Why paying more dividends could save the planet

Climate emergency demands action, not rhetoric. So, on the eve of COP26, which UK news item promises to deliver the most positive impact for the future of the planet? Not, I suggest, Sadiq Khan’s extension of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone to the North and South Circulars, imposing stinging costs on owners of older diesels who can’t afford newer ones; nor Rishi Sunak’s £7 billion pledge for sustainable transport in cities outside London — only £1.5 billion of which turns out to be new money. No, the headline that matters more is the one that says dividend payments by UK companies are returning to normal.

During the darkest days of the pandemic, most public companies slashed or cancelled payouts to shareholders in response to plunging profits, calls for Covid solidarity and in the case of banks, pressure from the Bank of England. In our anti-business media, it was much said that dividends, akin to City bonuses, were inherently immoral anyway, and therefore ripe to be cut.