Caroline Lucas, the co-leader of the Green Party has attacked michael gove, saying he is unfit to lead the UK on environmental issues. Lucas suggested that the Tory MP has little comprehension of the issues faced.
"This is not someone who has any understanding of the severity of climate change," she told Sky News.
"If he did, he wouldn't be doing things like putting a levy that was meant to be on fossil fuels instead on renewable energy."
Lucas claimed that Gove had blocked many important environmental legislations.
Saving the planet
Lucas focused on Gove's decision in 2015 to back a bill putting a 'climate change levy' on renewable electricity.
The vote was passed with a majority of 248 and supported by most Conservative MPs.
Gove replaced Andrea Leadsom in Theresa May's cabinet reshuffle. The Brexit backer was humiliated during the Conservative leadership race in 2016, when he lagged behind in the second round, defeated by Theresa May, the eventual winner. Gove said being appointed to the cabinet post was “a tremendous opportunity”.
He added that he wanted to make sure “we enhance one of our greatest assets - our countryside.”
A colleague who worked with him in the coalition government likened Gove's appointment to “putting the fox in charge of the hen house”.
Controversial past career
Gove has been involved in deeply unpopular decisions during his time in politics.
As education secretary in David Cameron's government, he cut the Building Schools for the Future programme. This would have been the biggest school building programme since the Victorian era.
According to Ed Davey, a former energy and climate change secretary, Gove had tried to remove climate change from the geography curriculum in 2013.
The plans were dropped when teachers and environmentalists pointed out that removing the topic of climate change would downgrade the issue, making it less important as a subject for debate.
"guided by the science..."
During a speech at Westminster in 2014, Gove said the government needed to take appropriate steps to deal with climate change "guided by the science and we need to make sure that we’re hard headed but realistic”.
One of the first jobs Gove will face is to shore up the Conservative government's air quality plans. The UK government is being sued by environmental lawyers for a third time over illegal air pollution from diesel. Nitrogen dioxide levels emitted largely by diesel vehicles, have been above legal limits in almost 90% of UK urban areas from 2010.
