The intervention by COP26 president Alok Sharma came as a poll of Tory rank-and-file members, who will have the final say out of the two finalists, gave a surprise double-digit lead to outsider Kemi Badenoch.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was second, narrowly ahead of former grassroots favourite Penny Mordaunt and ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak, according to the unscientific poll by the ConservativeHome website.
Badenoch, a former junior minister with no cabinet experience, is running on an “anti-woke”, right-wing platform and has said net zero amounts to “unilateral economic disarmament” by Britain.
“Green levies”, backed by Sunak to help pay for the legally enshrined aim of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, have also been questioned by Truss and Mordaunt as Britons struggle with a cost-of-living crisis.
But with Britain facing record-breaking temperatures this week, Sharma told Sunday’s Observer newspaper that the target was “absolutely a leadership issue”, as the candidates wage an acrimonious battle to succeed scandal-tainted Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“Anyone aspiring to lead our country needs to demonstrate that they take this issue incredibly seriously, that they’re willing to continue to lead and take up the mantle that Boris Johnson started off,” the minister said. Asked if he could resign if candidates showed weakness on net zero, Sharma said: “Let’s see, shall we? I think we need to see where the candidates are.
And we need to see who actually ends up in Number 10 (Downing Street Under Sharma’s chairmanship, nearly 200 countries pledged at a UN summit in Glasgow last November to speed up the fight against rising temperatures, after two weeks of marathon negotiations.
