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Britain saw 43 wildfires in one day, two trains derail due to extreme heat, and 45 degree temperatures have pushed bus drivers out on strike.
Natasha Devon asks whether Andy Burnham is taking climate change seriously enough.
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0:00
I wanted to begin the show this evening by asking you about Andy Burnham and his government's
0:07
response to the very, very evident climate crisis that is all around us now
0:16
Just to recap on what he's actually said, he has urged us not to use disposable barbecues
0:24
and said that shops shouldn't be selling them. we've had an alert on our phones to that effect
0:30
warning us how arid the land is, that we're living in a tinderbox, essentially
0:36
and anything could potentially cause one of the 43, I was listening in the news headlines
0:42
43 wildfires we've had in the past 24 hours. And he's also called in the army to assist
0:52
presumably, with the emergency services, who are very stretched. right now. I wonder if you think that that is sufficient, because there is some suggestion
1:04
that dispute over how this should be handled is already causing division within the Labour Party
1:13
But we'll get to that in a moment. Let's remind ourselves, first of all, of what Andy Burnham
1:18
the Prime Minister, has said. Here's the advice Andy Burnham had for the public following those
1:23
devastating wildfires in Stourbridge earlier this week. Please everybody take the greatest of care
1:30
in fact don't light anything in an outdoor space right now. Britain is a tinderbox right right now
1:37
and please just have that in your mind. We're going to go into the rest of a weekend that
1:41
is a difficult weekend this is not over by any means we've got 37 fires smoldering around the
1:48
country so it could be more so please bear that in mind at all times and he was criticized for not
1:56
using the word climate change during that address of course you could argue that it wasn't necessary
2:03
in that particular moment in time the message that he needed to get across was about people
2:07
not using barbecues not lighting fires being very aware of where there may be a flame in what he
2:15
describes as the tinderbox that is the country right now. But he did issue a similar warning
2:21
earlier in the week after holding an emergency COBRA meeting about the hot weather
2:26
And he added this, which I thought was interesting. Have a listen. I think it's really important that we deal today with the situation that we're in right now. And
2:35
we focus on making sure that we have the serious incidents under control across the country. And
2:41
those incidents are under control, but we need to have a very close watching brief on that situation
2:48
But the bigger questions obviously will come at the right moment in time
2:53
So suggesting there that perhaps we will hear more from him about what has caused all this
2:59
i climate change But I think you be within your rights to say well if now isn the time to talk about that then when is Is he just dealing with the consequences as opposed to trying to get to the source of the problem
3:15
How do you think Andy Burnham has handled this, is my question to you
3:19
0345 6060 973 is the number that you need. You can WhatsApp me on the same number or text me on 84850
3:26
I mean, it does feel vaguely apocalyptic right now. And I do have to say that I know that the weather isn't the same everywhere in the country
3:35
I read a really interesting piece in The Guardian today, actually, which was about how climate change has become a culture war issue, which is fascinating to me because the evidence of climate change is all around us
3:49
If you have even the most basic scientific literacy, you know that the evidence for man-made climate change is irrefutable
3:55
and we have to urgently reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels. And yet somehow it has become a kind of left-right thing
4:07
And it baffles me in the same way that wearing a mask during COVID
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became a left-right thing. And that was equally baffling. Some things are just split along those lines
4:18
And so I read this piece by Andy Beckett, which I really recommend in The Guardian
4:22
because I thought it would offer some ysis on how we've ended up here
4:27
with something so important to the future of humanity having become a culture war issue and open to debate for many, many years
4:36
Not so much anymore, but for many, many years, they were kind of both sides in it as though climate change denial
4:43
was a respectable or an evidence-based opinion to have. and in this piece Andy Beckett says that part of the problem is that not everybody in the UK is
4:57
experiencing the same weather and that has further siloed us so if you are in Scotland for example
5:07
there's been wetter than usual weather but then in South England where I am based
5:13
it's like a desert i mean literally the air is shimmering there are dust devils that have been
5:19
spotted in london you know like the tasmanian devil style mini what's the word that i'm looking
5:26
for mini whirlwind thing of dust that you see when it's really really hot they have been filmed
5:31
um in london and it's i mean it's beggars belief like that actually sometimes if you take in a deep
5:39
breath. It will make you cough. The air is that dry and arid. I've never experienced anything like
5:45
it before, certainly not for this prolonged amount of time in this country. I've experienced it in
5:50
other countries throughout the world, but I've never experienced anything like it here in England
5:56
But there is a discrepancy there between what's being experienced in Scotland and what's being
6:01
experienced in the south of England, and it will be slightly different in Wales and in the north
