The climate emergency merits a mere 10 mentions in the Conservative manifesto, despite being rated as one of the most pressing issues by voters, a Guardian analysis has found.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats devote large portions of their manifestos to the issue, with Labour giving its plans for a “green industrial revolution” top billing ahead of high-profile concerns such as the NHS and Brexit. Both parties refer to the climate 59 times, while the Scottish National party makes 33 references.
The Conservative Party document is the shortest of the four manifestos analysed. But even when the mentions are counted as a proportion of the total word count, Johnson’s party still falls far behind the opposition parties. The SNP mentions climate at three times the rate of the Tories, while Labour and the Lib Dems mention it almost five times as often.
The way in which the parties refer to the climate emergency varies across the four policy documents. Despite parliament unanimously declaring a “climate emergency” in May, the Conservative party prefers to use the term “climate change”. The SNP uses “climate change” 22 times compared to seven for “climate emergency”. Both Labour and the Lib Dems refer to a climate “emergency” or “crisis” more often than “climate change”.
The Conservatives also use the terms “environment” and “environmental” at a lesser rate than either Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
Boris Johnson, the Conservative leader, has refused to take part in a leaders’ debate on the climate to be broadcast by Channel 4 news on Thursday evening, with the broadcaster possibly presenting an “empty chair” in his place.
Separate to the Guardian’s analysis, Greenpeace has conducted its own scorecard on the main parties’ environmental commitments. The group’s ranking found the Green party topping the list when its commitments to invest in a green economy, reduce emissions from energy, preserve nature and show global leadership on environmental issues were taken into account. The Greens scored 19 out of a possible 20 for the scale and breadth of its pledges, in the Greenpeace ranking.
Labour came second in the Greenpeace ranking with 16 points, just nudging the Lib Dems into third place with 15. The Conservatives came second from bottom, scoring only 7 points, ahead only of the Brexit party on a single point.
Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said: “Some parties clearly recognise that [global heating] is an emergency and have included policies with the ambition needed to meet the scale of the challenge in front of us. But some have failed to adequately prepare.”
She said voters were engaged on green issues in the election: “With environmental concerns rocketing up the public and political agenda, voters want to know what politicians plan to do to get us out of this mess and seize the opportunity for a greener and fairer future. Our ranking exposes their policies for all to see, allowing people to make an informed decision on 12 December.”
In June, one of the last acts of Theresa May as Conservative prime minister was to commit the UK to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 , one of the first major economies to do so. The party’s manifesto, published on Sunday, refers to that commitment, but uses terms such as “net zero”, “carbon neutral”, “emissions” and other related terms just 17 times, according to the Guardian’s analysis.
The Lib Dems also point to their net-zero target, committing to deliver a “10-year emergency programme to cut emissions substantially straight away, and phase out emissions from the remaining hard-to-treat sectors by 2045 at the latest”. Their manifesto uses such terms at three times the rate of the Conservatives.
Labour has the most ambitious deadline of all the parties, committing “to put the UK on track for a net-zero-carbon energy system within the 2030s – and go faster if credible pathways can be found”. The party uses carbon-related terms at almost twice the rate of the Tory document.
The SNP pushes for a “75% reduction in emissions by 2035, net zero carbon emissions no later than 2040 and net zero of all emissions by 2045” and mentions carbon-related terms at 2.7 times the rate of the Tories.
None of the party manifestos pay much attention to fracking but all four state their intention to ban it, though the Conservatives would placed a “moratorium” on the controversial practice, with the possibility of resumption should safety concerns be addressed in future.
Methodology: Each manifesto has been analysed from the foreword onwards, ignoring the title and index pages, although Boris Johnson’s “Guarantee” has been included. Captions are excluded as are words that appear in images. Headers and footers are excluded from the analysis as are chapter titles. Section and paragraph titles have been retained. The analysis is based on two separate pieces of analysis: single words relating to the climate emergency were counted and then weighted against the total word count of each party’s manifesto. Phrases made up of a minimum of two words and a maximum of six words are analysed separately.
