The head of the Fire Brigades Union, who warned that his members were already witnessing the effects of the climate crisis, has again said that the public will be put at risk if Keir Starmer drops his plan to spend £28bn a year on green investment.
Matt Wrack, the FBU’s general secretary, urged the Labour leader not to scale back or delay the party’s green scheme, which he said was essential for combating a steep increase in floods, wildfires and storms.
Wrack called on Starmer to include mitigation measures such as flood defences in the plan as well as more long-term investment aimed at cutting carbon emissions. His intervention comes at the beginning of a key week for the future of the plan in which officials are to meet to debate whether it should go ahead.
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Wrack was quoted as saying: “If Labour doesn’t spend this money, it will put our members at risk, but it will also put communities at risk, especially in areas which are at risk of wildfires or major floods. It will increase the strain on the fire service and the risk to firefighters.”
Firefighters have been dealing with rapidly rising numbers of floods and wildfires in recent years, which scientists say is a direct result of climate breakdown.
Recall that In 2018 there were 65 wildfire incidents in Britain, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council. Three years later that had more than doubled to 178. Government data shows that flooding incidents in England have increased by nearly a quarter in the last decade.
Wrack said that his members were struggling to cope with the increase in extreme weather events, and that people were being put at risk as a result. Heavy rains from Storm Henk flooded about 2,000 homes earlier this year as a month’s worth of rainfell in just four days in some parts of the UK.
“We are potentially leaving people in a dangerous and vulnerable position, for example with no power in their homes or stranded on the upper floor of a house when the ground floor is flooded,” he said.
The government plans to spend just over £220m on flood defences this year, but Wrack wants Labour to use its green prosperity plan to increase that figure.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
