Truss speech shows government ‘rowing back’ on net zero

Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Liz Truss’s speech to the Tory conference was a “shameful” display of a government not taking the climate and nature crises seriously enough, environmentalists have said. The prime minister made only one mention of climate change in her speech on Wednesday, and the issue only came to the fore when she was heckled by Greenpeace campaigners who unfurled a banner asking “Who voted for this?” “I think this is a clear message that she is rowing back on net zero,” Joan Edwards, director of policy and public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts said of the speech. “This government is determined to wreck the climate with a dangerous drive to growth that is based on greater investment in fossil fuels that are destroying the planet,” said Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski. “The government insists it’s not watering down its environmental commitments, but we have yet to see evidence that the deregulatory agenda will not put the environment at further risk, let alone the positive additional proposals needed to get on course for net zero and nature’s recovery.” open image in gallery The New Forest is one of the areas conservationists say is protected under EU law Green groups have persistently argued that growth and protecting nature should go hand-in-hand as they’ve warned new government policies aimed at boosting growth risk seeing the countryside being concreted over and the dawn chorus silenced.