The Queen’s speech won’t mention it – but we can still make this the first ever climate parliament

The demand for action is louder and more organised than ever before, even if we have to battle the Conservatives' woeful track record to achieve it

It’s the old cliche. You wait years for a Queen’s Speech and then suddenly two come along at once. After Theresa May decided to double her parliamentary session so that she could, to coin a phrase, get Brexit done, we didn’t have the usual speech in the summer of 2018. This year, the Queen’s Speech was bumped to October in a haze of uncertainty as Boris Johnson tried to railroad through his withdrawal bill without a majority.

Now we have another to look forward, to just two months later, following a landslide win for the Conservatives in a snap general election. Aside from cookies for their increasingly reactionary base, there’s little to expect from the Tory manifesto other than flimsy promises like banning train strikes, toughening up prison sentences, and of course – that slogan.

Over the last six weeks, we made this a climate election. For the first time ever – and just two years after a general election in which the environment was completely absent – the state of our natural world was suddenly a doorstep election issue, including a dedicated debate on the climate emergency on Channel 4. We did this because of a huge movement for climate action, from school kids striking from school, to Extinction Rebellion activists taking direct action.

Now, against all the odds, our movement must make this the climate parliament.

We’re going to get started on day one. During the last Queen’s Speech, our own Caroline Lucas tabled an amendment to call on the government to put forward a Green New Deal. This Thursday, she’ll do it again. In this election, we set out the most ambitious and comprehensive Green New Deal anywhere in the world, pledging £100bn a year on climate action, generating jobs, opportunities and a better quality of life across the country. This is the level of ambition we must see.

The Conservatives have a woeful track record on climate, from flogging off the Green Investment Bank, to sabotaging onshore wind and solar. The only pledge in their manifesto is to invest £500m in a Blue Planet Fund intended to tackle the problem of plastic choking our oceans. A laudable aim (although it would be more laudable were the money not being taken from the international aid budget) but it doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the climate and ecological emergency.

But despite their record and despite the landslide of blue into our House of Commons, there are reasons to think we can gain ground and win.

Firstly, even the Conservatives’ own members don’t think that going net-zero by 2050 is ambitious enough, with nearly half supporting the Greens’ target of 2030. We can shift their ambitions to bring them in line with the country.

Secondly, we are one year away from hosting the UN climate talks in the UK, and we can be sure that – his tenure as foreign secretary aside – he won’t want to look incompetent on the global stage. Finally, and most importantly, we have the power of a growing, diversifying climate movement which will hold this government to account, each and every day.

Just as things have changed immensely in the mere two years since the last general election, so have things changed immensely in the mere two months since the last Queen’s Speech. The demand for climate action is louder and more organised than ever before. Yes, it’s easy to despair, given the prospect of five more years of the Tories. But now is not the time to give up. I believe that we will win, and I believe that we will make this the climate parliament.

Amelia Womack is deputy leader of the Green Party