Introduction

Over the last decade climate change has developed into the most pressing environmental issue facing policymakers in the UK today. It remains, however, one of the most difficult problems to tackle.

Firstly, the production of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is deeply embedded in the way that modern society has developed and operated since the industrial revolution. Breaking humankind's addiction to fossil fuels without harming our aspirations for growth necessitates seismic socioeconomic and political shifts in order to develop radically new concepts and models of sustainable development. Tony Blair himself even talks of the need for a new ‘green, industrial revolution’. Without this change there will never be the popular ambition to tackle climate change, and governments will forever be paralysed by electoral constraints.

Secondly, even with such a colossal change in the zeitgeist, controlling GHG emissions requires coherent and collective action across society, the entire machinery of government and the international system. Citizens, consumers, businesses and governments all produce emissions through their own activities, and thus have a responsibility to bear in tackling climate change. As such, the issue impinges on an array of major policy areas including transport, housing, energy, business and international relations. Tackling climate change therefore requires an unprecedented level of coordinated action, and ‘joined-up thinking’ within and between societies and governments across the world.

This chapter assesses the extent to which Blair and New Labour have led and developed the climate change agenda in light of these challenges.