Credit – Finnbarr Webster/Getty

Our planet is burning. That’s the honest truth. And so, with some urgency, we need to ask who is holding the matches.

It isn’t ordinary people, simply trying to get by. It is the billionaires, the boardrooms and the broken system that allows the hoarding of extreme wealth at the expense of all else – including our planet.

The difference between Greens and Labour is that we know this to be true and act on it. Labour knows this to be true and then wines and dines those same vested interests for donations. Right now, billionaires and corporations are hoarding wealth and resources, polluting our planet and stoking division in our communities. While ordinary people are choosing between heating and eating, the super-rich are cashing in on crisis after crisis and getting richer and richer.

Last year alone, billionaires added £35m a day to their fortunes. That’s obscene. But it gets worse. Five fossil fuel giants, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total, made more than $100bn in profit between them. Meanwhile, families see their energy bills double, and millions are being pushed further into poverty.

This isn’t just an economic crisis, nor even just an environmental one, but also a moral one. And it sits at the heart of how we do politics in this country. The same greed that drives inequality is the same greed that’s torching our planet. And it is this same greed that is funding too much of politics.

Many of us feel we can no longer afford this inequality. That the super-rich need to be paying more. And, as the leader of the Green Party, I am here to say that the planet also can’t afford these levels of corporate greed any longer.

Labour says it wants to lead on climate, but it’s hard to take the party seriously when it’s terrified of upsetting the billionaires and fossil fuel barons who bankroll our destruction. Labour promised £28bn for climate action but walked away from that promise at the first hint of opposition. It waves through Rosebank regardless of the environmental impact and calls it “realism”. But realism means facing up to what’s really happening. That this system, as it stands, is incompatible with a liveable future.

You can’t solve a crisis with the same thinking that caused it. That means taking on the profiteers head on. Ahead of the upcoming Budget, we are calling for wealth to be taxed properly, for loopholes to be closed, and for that money to be used to insulate homes, invest in green jobs and rebuild public services from the ground up.

Britain needs a real opposition. At the moment, the only people speaking out against Labour’s middle management of decline are figures like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson who want you to believe the problem is migration, or people on climate marches.

It’s a lie designed to divide and distract us. The real threat isn’t people seeking asylum, it’s the billionaires and big oil donors funding Farage’s campaign to keep things exactly as they are. True patriotism isn’t about flags. It’s about fairness. About standing up for the people who actually make this country work, and protecting the only planet we have.

So, when we say it’s time to make the mega-rich pay their fair share, we say this not just because it’s economic justice, but because it’s a moral necessity. Because you can’t protect the planet while protecting the profits of those destroying it.

Ahead of the Budget, the Green Party will keep saying what others won’t: the time has come to make them pay. To fund an economy that serves everyone, not just the wealthy few. This is how we protect our planet and how we make hope normal again.

This article first appeared in Spotlight on Energy and Climate Change, November 2025

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