What does true pragmatism look like in an age of climate crisis?

Pragmatism is a weird and weaselly word. It's official definition is "a practical approach to problems and life that focuses on what works in reality rather than on fixed theories, abstract rules, or ideal ideologies", which sounds great, but who gets decide what works and what constitutes an ideal ideology? It has its roots in the Greek word 'pragma' meaning 'deed' or 'action', but often pragmatism is deployed in defence of the status quo, as a rationale for not acting. When it first emerged in English in the 16th century it meant 'opinionated or meddlesome', before later morphing to refer to state affairs, business matters, and a general sense of straight forward matter-of-factness. For some, it is now evolving again to become an ideology itself and a cover for sophistry and cynicism.  

Andy Burnham deployed the word in his big speech to the Labour Party Conference this week, as he promised to be "pragmatic in relation to the North Sea as we build a bridge to a clean energy future and face the climate crisis". 

He did not define what this pragmatism would entail, mindful no doubt that whatever decision he eventually makes on the controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields will split Labour's base and antagonise his opponents, but everyone knew what the word is meant to signal in this context. The assumption, backed by repeated anonymous briefing to the papers, is that Burnham is minded to approve at least one, and probably both, projects, while arguing the resulting modest increase in domestic fossil fuel production can generate tax revenues that can support decarbonisation efforts and ensure the UK still meets its net zero targets. This is the 'pragmatic' approach that rejects the 'ideological' desire to decarbonise as quickly as possible and protects carbon intensive jobs and investments, while efforts to decarbonise continue elsewhere. 

But as the historian Robert Saunders posited yesterday morning, how has the pragmatic course of action become the one that is aligned with actively increasing the risk of biosphere collapse? How is the rational choice the one that drives up emissions that are triggering climatic tipping points and increases reliance on fossil fuels when volatile fossil fuel prices are the primary source of the current economic pain? For Saunders, "it's a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as 'ideological', while continuing to accelerate it is presented as 'pragmatic' and 'economic'". Corruption is the right word.  

There is something slightly detached and surreal about climate discourse at the moment, especially in the spheres of politics and business. The entire Northern Hemisphere has just experienced the most extreme summer on record, triggering deadly climate impacts, fuelling food insecurity and inflation, and resulting in billions of dollars of economic costs. We're deep into our second fossil fuel shock inside five years, with no end in sight and a winter of crippling energy cost hikes ahead that are a direct result of fossil fuel reliance and the geopolitical instability it enables. The cheerleaders for climate denialism and fossil fuel boosterism are the most unpopular and corrupt American President in history and a motley alliance of some of the worst people in the world. 

And yet, there is a reluctance among political and business leaders to vocally and unequivocally back the rapid decarbonisation that really should be the pragmatic response to this confluence of genuinely horrifying trends, all of which are threatening to get a lot worse in the coming years. This reluctance was evident in Burnham's otherwise exceptional speech, with its failure to properly reference the climate threat and its guileless hint that more fossil fuel drilling is on the way. It was there in Chancellor John Healey's failure to mention climate change at all. It was there in this week's shocking report detailing how British banks are still pumping billions of pounds into coal projects - enabling the most carbon intensive developments in the world at a time when clean tech is booming and emissions need to fall precipitously if an era of rolling climate catastrophes is to be averted. 

It was even there at New York Climate Week, as Ed King's reflections on the annual climate gathering and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres valedictory address made painfully clear. "It's a deep irony that in a year where crumbling glaciers crushed thousands in Nepal, heat scorched Europe, rains flooded Thailand, weak monsoons left India in a rain deficit that climate appears to be edging down the agenda," he wrote. "Arriving at UN HQ for the opening of the summit on 23 September, I was struck both by the increase in visible security since my last visit in 2023 and also the conspicuous lack of urgency around a heating planet. Compare Greta Thunberg's ‘How dare you' speech in 2019 - which made headlines around the world - to 2026. The urgency of action on climate does not appear to be as salient as it once was."

He added that there were even signs the climate movement was inadvertently conspiring with 'pragmatism' narrative cooked up by advocates for the fossil fuel industry. "Not talking about why the transition is so important is exactly what its opponents want to happen," King argued. "Not linking climate impacts to fossil fuels is the plan. Reframing the argument for action to fit with what serious folks in suits deem is the right message is undermining the power of the message. If COP31 is just going to be about a new electrification target and not much else (as suggested by the hosts) then is there much point in going?"

There is an urgent need to reconnect the dots of the climate crisis. To explain that decarbonisation and the phasing out of unabated fossil fuels is not an ideological mission, but an essential response to the brutal realities of anthropogenic climate change. To show how when the Tories say they want to tackle climate change, but don't want to get to net zero by 2050 they reveal how they do not understand what net zero is or why the target was adopted. To explain how the climatic tipping points we are flirting with really do risk food system collapse, biblical levels of migration, and a world of chaos and insecurity. To hammer home how temperatures will keep spiralling every upwards until we either decarbonise our economies or civilisation collapses, whichever comes first. To remind people that Thunberg was right the first time. Understand that, and what is pragmatic and what is radical with regards to continued fossil fuel development is quickly reversed. 

Of course, such a switch will be hard for politicians to countenance, especially when deep and rapid decarbonisation does bring with it near term challenges through job losses in carbon intensive industries and the awkward reality that all countries are moving at different paces in this global transition. But as a bare minimum, they should be challenged to do their version of pragmatism right. 

As scientists and campaigners have tried to explain, if you accept climate risks are real - and they are - then any additional fossil fuel production needs to be accompanied by a credible plan to ensure it does not breach net zero goals and an obligation to fund the removal of the carbon it pumps into the atmosphere. It needs a watertight roadmap for fully phasing down fossil fuel production and turbocharging the roll out of the clean technologies that can bring the fossil fuel era to end and make net zero a reality. Labour keeps hymning its self-styled pragmatism, but is yet to provide such a roadmap.

Burnham deserves some sympathy. The imminent decisions on North Sea drilling, Heathrow expansion, and, arguably most consequentially of all, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate will inevitably split his loose coalition of voters and provoke an angry backlash whichever way he jumps. He is also tasked with holding the line against the prospect of the UK's first avowedly climate denialist and Trumpist government. Plenty of voices will advise that the safest course of action is to approve one last wave of carbon intensive projects and use his exceptional communication skills to sell it as a pragmatic and realistic approach that enables accelerated decarbonisation efforts in other parts of the economy. When the alternative is an opposition that thinks the best response to the current moment is to increase gas imports and invest in English vineyards, it might yet work.     

But true pragmatism demands that Burnham reckons with the reality of the escalating climate threat and properly acknowledges how extending fossil fuel reliance only exacerbates risks that increasingly border on the apocalyptic. At a bare minimum that requires a much bolder defence of net zero and a more credible strategy for meeting the goal that explains how a fossil fuel phase down will be delivered as quickly as possible. Better still, it should mean recognising the really pragmatic - and patriotic - thing to do is to stop approving new fossil fuel projects and throw everything behind the global effort to accelerate the clean energy transition and build the climate resilience that is sadly already essential.