Ex-Tory minister slams ICE report
Former Tory environment secretary John Gummer this week slammed the ICE’s recent report on protecting critical infrastructure as “ridiculous”.
Speaking at the Environmental Industries Commission conference on climate change policy on Tuesday, he said that calls for large amounts of additional public spending on climate change adaptation ignored the severity of the government’s current public finance problems.
“It is a ridiculous report because we just don’t have any money. We are going to have to do a lot of make do and mend.”
John Gummer, former Tory environment secretary
“It is a ridiculous report because we just don’t have any money,” said Gummer. “The reality is that there is not going to be the money [for investment in new infrastructure to adapt to climate change]. We are going to have to do a lot of make do and mend.”
Gummer, who was environment secretary from 1993 to 1997, was involved in the 1994 United Nations Convention on Climate Change which set out a plan for intergovernmental efforts to tackle climate change.
More recently he has been involved in the Conservative Quality of Life Policy Group which in late 2007 published the Blueprint for a Green Economy setting out Conservative policy on the environment.
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