Green Tories hopeful that their time is coming

If the responses to last week’s Paris agreement on tackling climate change are anything to go by, you’d think politicians were warming to the issue. David Cameron said that ‘this generation has taken vital steps to ensure that our children and grandchildren will see that we did our duty in securing the future of our planet’. But the political excitement around the summit was not part of a trend, but a mere spike in interest. Politicians don’t talk very much about green issues at present. They barely discussed the environment at all during the election, and generally see it as being of such low salience that they needn’t talk too much about it.

But there are some in the Tory party who don’t think that’s the right approach. The Conservative Environment Network – an organisation which had a curious relaunch last year with Michael Gove where no-one mentioned climate change – has some polling conducted by Ipsos Mori which its co-chair Ben Goldsmith thinks is evidence that the environment is a political priority.