'We control the regulations and laws of the city of London. We can change how the city of London operates, we can show leadership to other financial centres of the world'.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats says that ‘fossil fuel money’ will be banned from the city of London.
Ed Davey told his party conference during a Q and A session that it would be a way of showing the rest of the world the way forward on climate change.
He said: “However good we are in this country on climate change policy and we need to do far better, we have to find ways to act globally which are effective and urgent and quick and just get results.
“Some of that will be through the negotiations at COP26 but it’s also about taking responsibility for things we can impact globally and I particularly think of the city of London and the fossil fuels that are financed through the London Stock Exchange through the bond markets, the guild markets, the pension funds and so, in the city of London.
“We control the regulations and laws of the city of London. We can change how the city of London operates, we can show leadership to other financial centres of the world, whether that’s New York, Tokyo, Frankfurt or elsewhere by making it clear that fossil fuel money will be banned from the city of London.
“Well start with new money for oil exploration but during a just climate transition, we’ve got to get to a point where fossil fuels for combustion are not financed in the city of London. Now that’s quite radical.”
He also took aim at Boris Johnson’s ‘inward looking, quasi-imperialist approach’ and incompetency for a failure of leadership not only on COP26 but generally, calling it a ‘disgrace’.
Davey said that the government had alienated our European partners and are not flavour of the month in the White House because Boris had sucked up to the Trump administration and also because he had messed up Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
“They’ve managed to annoy other people around the world and the worst thing, the aid cuts, the development budget cuts they’re just wrong, immoral, indecent, disgusting and Tory MPs who voted for that should hang their heads in shame for the rest of their lives.”
Davey was also asked why his party were in competition with the Green Party and Labour for the pro-environment vote, to which he replied: “The reality is at Westminster elections, it’s really clear that the Greens can’t take a single seat off the Conservatives, indeed the Greens have never taken any Westminster seat off the Conservatives and under First Past the Post, the unfair electoral system which we want to get rid of, there’s no chance of them doing that.”
Basit Mahmood is co-editor of Left Foot Forward
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