The first important political leader to put global warming on the agenda was a conservative. And not just any conservative, but one with an unmatched capacity to get left-wing blood boiling: Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher was not the first prominent politician to take an interest in the environment. When Jerry Brown was elected as governor of California in 1974, it was his signature issue. (This was regarded by many at the time as eccentric; he was nicknamed “Governor Moonbeam”.) In Germany, Greens were first elected to the Bundestag in 1983. The same year, Bob Brown became Australia’s first Greens MP.
Margaret Thatcher was one of the first world leaders to make an issue of global warming. Credit: Hulton Archive
In those early days, it was environmental degradation by pollution, logging of old-growth forests and dams which were at the top of environmentalists’ concerns. Atmospheric pollution was considered dangerous primarily because of the health effects of particulates, and the threat to the ozone layer.
Thatcher was one of the first politicians – certainly the first world leader – to make an issue of global warming. Unusually for the humanities-laden British political establishment, her Oxford degree was in science. Her early career was as an industrial chemist. Thatcher’s interest in the issue sprang not from ideology and outrage, but education and expertise.
In two important speeches in the late 1980s, she articulated her concerns and demanded global action. In September 1988, in an address to The Royal Society, she said: “[I]t is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself. ”
She described dealing with human-induced climate change as one of “the great challenges of the late 20th century.”
When it came to green issues, Boris Johnson was a true believer.Credit: Chris Ratcliffe
In November 1989, in a major speech to the UN General Assembly, Thatcher warned of the “insidious danger” of climate change and “the prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to Earth itself”. She went on to say: “It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways … The problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level.”
Perhaps because the early advocacy came from a conservative prime minister, the climate wars have never been a major feature of British politics. If anything, it was Labour who were the laggards, violently objecting to Thatcher’s closure of coal mines. (Although this was done for economic reasons, Thatcher pointed to the environmental benefits as well.) There have been prominent Tory climate sceptics, but they are few and far between.
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