 |
| Source BBC |
The UK’s response to the flooding crisis must centre
on a long-term strategy to address climate change the Green Party says today, as
it recommends a series of ten measures to improve the country’s flood resilience
in future.
It says sustained political action on climate change
is crucial to reducing the risk of severe flooding happening again.
The Party is calling for Environment Secretary Owen
Paterson to be sacked and for the Prime Minister to remove Cabinet Ministers and
senior government officials who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on
climate change (1). The Met Office has said (2) all the evidence points to
climate change contributing to these extraordinary floods.
“Politicians who ride roughshod over the painstaking
findings of climate scientists (3), sometimes motivated by their
inappropriately close links to fossil fuel big business, endanger our future
and our children’s future”, said Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett.
“It’s a crying shame more of the recommendations made by
the The Pitt Review into the 2007 floods (4) haven’t been taken seriously by
Labour, the Tories, and their Coalition government lackeys in the Lib Dem
Party. But it is not too late for action.”
Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton
Pavilion, said:
“Across the country, homes and businesses are being
devastated by the floods, and our hearts go out to everyone whose life is being
turned upside down. Nature is giving us
another wake-up call.
“In addition to making sure everything possible
is done to help people affected by the immediate crisis, we need a credible
long term strategy to tackle the risk of flooding and extreme weather to
people's homes and liveilihoods in the future.”
The call to government urges ministers to adopt the
recommendations of a major independent cross sector coalition
for a Cabinet-level committee on infrastructure
and climate change resilience and a Royal Commission on the long-term impacts
of climate change on land.
The Green Party is also calling for all staff cuts at
the Environment Agency to be cancelled, planning rules to be strengthened to
prevent further development on flood plains, and for increased levels of
spending on flood defences to a level in line with expert recommendations from
the Environment Agency and the Climate Change Committee.
And it is supporting the call of campaigners for the billions of UK fossil fuel subsidies and
tax breaks to be used to help the victims of flooding.
“This redirection will address the underspend and
assist the victims of flooding, as well as putting a halt to public money
exacerbating the problem of climate change that is making the floods so much
worse”, noted Bennett.
Notes
