I’ve mentioned a few times in my Reporter column just how much I enjoy visiting local schools and talking with our amazing young people about the issues they care about. So I was delighted to be asked to join Longdendale High School this week for their Climate Change Summit. It was a really brilliant event. The theme was energy, and the room was certainly brimming with it.

Many young people say they don’t feel their voice is heard on climate issues, so Longdendale students and staff also extended the invitations to several primary schools. I spoke to them about what needs to be done and how it might happen, but also what are the more difficult issues we need to resolve to do it? I was hugely impressed by their questions and insights, and it was great that they got perspectives from Labour, the Conservatives and the Green Party about how our positions differ.

This are conversations I have daily in other contexts in my role as Shadow Business Secretary. Many British businesses are leading the way on doing things differently and reducing their carbon footprint, but for others it’s a challenge and perhaps an expense, and more support is needed.

Making brilliant job opportunities in greener pursuits is key to both tackling climate change and boosting our stagnating economy. Net zero is a massive economic opportunity for Britain, but we at the moment we are losing the global race. However, I firmly believe that those who say “the ship has sailed” are deeply wrong. We should match the ambition of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and we should stop moaning and get on with it.

The young people at the Longdendale summit told us the time to act is now, and they are not wrong. One way or another, this will be a decisive decade. We are at grave risk of breaking through 1.5 degrees of global warming within the next 10 years. The decisions we take now will dictate how high global temperatures rise, and shape the outlook for generations to come. We need to invest in gigafactories to support a green car manufacturing sector, and invest in green hydrogen and offshore wind to support a greener energy sector. Denmark shows us what is possible: it has less than a tenth of the UK’s population but many more jobs in its wind sector.

None of this need be at the expense our proud industrial heritage in areas like ours; in fact, only by getting in the race and going for it are we honouring our history as world leading makers and doers. And also honouring the wisdom of our fantastic young people, whose future is what its at stake.