In Short : Moreover, the current global political landscape poses challenges to the implementation of effective climate policies. As countries face competing interests and domestic priorities, the urgency of climate action is often overshadowed. Political disagreements and national interests frequently hinder the necessary international cooperation required to address climate change comprehensively.
In Detail : The enormous gap between the UK’s environmental obligations and workable policies to make them happen is putting us in a precarious situation.
If I was nervous, how must our two guests have been feeling?
The last time they’d met, one was blocking a road and the other looked like she was trying to run her over in a Range Rover.
“I have to hold my hands up. I did do wrong,” says Sherrilyn Speid, the driver, to Lou Lancaster the protester from Insulate Britain who we’d both persuaded to come together and talk about the day in question.
“I have no right to block you, personally… I absolutely agree with that,” says Lou.
It was, thankfully, a conciliatory start to our journey exploring why the UK appears to be becoming so divided over environmental issues.
Divided at the very moment that our changing climate and fossil fuel dependency is hitting crisis point.
This year is on track to be the warmest year ever recorded, off the back of one in which consumers saw the highest increases in energy bills in a generation or more.
But this is the same moment in which the government decided to slow down, rather than accelerate, its net zero agenda just a few weeks ahead of global climate negotiations.
What the people we spoke to for this report have shown (and polling supports this) is that most agree we need to tackle environmental issues without delay.
But the enormous gap between the UK’s environmental obligations and workable policies to make them happen puts us in a precarious situation.
Take London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) designed to improve air quality in the capital by charging older, more polluting cars to use the capital’s roads.
Its expansion to London’s outer boroughs led to a vocal and costly opposition campaign. Whether or not the policy is flawed, or even that unpopular, it prompted a loud, political backlash.
ULEZ opposition is credited with helping the conservatives win a by-election in Uxbridge in July.
And few policies led to the formation of vigilante groups calling themselves Blade Runners.
We spoke to one of these anti-ULEZ protesters – hooded and masked to conceal his identity – who is out at night cutting down enforcement cameras.
“We will not stop until they stop,” he told me.
According to police, almost 1,000 ULEZ cameras have been vandalised or destroyed – some 200 disappearing completely. Estimates vary, but the bill for the Blade Runners’ actions could run into the millions.