Foreign Secretary Zac Goldsmith has announced his resignation over what he described as the government’s “apathy” towards the environment.
Here is his resignation letter in full:
Dear Prime Minister,
I got into politics mostly because of my love and concern for the natural environment. We depend on nature for everything, and we are degrading the natural world at an astonishing rate. Logically, there is nothing more important.
So when you asked me to stay on as international environment minister, of course I agreed. I did this with the aim of monitoring the progress we had seen in recent years in the international environment and to build a record of international leadership that has been so warmly welcomed around the world.
The last four years have been an exhilarating experience for me, and I will always be grateful that I was put in a position where I could do more for the environment than I thought possible in my entire life.
I am proud that in recent years the UK has played a critical, indeed defining, role in leading powerful coalitions of ambition and achieving world-changing commitments on a wide range of environmental issues.
And even if in the highly polarized political environment here in the UK there is a reluctance to acknowledge it, this leadership has been recognized and appreciated by civil society and governments around the world.
As a direct result of our environmental leadership, we have seen countries ambivalent towards the UK supporting us on numerous unrelated issues. We often find ourselves invited to regional environmental summits as the only “outsider” country present.
It is to the United Kingdom that civil society routinely turns to for help in advancing its cause. In many ways, the UK has become the most important voice for nature globally.
I think we can be proud of our record. At Cop26 we have secured unprecedented commitments from countries, philanthropists and companies that, if fulfilled, will put the natural world on the road to recovery. At the time, WWF said that “nature really came to Cop26”.
The Tropical Forest Alliance said “we will look back and realize that this was the day we finally turned the tide on deforestation”. Forbes called it a “Paris moment” for forests. In Glasgow, with the strong support of the then Prime Minister, we were able to achieve much more than any of us had thought possible.
Since then, the UK has been the driving force behind successful global efforts. We led calls to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by the end of this decade, a target agreed at the Biodiversity Cop in Montreal last year, where the UK more than almost any other country to make it a historic success.
Separately, we helped galvanize agreement for a new global treaty on plastic pollution. And it was our team of negotiators who, more than any other, achieved agreement for the creation of new laws to protect the high seas.
Meanwhile, our G7 negotiators persuaded major donor countries to align their aid spending not only with the Paris goals, but also with nature.
We’ve created world-class funding programs like our new Biodiverse Landscape Fund, which is creating broad wildlife corridors between countries, providing safe passage for wildlife and jobs for people living in the corridors and in the surroundings; and our new Blue Planet Fund, which supports marine protection, coral and mangrove restoration, and efforts to stop plastic pollution and illegal fishing.
These and other funds are world-class and have tapped into a wave of financial support from other countries and philanthropists.
It has been my privilege to grow our wonderful Blue Belt program so that today it fully protects an area of ocean significantly larger than India around our overseas territories.
The UK has been able to win arguments internationally in part because we were taking action at home. I will not pretend that we have gone far enough or fast enough, but there is no doubt that since 2019 we have made significant progress.
We have strengthened our environmental laws, provided more funding for nature, committed to more protected areas, more action against plastic pollution and the UK is one of the only countries with legal targets to reverse biodiversity loss.
We have committed to restoring our peatlands and planting trees on an unprecedented scale and are transforming our land grant system to support the environment. We have also taken steps to address our international environmental footprint, including new laws to stop the import into the UK of agricultural produce grown on illegally deforested land.
We have also made progress in animal welfare. The government signed off on an ambitious animal welfare action plan, which would have represented the biggest shake-up of animal welfare in recent memory.
As the responsible minister I was able to translate it, little by little, into law. We increased sentences for cruelty from six months to five years, recognized by law the sentience of animals, enacted and extended the ban on the ivory trade, introduced measures to crack down on the pet trade and banned glue traps .
Before you took office, you assured party members, through me, that you would continue to implement the action plan, including the farmed animals bill and measures such as ending the export of live animals for slaughter, prohibit the keeping of primates as pets, prevent the importation of sharks. fins and hunting trophies of vulnerable species.
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But I have been horrified that, little by little, we have abandoned these commitments, both nationally and globally. The bill for the kept animals has been abandoned, despite your promises. Our efforts on a wide range of national environmental issues have stalled.
More worryingly, the UK has visibly withdrawn from the world stage and withdrawn from our leadership on climate and nature. Too often we are simply absent from key international forums. Only last week you apparently chose to attend a media baron’s party instead of attending a very important environmental summit in Paris that would normally have been co-chaired by the UK.
Worse still, we have effectively abandoned one of the most solemn and publicized promises we have made on this issue: our promise to spend £11.6 billion of our aid on climate and the environment.
In fact, the only reason the government has not had to clear up the broken promise is because the last year of spending falls after the next general election and will therefore be the next government’s problem, not this.
This is a promise, remember, that Prime Ministers have repeated constantly over the past four years, including you, and for good reason.
It is the most important signal of intent [sic] for the dozens of small, climate-vulnerable island states on an issue that is existential to them. Remember that these states have equal dominance in the United Nations, where we request their support in other matters.
This same pledge was also successfully used by the UK as leverage to persuade the G7 countries to follow suit, and breaking it would not only enrage them, along with the small Commonwealth island states and beyond, but that would destroy any reputation we have. a reliable partner.
Prime Minister, having been able to do so much before, I have struggled to even hold the line in recent months.
The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it’s that you, our prime minister, are simply not interested. This signal, or the lack of it, has drifted through Whitehall and caused a kind of paralysis.
I will never understand how, with all the knowledge we now have about our fundamental dependence on the natural world and the speed with which we are destroying it, anyone can be selfless.
But even if this existential challenge leaves you personally unmoved, there is a world of people who care deeply. And you’ll need their votes.
Every survey and survey, without exception, tells us that people care deeply about the natural world, about the well-being of other species, about giving that world a better shape to the next generation. And as these issues inevitably grow in importance, so too will the rift between the British people and an inadequately responsive Tory party.
It has been a privilege to work with so many talented people in government, particularly in my private practice, and to have been able to make a difference in a cause I have been committed to for as long as I can remember.
But this government’s apathy towards the biggest challenge we have faced makes it untenable to continue in my current role.
It is with great reluctance, then, that I step down as minister in order to focus my energies where I can be most useful.
Zach Goldsmith
