I had a premonition that Rishi Sunak was about to do something deeply ungreen. I didn’t know exactly what, and definitely couldn’t have named which oil and gas licences he wanted to issue, but I knew that, whatever it was, it would spell the end of our commitment to net zero. I figured it would shift our international alignment away from the countries taking the climate crisis seriously, because it’s right in front of them and they are not psychopaths, towards the countries strutting their indifference to it, for the complicated but demonstrable political mileage in the message: “Follow me to hell – it’ll be fun there.”
It was written right there in his holiday house. Why would a British prime minister have a second home in California? It’s such a forceful statement – I don’t care how rich I look, I don’t care how much I fly, I don’t care what eco-nerds think – and so unforced. He could have sold it, waited till he was no longer the prime minister – he must have known it wouldn’t be for ever – and bought a bigger one.
