Environmental groups see new PM as a welcome relief but restoring climate credentials will be difficult
The fact that some environment groups and green Tory MPs are welcoming the prospect of Rishi Sunak as prime minister perhaps shows how far the Overton window has shifted in recent weeks.
Sunak has never been considered a fully signed up member of the green agenda, and even allies admit he saw the “costs rather than the benefits” of environmental action while chancellor. But after just over a month of a Liz Truss government, many see a Sunak premiership as a welcome relief. Under Truss, years of good relations with groups such as the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust were trashed, Tory infighting was provoked over her insistence on fracking, and her first actions in power included trying to ban solar power from most of England’s farmland and weakening environmental protections in the retained EU law bill, investment zones and rowing back on nature-friendly farming payments scheme.
