Lord Deben urges voters to challenge MPs on climate change

Former Conservative environment secretary Lord Deben has urged voters to challenge their MPs over climate change, warning that the Government must do more to explain its clean energy policies and accelerate progress.

Deben, formerly known as John Gummer, said the Government was right to pursue cleaner energy but was not moving quickly enough.

Speaking in an interview with the Sustainability Speakers Agency, he said: “I don't think it's doing it fast enough.”

He added that ministers needed to make the benefits of the transition away from fossil fuels easier for the public to understand.

“But above all, it has to explain it better and you have to explain things in this very simple way,” he said.

Deben served as environment secretary from 1993 to 1997 and chaired the Climate Change Committee, the UK's independent climate watchdog, from 2012 to 2023.

He argued that switching to electric vehicles and cleaner electricity could help reduce dependence on imported oil and gas, protecting consumers from the instability of fossil fuel markets.

He also criticised the phrase “net zero”, describing it as “infuriating” because he believes it makes the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions unnecessarily difficult to understand.

“It's a technical phrase,” he said, arguing that the public needed a clearer explanation of what cutting emissions meant in practice and how it would affect household costs and energy security.

Deben said voters should regularly contact their MPs to make their views on climate change known.

“Every one of us should go to our member of parliament and make sure that he or she knows where we stand,” he said.

He argued that politicians could underestimate public concern if constituents did not raise the issue directly.

“The one thing that is a killer is when members of parliament say, ‘Nobody ever talks to me about climate change.’ And very often that's true. So we have to bring it home to them.”

He suggested people could use local issues, including repeated flooding and difficulties obtaining insurance, to make discussions about climate change more immediate.

Deben also challenged people who complain about climate policies but have not raised their concerns with their elected representatives.

“And if they haven't been within the last six months, they're not doing their job,” he said.

He said the Climate Change Act provided a legal framework for holding successive governments to account through legally binding climate targets.

Beyond legal obligations, he said, tackling climate change was about leaving a better environment for future generations.

“We've got to pass it on to the next generation better than we've received it,” he said.

Deben said people could relate to that responsibility through the everyday decisions they made for their families, homes and gardens.

Despite his concerns about the pace of progress, he said he wanted people who heard him speak to feel optimistic about the potential for change.

“I want them to feel that there's real hope, that this is all worthwhile,” he said.

“And the whole point is that we're protecting it because it's so good.”