It's the current extreme right Tory party. One would normally expect their Environment Minister to pretend the protests and environment don't exist. Any admission is remarkable - but useless. For action we need a change of government.
We've already had a select committee on climate that was unequivocal about what action and urgency was needed.
> This thing you call a 'rather extremist position' is a traditional position industrial societies have held
No, that really isn't true. The extremist position is continuing regardless in the face of overwhelming evidence. Not acting back in the 19th before there was any knowledge or evidence is not really comparable.
It was Thatcher and Reagan that did so much to get the agreement for world phase out of CFCs in 1987. A more unlikely pair to promote such regulation I can't imagine.
Thatcher was remarkably well informed in the earliest days of climate science. Also one of the first to call for global action on climate. So despite being of an anti-regulation mindset she was happy to promote and implement strong regulation to save our skins. From her speech to the UN in 1989:
"What we are now doing to the world … is new in the experience of the Earth. It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world's climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all.
"The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out. Those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not."
She lost interest, or time, for the environment later in her premiership as it became ever more inept on most issues, caught up with in-party fighting (often EU related), and stupid ideas like poll tax. Yet her early and mid term record on climate and pollution is better than any since.
> we shouldn't put the environment ahead of the poor until we've exhausted every other option.
The poor will be more severely affected by climate changes than anyone.