any of this be quantified, and happen in 20 years? Because as it stands this doubling act sounds more like a gamble than a promise.

Overall assessment:

The Liberal Democrat’s manifesto is not a denial of the environmental emergency, but it’s hardly a confrontation of it either. Really, it’s just saying the least I would expect from a party navigating the greatest threats facing our planet and life as we know it.

Would I vote for these policies?: it does leave me with more questions, which I suppose means I’m curious to see them try.

This is one of a series of opinion pieces on the political parties’ 2024 general election manifestos. They were commissioned by Wild Justice several months ago by approaching a wide variety of conservationists and environmentalists long before the date of the general election was known. Some people who originally agreed to write pieces found the date and short timescale impossible and had to back out. We did not know what they would write and their only brief was to pick one or two political parties’ election manifestos and tell us what they liked and didn’t like about their environmental policies. We didn’t tell people what to write and we haven’t edited what they wrote (except to squeeze things into a common format, to correct minor grammatical and spelling errors and typos). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Wild Justice.

If you think you could produce a review of one of the 2024 general election manifestos then we would need to receive it as soon as possible, but in any case before 26 June, in a similar format to that above, as a word file and with a .jpg or .png image of yourself, the author. Send any potential texts to admin@wildjustice.org.uk and we will look at them. We’ll let you know if we want to publish your piece and we may be able to pay you a small amount for it.