This is our last chance to vote for a parliament that takes the climate crisis seriously

The climate emergency isn’t going away after the election. Whoever ends up with the keys to Number 10 on Friday, the Greens need to be there in parliament holding them to account

At the very beginning of this campaign, Greens stood in front of the country and declared that this would be the climate election. As we prepare to go to the polls tomorrow, this is what we should all have in mind: this is our last chance to form a parliament which can take us towards net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. We need more Green MPs elected to do that.

From the floods of students still going out on strikes, to the actual floods which decimated half of our country – this election has seen climate put front and centre of the agenda like never before. We’ve had a dedicated debate on the subject (which our prime minister couldn’t be bothered to turn up to) and over one in five voters are calling it a major issue.

Throughout the election campaign other parties have rolled out their grand plans for dealing with the climate emergency, many of them policies borrowed from the Greens. The problem is, that the climate emergency isn’t going away after the election. These promises have to be made good on or they just don’t count for anything. Whoever ends up with the keys to Number 10 on Friday, the Greens need to be there in parliament holding them to account on what they’ve pledged during this extraordinary election.

Take Labour, they have zoomed in on the environment because they know this will be a factor in many voters’ decision making. Meanwhile, Labour are still committed to the wildly damaging HS2 project, to increasing road building schemes and dirty nuclear energy, while refusing to rule out aviation expansion.

By comparison, we’re pledging to invest £100bn a year in climate action, which would be the biggest public investment in decades, and the boldest Green New Deal anywhere in the world. These are key and crucial policy differences.

Aside from individual policies, let’s not forget that Labour – along with all the other parties – still worship at the altar of growth and GDP. This is the economic model which caused the climate crisis in the first place – a throwaway culture of consumerism which depletes natural resources, while treating our oceans, air and climate as a sewer. We need to develop new ways of measuring the health of our economy, while putting the health of our environment front and centre.

In a sense, you don’t even need to compare manifestos. It’s far more instructive to look at a party’s actual record. While Labour are the official opposition nationally, let’s not forget that they are in power in Wales where I live, and they continue to celebrate the growth of our airports. In Labour controlled London, they’re ploughing ahead with the destructive Silvertown tunnel. And in Cumbria, it’s a Labour council which is pushing ahead with a brand new coal mine in 2019. The Tories are no better, selling off the Green Investment Bank, scrapping incentives for generating solar energy and killing offshore wins.

If Labour is serious about taking action on the climate and ecological emergency, what’s stopping them? Clearly, they need to be held accountable by a strong Green voice.

It’s great to have other politicians falling over themselves to seem a little bit more like us. But while other parties are trying to catch up, we keep racing ahead. We are the originators, we are the experts, and you can trust us to tackle the climate emergency with the most ambitious and comprehensive plan to deliver climate justice anywhere in the world.

Other parties talk a good game, but they won’t get the job done without more elected Greens holding their feet to the fire. If you’ve been persuaded that this is the climate election, vote Green this Thursday. If not now, when?