It's been reported that UK ministers have 'seen off' a likely rebellion from members of their own party. The rebels were minded to vote in favour of a private members bill that would have made the UK's climate and environmental 'targets' legally binding. The likely rebels have been promised they will have input to environmental legislation (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/24/uk-climate-nature-bill-dropped-deal-labour-backbenchers). This activity can't be unrelated to the UK chancellor's claim that economic growth 'trumps' (a term from card games, indicating a card that beats all others) all other considerations (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/25/no-more-reviews-reeves-impatient-pace-change-quest-growth ). There's no doubt that 'pro-growth' moves (on travel, taxation etc.) have negative impacts on urgent environmental problems. A sensible species would recognise this. The problems are, however, that 1) the political cycle encourages short-termism; 2) folk are generally unwilling to wait for change; 3) people generally only vote for increases in their relative wealth and 4) parties are punished for failure to deliver. Having made its pitch largely on increasing economic growth, the UK's current government is, like many others, 'between a rock and a hard place'.
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