Climate Changed

How Theresa May’s Vacation Revelation Convinced Her on Climate Change

Theresa May, U.K. prime minister, stops to speak to the media as she arrives for the European Union (EU) summit in Brussels on May 28, 2019. — Theresa May, U.K. prime minister, stops to speak to the media as she arrives for the European Union (EU) summit in Brussels on May 28, 2019.
Photographer: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg

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By Tim Ross

June 27, 2019 at 8:45 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

British Prime Minister Theresa May only has a few weeks left in her job -- she’s decided to spend them trying to tackle climate change. A new law took effect Thursday committing the U.K. to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” by 2050.

May said she was persuaded to act not by influential lobbyists or environmental campaigners, but by the hiking holidays she’s taken with her husband over the past decade.