From virtue to vice: The Tories are easing up on their own modest environmental targets

Editorial: The PM is taking all the wrong lessons from his narrow squeak of a win at the Uxbridge by-election, and is posturing as the protector of hard-pressed families against the supposed excesses of environmentalism. In doing so, he is playing a dangerous game

Prime minister Rishi Sunak during his visit to the Shell St Fergus gas plant in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire (PA)

The political world is well used to the phenomenon of “virtue signalling” – tokenistic gestures designed purely for show and approbation, usually in relation to progressive causes.

The prime minister has now gone one better and invented what might be termed “vice signalling”, with his latest package of measures designed to show that he and his government are easing up even on their own modest environmental targets.

Fossil fuels, it would seem, are back in fashion, and Rishi Sunak is keen to garner the wrath of the green movement in an effort to prove just how uninterested in the climate crisis he is. He has opened up yet another new front in the regrettable culture wars that divide and disfigure public debate, and seems to relish being seen as a baddie who is sceptical, if not scornful, of the green agenda.

Taking all the wrong lessons from his narrow squeak of a win at the Uxbridge by-election, he is posturing as the protector of hard-pressed families against the supposed excesses of environmentalism. In doing so, he is playing a dangerous game.

It is indeed a game, though, because in reality, the miscellaneous collection of measures he’s announced recently will have little impact even in the UK, despite grabbing the headlines.

Carbon capture and storage, for example, is an idea that has been around for decades and was once touted as a way to save the coal mines. It is perfectly practical, though relatively expensive and carries a risk of leaks, and it currently plays a very marginal part in efforts to reach the target on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Under Mr Sunak’s proposals, it will be a little more prominent in industrial settings, but it is essentially a token gesture, albeit a relatively positive one.

Less welcome is the licensing of new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea in order to “max out” domestic fossil-fuel production. Like carbon capture and storage, this sounds like a much bigger deal than it actually is, given that the new projects are small in scale and the North Sea reserves are approaching exhaustion in any case. Existing licences have decades to run, and while it is true that they will make a small contribution to reducing Britain’s dependence on unfriendly foreign powers such as Russia, the same goes much more powerfully for green domestic renewable and nuclear electricity generation.

Again, it looks like the prime minister is indulging in vice signalling for political purposes. He is probably on safer ground with his review of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which are controversial and risk displacing – rather than reducing – air pollution, but in the great scheme of the climate crisis, LTNs are also small beer.

Mr Sunak should be rather ashamed about the signals he is sending out to the country, and indeed to the rest of the world. He is now engaged in the dismantling of Britain’s proud leadership in the race to save life on Earth – and trashing his party’s reputation as wantonly as the environment itself.

Yes, there is a cost of living crisis – this is all too painfully apparent – but Mr Sunak is propagating the myth that going green is going to make people worse off. Green energy, once the investment is made, is in fact the cheapest form of energy. It has the potential to radically reduce energy bills and thus moderate the cost of living.

For obvious “nimby” reasons, the prime minister has set his face against ultra-low-cost onshore wind generation – the consumer benefits of which would dwarf those of his initiatives put together, and also deliver lower costs for energy-intensive industries such as steel and ceramics, saving jobs and communities into the bargain.

Thus far, having little else with which to try to fight the next election, those in his party still engaged with the science of climate change have been mostly quiet. Aside from the resignation of Zac Goldsmith from the government in protest at Mr Sunak’s indifference, only a few, such as Alok Sharma, who presided over the much-hyped Cop26 conference, have spoken out about the downgrading of the climate crisis – notable also for its absence from the prime minister’s famous “five priorities”.

There has been only silence from the PM’s Conservative predecessors in No 10. David Cameron, who once stuck a windmill on his roof and explored the melting ice caps with a team of huskies, hasn’t thought it worthwhile to intervene. Nor has Theresa May, who enshrined the “net zero by 2050” goal in law. Perhaps most surprising, or perhaps not, has been Boris Johnson’s acquiescence, given that he at least talked a good talk on the climate crisis. It seems recent changes have left him cynically taciturn.

What Mr Sunak may find in the coming months is that his vice signalling will simply encourage those in his party who don’t actually accept the science of the climate crisis to press for more and more U-turns – and more substantial ones. Even Michael Gove, who should know better as the cabinet minister who supported Ms May in her net zero endeavour, is mumbling about letting landlords off the hook and postponing the switch to electric cars.

The more extreme elements in Mr Sunak’s party want a referendum on net zero (as if that has any chance of fostering consensus) and to ditch the car-electrification policy entirely. They will not be satisfied until their leader embraces the full cakeist illusion that we can achieve net zero by carrying on exactly as we are. Mr Sunak looks dangerously close to giving them their wish.