 The climate emergency is upon us and time is running out fast. As a world's sixth largest economy what we do in Britain over the next decade is going to have enormous consequences. So Labour's new leader has to both win the next election and then push through a major transformation of our economic model in a single parliament. Now that's non-negotiable, it's not a matter of political tastes or policy preference, it's a question of survival. And because December's general election defeat cost us five precious years, the Green New Deal of 2024 will have to go much further, much faster than the one in the 2019 manifesto. That manifesto set a target of net zero carbon emissions in the 2030s or sooner if possible. This represented a watering down of a motion past a conference for a firm 2030 target which leadership candidate Rebecca Long Bailey has now adopted. Now when Keir Starmer, the current leadership front runner recently set out his 10 key policy pledges the aim was to reassure members that they could trust him with the future direction of the party. The Starmer's policy pledge on global warming has no target date for net zero at all and the Green New Deal without a target date for net zero is a worthless pledge. This is totally inadequate in terms of the existential threat that humanity now faces and Britain's responsibilities in this historic moment and sadly it forms part of a pattern. Here's another example. The 2019 manifesto pledged an immediate end to UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. This in the context of a five year long war in Yemen where Britain's played a crucial role keeping Saudi military jets in the sky as they repeatedly massacred civilians and imposed a blockade that's led to 85,000 infant children dying of starvation or preventable disease. Well in his 10 pledges Starmer drops the 2019 commitment to end that support saying simply that it should be reviewed. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Save the Children and Countless Others have been demanding for years to Britain's seasawing Saudi Arabia immediately in light of the carnage in Yemen but Starmer apparently hasn't made his mind up. Now Starmer's campaign has done well to draw attention to his past as a young campaigning lawyer but more recently as director of public prosecutions he played to the tabloid gallery and right-wing moral panics around benefit fraud and student protesters and as an MP he abstained on a notorious 2015 welfare reform bill and participated in the 2016 coup against the elected Labour leadership. This isn't a personal point about Kier Starmer, what's at issue here is a form of prevarication common to the Labour centre left which cringes from the big challenges and even from basic moral questions. And this kind of shifty evasive politics as we saw in the cases of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband isn't great at winning general elections either, doesn't inspire confidence and people see through it pretty quickly. But far more importantly the politics of prevarication are the exact opposite of what we need to combat the climate emergency as three decades of inaction has proved beyond doubt because fighting climate change is ultimately not a technical policy question but one of political will. There's an array of formidable vested interests that are determined to maintain the carbon economy until doomsday and the next Labour leader will have to take them on. That will mean a sustained battle on multiple fronts for higher taxes on big polluters, tighter regulation, market intervention and state action across the board in total defiance of the economic status quo. The public will benefit from that program but the powerful won't and Labour will have to take them on and anyone who after five years of bloodshed in Yemen still can't decide whether Britain should carry on helping the Saudi regime to commit mass murder is probably not up to that task. December's election defeat was a devastating chastening experience for all of us but while the feelings of grief will pass the climate emergency won't. The urge to turn to a safe option is perfectly understandable but in the face of that emergency centre left prevarication is not a safe option. It's a familiar recipe for failure now of potentially catastrophic consequences. Labour is the alternative party of government in the world's sixth largest economy. At a time when humanity only has a few short years left to save itself a huge responsibility now falls on the shoulders of Labour members. It's one they will need to be able to explain to people around the world bearing the brunt of the climate emergency right now and to their children and grandchildren not to mention the people of Yemen. The time for grieving has now passed and the time for hard choices has arrived. Keir Starmer apparently can't make them. The question is can you?