{"id":657734,"date":"2026-06-25T15:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657734\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T15:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:49:14","slug":"polanski-and-unions-warn-burnham-against-backsliding-on-climate-action-environment-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657734\/","title":{"rendered":"Polanski and unions warn Burnham against backsliding on climate action | Environment policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Backsliding on climate action would drive the Labour party into political obscurity, Zack Polanski<\/a> has warned, as trade union leaders said more drilling in the North Sea would not help UK workers.<\/p>\n

The Green party leader, speaking to the Guardian as searing heat swept the country<\/a> for the second time this year, urged Andy Burnham \u2013 widely expected to be the UK\u2019s next prime minister \u2013 to be bold on climate justice. He said any move to water down the party\u2019s commitments would have dire consequences at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf measures or backsliding on climate action would be a moral and political failure from Andy Burnham<\/a>. He has the chance to be bold, and failing to do so will see our country get poorer and his party slip further into obscurity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leader of the UK\u2019s biggest union, Unison, has called for no more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea amid a debate within Labour<\/a> and the trade union movement about the party\u2019s climate commitments.<\/p>\n

However, the former health secretary Wes Streeting has called for more drilling<\/a> in the North Sea, including giving the go ahead to the massive Rosebank oilfield<\/a>. Sharon Graham, the leader of Unite, which represents workers in the oil and gas industry, also backs new drilling and said that the commitment of the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, to net zero would be a \u201cnoose around the neck<\/a>\u201d of job creation. The British Chambers of Commerce said Burnham should exploit what fossil fuels were left in the dwindling North Sea basin \u201cto avoid mass job losses\u201d.<\/p>\n

Critics point out that the number of jobs supported by the industry has more than halved<\/a> in the last decade \u2013 from 441,000 to 214,000 \u2013 despite previous governments issuing hundreds of new licences. Statistics show between 90% and 93% of all viable oil and gas has already been drained from the basin.<\/p>\n

Yet in debates over who should be Burnham\u2019s chancellor<\/a>, some on the right of the party and the union movement back Streeting over Miliband.<\/p>\n

A senior trade union source said there was widespread unease within the union movement at Unite\u2019s pro-drilling stance. \u201cMany in our union \u2013 and other unions \u2013 are worried that Sharon\u2019s interventions are boosting [Nigel] Farage and his crypto-backers,\u201d they said. \u201cAnd that her attack on Ed played right into the hands of the Labour right. Wes as chancellor would be a bad outcome for the working class, including Sharon\u2019s members. It\u2019s not strategic at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polanski said any move to boost fossil fuel production would seal Labour\u2019s fate. \u201cDecades of inaction on the transition to clean energy has already put the UK way behind where we should be, with huge cost to the economy,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the country swelters under extreme heat there has never been a more prescient reminder that we simply cannot afford to keep burning fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent CBI report found the net zero economy<\/a> was worth about \u00a3100bn a year to the UK, growing faster than the rest of the economy and producing higher-paid jobs.<\/p>\n

Other unions also say a Burnham government must double down on its climate plans to secure a fair and sustainable future. Steve Wright, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said its members were on the frontline of the climate crisis dealing with wildfires and heatwaves. He added: \u201cWe see first-hand the need for urgent climate action and that must include restrictions on drilling in the North Sea.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe urgently need a plan for adaptation that protects people\u2019s health as well as the environment. Otherwise, firefighters will still be pushed beyond limits to respond to the sheer scale of wildfires this summer and in future years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea Egan, the leader of Unison, said this month<\/a> that more drilling for fossil fuels would do nothing to help working-class people.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change denial is creeping into politics like never before, with far-right parties treating fossil fuels as a panacea for the country\u2019s problems,\u201d Egan wrote. \u201cPlundering the North Sea wouldn\u2019t make a significant difference for working-class people in Britain, and it would be grossly irresponsible to working-class people in the global south.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s largest teachers\u2019 union, the National Education Union, also urged Burnham not to back away from climate action. \u201cThis week\u2019s extreme heatwave is causing untold disruption and discomfort throughout our education system,\u201d said Daniel Kebede, the NEU\u2019s general secretary. \u201cThis certainly isn\u2019t the moment to move away from trying to tackle the very causes of what we are experiencing this week; if we make that mistake, these episodes will only continue to get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backsliding on climate action would drive the Labour party into political obscurity, Zack Polanski has warned, as trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-657734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}