Clive Lewis

No, I will make some progress. At that point, I understood that it is entirely possible for us to hit our climate targets as we rip up and destroy a 10,000 or 50,000-year-old woodland. At that moment, I realised that I could never allow the road to be built. We can look at the Amazon forest and campaign about what should not be happening there, but what about our own backyards? There is a question for the Government —my Government or any Government—about growth: what kind of growth do we want? No one is answering that question. Do we want sustainable growth? What is growth about? What are we growing? Are we growing pollution in our rivers? Are we growing roads that go through ancient woodlands? Yes, that is growth, but is it the growth we want? Do we not want to see growth in well-paid adult social care or renewable technology? Do we not want to see growth in rewilding or sustainable farming? Those are the areas where I want to see economic growth. I do not want to see growth that comes at the cost of my daughter and her generation’s future. That is the kind of decision that we in this country and this Government have to make. I am afraid to say that we cannot have growth on a dead planet. Politicians need to understand that; for too long, we have not. We cannot pick growth out of the air and say, “Biodiversity will come in second place; climate will come after.” They are all interlinked. We cannot have a viable economy unless the climate and nature of our country and the economy are working well together in unity and in synthesis. That is what needs to happen.