The cost of living crisis can only be beaten by tackling the climate crisis

Workmen install solar panels on a property in Cornwall. Over the last decade, the costs of solar energy have fallen 89%. Photograph: Simon Burt/PA

This summer has been defined by two crises: the continuing, painful cost of living crisis afflicting millions in our country and the climate crisis, which is playing out in horrifying ways across the world. The Conservative party is saying we can’t tackle both these crises together – and is, in fact, tackling neither. The Conservatives are wrong. Tackling both these crises goes hand in hand. That’s what Labour’s green prosperity plan will do – cutting energy bills, creating good jobs, delivering energy security and providing climate leadership for our country.

To listen to the Conservatives, you might think the status quo is serving us well. It isn’t. Putin’s strangulation of international fossil fuel markets has sent energy bills soaring, plunged countries like ours into the deepest cost of living crisis in memory and stoked inflation to further pile the pain on to families and businesses. The UK has been the worst affected country in western Europe. We have been so exposed because 13 years of failed Conservative energy policy has left us so dependent on fossil fuel markets.