Under pressure: Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne © CC/David Spender
Climate campaigner Louise Hutchins reports from the Liberal Democrat party conference:
Here in Liverpool amongst the Lib Dem faithful, there is a mood of embattled determination to give their leaders the benefit of the doubt – for now. There's also a keen awareness that delivery on some of the party's touchstone issues is urgently needed to stem the haemorrhaging of support seen in opinion polls.
Climate change is definitely one of those issues. New polling by YouGov for Greenpeace shows 50 per cent of Lib Dem voters think the government should give greater priority to protecting the environment. 77 per cent think green spending should be safeguarded or increased in October's Comprehensive Spending review when all the noises so far indicate cuts are coming.
The media too are picking up on the emerging frustration. Last Sunday's Politics Show interviewed Greenpeace head John Sauven in a piece scrutinising Lib Dem Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne over the government's failure to introduce a moratorium on deep oil drilling and fears over green spending cuts. And yesterday, Radio 4's Today programme covered our packed fringe meeting on green jobs and a low carbon economic recovery, grabbing a quick interview with me afterwards for Greenpeace’s view on where the Lib Dem leadership is heading.
The next couple of weeks will be crucial in lobbying for more investment in the green economy. Stimulating these new high tech, low carbon industries is not only vital for the climate, it will provide a sustainable wealth and jobs engine for our economy, giving us a fighting chance to compete in the £3 trillion global market in low carbon goods and services. We’ll be pressing that point at the upcoming Labour and Conservative conferences too.
