A stable climate is a national asset worth protecting, not a partisan cause - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Julian Briggs, Sheffield.

The wildfires that destroyed homes in the Midlands, as Britain lives through its fifth heatwave of the summer, are a practical reminder that a stable climate is a national asset worth protecting, not a partisan cause.

Extreme heat threatens Yorkshire's farmland and flood defences just as surely as it threatens homes elsewhere.

It is on those grounds, practicality and energy security rather than ideology, that I question the Government's continued approval of new oil and gas licences, its backing for a third runway at Heathrow, and the public funding committed to reopening and expanding Doncaster Sheffield Airport.

None of these choices reduce Britain's exposure to volatile energy markets or extreme weather; if anything, they deepen it.

Yorkshire has a proud record of practical, business-minded solutions to hard problems. I would like to see that same approach applied here: sound stewardship of the countryside and a serious plan for energy security, rather than further commitments to fossil fuels whose long-term value looks increasingly doubtful.