A non-partisan green movement is impossible today given its opponents

Claims that net zero by 2050 is too expensive feel like a ploy to keep oil and gas profits flowing

In the 1980s the fast-growing green movement, dominated by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature, insisted that saving wildlife, mending the hole in the ozone layer, stopping acid rain and combating climate change were non-political. Campaigners agreed everyone wanted to leave their children as good a planet as they inherited.

Since then progress has been made on mending the ozone layer and stopping acid rain but few are now pretending that environmental issues are non-partisan.

Rightwing thinktanks in Britain advocate more drilling in the North Sea for oil and gas. They back the nuclear industry, knowing that the chances of getting a new power station up and running in less than 15 years are unlikely, so preserving the market for fossil fuels longer. And they claim that wind and solar, which can be built quickly, are expensive when all the evidence is that they are the cheapest form of energy.

They continue to make their arguments even as the climate crisis increasingly causes havoc across the world. It is hard not to conclude that claims that net zero by 2050 is either unattainable or too expensive is the latest ploy to keep oil and gas profits flowing at the expense of the next generation.

Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images - In the 1980s the green movement, dominated by groups like Greenpeace, said their movement was non-political.