Letters to the Editor: Inadequate action means we now need emergency measures

Political leaders need to prioritise biodiversity and climate issues.

We write as academics and citizens to advocate in the strongest possible terms for political leaders to prioritise responses to the climate and biodiversity emergency in the current general election campaign.

This emergency is unequivocally upon us, raising genuine existential risk for the stability of all human civilisation within the lifetime of young people already of voting age. It dwarfs “conventional” political issues: There can be no meaningful or enduring solutions to housing, healthcare, education, emigration, economic development, peace, or justice unless there is a successful response to the climate and biodiversity emergency.