6:05
of England and in the Midlands as well So we can talk about it as though there is one unified experience that everybody in the UK is having Having said that we are all experiencing unusual weather for this time of year
6:19
and that's because of climate change and it's only going to get worse. We are only going to see more
6:25
wildfires and flooding and extreme temperatures and the impact of that is devastating. We've
6:35
seen in Stourbridge how people's homes have been destroyed, trains have derailed, people have been
6:41
injured. There have been almost 3,000 excess deaths this summer that wouldn't have occurred
6:47
under more normal summer conditions. The bus drivers are going to go on strike and good for
6:54
them. Do you remember, I've spoken to you about this before. If you're a regular listener to the
6:58
show, you'll remember that I talked about during that first heat wave that we had back in early June
7:04
which surprised us all I think with its kind of sudden ferocity and I injured my foot so I had to
7:13
get on a bus I couldn't walk and I had to get on a bus and I couldn't believe it must have been 50
7:19
degrees on this bus I couldn't believe how hot it was there were only two other people on the bus
7:25
there was a bald guy who had a flannel on his head and just looked completely miserable and then
7:31
there was a woman with a fan and she said to me this fan is just blowing hot it's like a hair dryer
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that I've got in my hand and she got off at the next stop and said I can't take it anymore
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and my thought was okay well we have to grit our teeth and bear this until our stop but what about
7:48
the poor driver who has to spend all day in these conditions it is not fair to ask people to work in
7:57
conditions like that. So the buses are going on strike, the trains are derailing, our infrastructure
8:05
cannot cope. Somebody messaged me earlier to say that their NHS appointment had been
8:11
rescheduled several times because the hospitals near where they live are just too hot for surgery
8:18
to be performed in. Then you've got the cost to the economy, billions of pounds in lost productivity
8:25
because of these heat waves or extreme weather throughout the country that we are experiencing
8:34
If you're not extremely anxious right now, then you're not paying attention. For a lot of people
8:41
I think this summer is the first time that it's really hit home what climate change is and what
8:49
it's doing to our planet and what the future may very well look like as a result you've had people
8:56
of course trying to it's so spectacularly stupid isn't it you know the argument that well that
9:01
these wildfires are probably caused by people with disposable barbecues or cigarettes or even
9:08
leaving glasses behind which then magnify and cause a spark but the point about that is that That could be true That may very well be true that some of them were caused by that But you wouldn have had a wildfire if climate change hadn left the environment the grass the fences the trees everything around us so arid
9:31
that's why those words tinderbox that Andy Burnham used are so very important so it's still wildfires
9:39
caused by climate change no matter whether the fire was sparked whether accidentally or deliberately
9:46
by a person so it doesn't make any sense as an argument but you have had people trying to to
9:52
argue that the the people who are very very determined to ignore or deny man-made climate
10:00
change but most of us are on the same page now where we see this as urgent and we're worried
10:07
about the future of our country and we're worried about not just what because it always used to be
10:12
what our children's future would look like or our grandchildren's future would look like it was
10:16
always one degree removed wasn't it and now we're worrying maybe what our future will look like in
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five years time or in 10 years time and we really need there to be a proportionate response to that
10:30
anxiety that most of us are feeling. I think we would feel reassured if we thought that the
10:37
government had this. So it's not terribly reassuring. It doesn't fill me with joy to let
10:45
you know that a freedom of information request has revealed that there are only 20 staff at the
10:50
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who have been tasked with coming up with a strategy
10:56
for protecting the environment. This is a huge department with a lot of resources at its disposal
11:05
And only 20 staff have been put onto this, probably, well, definitely. Can we say it's the most
11:13
urgent and important issue facing the country in the world? And we've got 20 people on it
11:18
that doesn't fill me with faith that when Andy Burnham does deign to talk about this in
11:26
a more context-y way, let's say, not just talking about the wildfires and the importance of avoiding
11:36
them, but actually what caused those wildfires and how we can prevent them in the future and
11:42
and how we can reduce the climate emergency as well as making our country more resilient to extreme temperatures in the future
11:51
The fact that we've only got 20 people on it in government doesn't give me a great deal of optimism that our government are taking this seriously enough
12:02
But I'm also very aware that I could very well be being unfair on Andy Burnham
12:06
and you might think that he's actually dealt with this very well and that he's delivering these messages clearly and piecemeal a bit at a time
12:14
so that they're really cutting through. What do you make of Andy Burnham's response so far
12:20
to the summer that we are living through
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