Video interview with I'm A Celebrity Stanley Johnson On 40 Years of International Environmental Protection & Brexit

Just before Christmas I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with Stanley Johnson as part of my series of Green & Tonic Climate Rockstar’s, the full conversation can be watched here. In this timely & impactful conversation I talk to Stanley Johnson; TV reality star, veteran environmental policy maker & father to Boris Johnson. In a discussion that covers Stanley’s impressive 40 years of environmental & climate policy leadership from the creation of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) and the international body of climate scientists known as the IPCC, the recent climate negotiations in Katowice Poland and inevitably examining todays all-consuming issue for the UK of Brexit.

We begin our conversation some forty+ years ago in June 1972 at the Stockholm Environmental Convention which Stanley attended as a delegate moving then to the inaugural meeting of the UNs International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 1986, the organisation which underpins global scientific understanding on climate change. What is so interesting through the lens of today’s political polarisation is the role that ‘right-winged’ politicians and particularly Margaret Thatcher played in these early days of international environmental policy making. Not only in driving action on issues such as the hole in the ozone layer and climate change but championing an international UN mandated approach including the creation of international institutions. There is also a fascinating insight into the then concerns of Governments that following speedy success of the Ozone Convention that the climate agenda might move too quickly. Tragically history has proven that concern found less to say the least!

Stanley talks about his 40 years of environmental policy engagement and his twenty years at the heart of the European Union’s environment policy making. Drawing on his new book to mark the 40th Anniversary of the UNs Environment Programme, The First 40 Years; A Narrative by Stanley Johnson(including his years in the EU Commission and as an MEP.

It is a unique comparison of the consensus driven UN approach (in his words “the tyranny of the unanimity”) versus the more prescriptive legally enforceable approach of the European Union. Perhaps what is most interesting coming from the father of one of the Leave campaigns key proponents and Brexiteers darling, Boris Johnson, is Stanley’s observation that the UK drove and influenced much of EU environmental policy and it’s so called environmental acquis. Citing the example of how the UK’s 1974 Control of Pollution Act influenced much of the EU’s policy & regulation on the control of waste. Yet it was not always the case that the UK was driving for clean and safe outcomes as he reminds us that the UK fiercely opposed the EU’s anti-pollution emission limits that have saved so many UK lives. Much as we owe our clean beaches to EU law, we owe our much improved air quality to EU environmental policy as well.

It is also an illuminating discussion of how the UK has exercised significant soft power globally through international bodies such as the UN, IPCC magnified by our influential role within the EU.

Of course, in light of the current Brexit crisis subsuming most of the UK’s domestic agenda and the central role of his family in this domestic and international drama it is impossible for us to stay off the topic of Brexit. Stanley is one of the stars and a public treasure from his recent appearances in the reality TV shows I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here & The Real Marigold Hotel leaves us in now doubt as to his views on Brexit.

Stanley is clearly sad & concerned at the prospect that Brexit may both weaken both the UK domestic environment agenda and our international influence acting through the EU. Indeed, during the 2016 Referendum campaign like many families, the Johnsons were split in a way not seen since the split between Parliamentarians & Royalists in the 1660s.  Stanley’s son Boris was a key principal of the official leave campaign, Vote Leave, and Stanley was a key proponent behind Environmentalists for Europe (E4EU) making the case to Remain. Stanley makes no bones about the fact that he would prefer the UK to remain in the EU. Yet he went along with the Referendum result until the likely deal became clear and the fact that we would be giving up our sovereignty within the EU.

Stanley talks about what he expects will happen next and his feeling that if Theresa May’s Brexit deal is rejected by Parliament (which it just was) we will likely be heading down the road of a Peoples Vote as the only way to unlock the parliamentary log jam.

We move on to discuss that whilst the COP24 climate negotiations held in Katowice (Poland’s coal county) have delivered part of a Paris Agreement Rulebook the level of ambition falls far short of what the recent IPCC Special Report on 1.5oC says we need to deliver a stable climate outcome. Nonetheless, Stanley is optimistic about the power of technology. He is encouraged to hear of the economic tipping point now taking place as part of the energy transition and agrees that what will likely follow this economic tipping point is a political tipping point. Stanley is sure that the work of Carbon Trackerhighlighting this economic tipping point and the fact that many fossil fuel projects which clearly don’t make climate sense also don’t make financial sense is having an impact. 

We then move onto discuss what Brexit says about the UK’s political system. We discuss whether the Brexit crisis and the current political impasse is a symptom of a broken political system. Stanley seems to peg the blame squarely onto the shoulders of the first past the post system which shuts out all but the most mainstream political views & policies, clearly to the detriment of the green movement and new parties.

I conclude by asking Stanley what would he like to see in 2019. Stanley is as clear and directive as ever. He would like us to deal with the things that really matter rather than our current obsession with Brexit. He would like

1. the UK to stay in the EU; and
2. exercise a lot of dynamism to ensure the EU pushes harder on climate change, nature & forest protection;
3. If we do not remain in the EU he would like us to continue to lead from outside Europe, but is less confident of our likely impact.

 Cleary Stanley has little sympathy for the Brexit arguments for taking back sovereignty and we conclude ironically that we are likely to exercise more power and sovereignty in relation to international environmental & climate change policy acting through the EU in partnership with 27 other EU partners.

You can watch the full conversation with Stanley Johnson here. Please subscribe to the Green & Tonic youtube channel to join in!

Anthony Hobley