A cavalcade of woke corporations including Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Unilever, have called on the Conservative party leadership candidates vying to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to continue with Boris Johnson’s leftist ‘Net Zero’ green agenda.
On Tuesday, an open letter coordinated by the UK Business Group Alliance for Net Zero (BGA) and by Cambridge University’s pro-climate business group CLG UK, demanded that the next Tory government continue with Boris Johnson’s plans to cut carbon emissions to ‘Net Zero’ by the year 2050.
The business groups, which represent corporations such as the Lloyds Banking Group, Amazon, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Signify, Scottish Power, and Thames Water, said: “We urge prospective candidates (and their supporters) for the Conservative Party Leadership to implement your party’s manifesto commitments to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and restore nature within a generation.”
Eliot Whittington, Director, CLG UK said: “The Conservative Party has a significant track record of climate leadership. Their new leader will have a choice between building on this track record and delivering for the UK economy and society or abandoning it and condemning the country to fall behind on the energy transition and face unnecessary costs and risks.
“Forward looking businesses want more, not less, ambition on climate action, especially as we see the ramifications of volatile fossil fuel supply chains ramping up the cost-of-living crisis and reducing regional energy security. The next Prime Minister must centre climate policy and continue delivery of net zero and regenerating the UK’s nature.”
It is not the first time that woke corporation’s have attempted to shape the political conversation in Britain, with Unilever subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s coming out against the governments plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda and Coca-Cola recently sponsoring a drag queen performance at the London Pride Parade.
Ironically, Coca-Cola was named as the world’s top plastic polluter for the past four years in a study conducted by Break Free From Plastic, with its bottles being found in rivers, parks and beaches. Unilever was also named as a top plastic polluter.
So far, only Conservative leadership candidates Attorney General Suella Braverman and former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch have come out against the idea of radically transforming the British economy to transition away from carbon-based energy in favour of unreliable and expensive green alternatives such as wind and solar.
Kemi Badenoch has branded the Net Zero agenda as “unilateral economic disarmament,” and that “too many policies, like net zero targets, set up with no thought to the effects on industries in the poorer parts of this country.”
Braverman, for her part said: “In order to deal with the energy crisis we need to suspend the all-consuming desire to achieve net zero by 2050. If we keep it up, especially before businesses and families can adjust, our economy will end up with net zero growth.”
While former Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt has been propped up as the allegedly right-wing challenger to more establishment figures such as former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the MP for Portsmouth North has not only been seen as weak on the issue of transgenderism, but has also come out in favour of fulfilling the Net Zero pledge.
In an article announcing her candidacy to replace Johnson, Mordaunt wrote that the Net Zero project will see “up to three million green jobs could be generated by 2030, creating the apprenticeships, new jobs and training opportunities right across our United Kingdom.”
The current establishment darling and frontrunner in the contest to succeed Johnson, former Goldman Sachs banker and Chancellor of the Exchequer — the top position at the UK Treasury Department — Rishi Sunak joined the World Economic Forum’s Green Horizon Summit in 2020 to push the Net Zero agenda.
“The challenge of climate change is clear and it is urgent,” Sunak said. “We need to ensure a positive and fair transition to Net Zero and protect our environment.”
This week, Environment Secretary George Eustice claimed that the leadership contest will ultimately have little effect on the Conservative Party’s green agenda, saying: “People will say whatever they think will fire up the base… Whoever ends up leading will be strong on climate because that’s the manifesto.”
Eustice went on to downplay the chances of a climate change skeptic from getting into office: “Suella might be saying that, but she’s not going to win… At the end of the day, it’s the law.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.