That this House takes note of the role of behaviour change in helping the United Kingdom to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, as set out in the report by the Climate Change Committee Reducing emissions: 2021 Progress Report to Parliament, published on 26 June; and of the case for a public engagement strategy to facilitate this.
My Lords, I applaud the Government’s commitment to net-zero carbon by 2050 and appreciate that they are working to try to achieve a successful outcome to COP 26 in November. However, I am not confident that they have done enough yet to engage the public in order to facilitate the behaviour change necessary to reduce emissions. I want to set out the case for doing so, following the valuable report to Parliament of the Climate Change Committee at the end of June.
I begin by briefly summarising what the CCC said. It argued that 62% of measures needed to reach net zero required changes to public behaviour. However, there is currently no centrally led strategy. Although there is high public support for action on climate change, research suggests that there is a lack of understanding about the actions that need to be taken and the urgency required. I understand that the Government’s net-zero strategy is to be published imminently to precede COP 26. My first question to the Minister is whether it will definitely include a public engagement strategy, and, if so, whether it will be genuinely cross-departmental. People will need to change their lives in relation to transport, heating their homes, diet and more general problems of consumption.
There also needs to be a higher level of public understanding and involvement in shaping decision-making, without which success in reaching net zero is unlikely. There is, of course, a role for employers, and business in particular, as well as for local government, the print—and especially the broadcast—media, and the education system. However, the Government need to take the lead. They must also take on those who irresponsibly are purveying false information and scare stories about the negative impact of climate change measures on people’s lives.
It is often helpful to learn from what other countries are doing. For example, can the Minister tell the House whether the Government have assessed work on climate change assemblies undertaken in Scotland, as well as France and Denmark, which have involved their citizens in climate policy-making. What other international initiatives can he tell us about that we might draw on? Clearly the fight against global warming is international and no country is exempt from the challenges it poses.
Concern about climate change is higher in the UK than in many other countries, with 80% of the population recording such concern. However, at the same time, when asked about net zero in March this year in a BEIS survey, only 14% indicated that they knew a lot or a fair amount about it. It is worrying, too, that only 51% of the UK public think that climate change is either entirely or mainly caused by human activity. Moreover, they tend to pass the buck and seem to think that responsibility belongs to others rather than themselves.
Only 26% of those asked had made any change in their behaviour. Even when people want to act, there are worrying misconceptions about the most effective ways to do so. While around 50% of those surveyed were aware that saving on energy consumption at home was a step that they can take, far fewer were aware of the value of eating less meat and fewer dairy products—15% and 6%, respectively—nor of the size of the impact that this could have. Changing our diets is urgent in order to free up land to sequester carbon.
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness for bringing this topic to the Chamber this afternoon and for her excellent speech.
Up to now, most of the adaptations and changes required to reduce carbon emissions have been done to us, or for us, by the Government or have been as a result of business decisions. For example, all the changes in the means of production for energy have been done for us. We have hardly been aware of those changes—unless, of course, like me, noble Lords have solar panels on their roof. Only now are we starting to get to the more difficult bits, such as starting to change how we heat our homes.
There are exceptions. For example, we have adapted to paying for plastic bags; as a result, we use far fewer of them. Most of us could talk at length about local recycling schemes, the differences between them and the benefits of some of them. However, the lessons of those two examples are that it takes a long time to bed in change in our behaviour. We face a climate emergency. The big question is: is 2050 early enough for net zero? There is real doubt about that. The answer? Probably not. The longer it takes to start, the more radical the changes must be.
In the time I have, I will concentrate on transport because it is the single biggest sector for CO2 emissions. It is also the only sector where, in recent decades, emissions have not fallen despite technological improvements. Earlier this summer, the Government produced a welcome transport decarbonisation plan. Unfortunately, it started with a complete fallacy. It said that we can carry on doing everything we currently do and that technology will make the changes we need to reach net zero. This argument was even applied to aviation.
The problem with transport is that we all want to travel more, not less. The pandemic has given us pause for thought and demonstrated that a lot of our travel can be avoided. During the pandemic, there was a lot of talk about finding new, healthy and environmentally friendly ways in which to live and work. Now that the Government think the pandemic is over, their rhetoric has immediately pressed us to get back to the office despite the fact that we have demonstrated that we can do a great deal of work without being in the office. Fortunately, many employers and employees are resisting this, but trains, the Tube and buses are crowded again and our roads are very congested, with traffic volumes up to and beyond pre-pandemic levels because people are now reluctant to use public transport. We were beginning to see the switch to public transport, but that has regressed.
My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on the extreme timeliness of her Motion, amid the final preparations of the build-up to COP 26 in November. I declare my related interests in energy issues, as set out in the register.
Currently, I see two major public behavioural barriers to addressing successfully the dangers of climate change and extremism. One—noble Lords can read about it in this morning’s papers—is exemplified by Extinction Rebellion and its associates. Frankly, they have done untold damage to the climate cause here, hurting a lot of people quite unnecessarily along the way.
The second, more serious, barrier, or problem, is the ocean of wishful thinking that still surrounds the preparations for COP 26 and the UK’s own net-zero goal, as well as the priorities being urged by the Climate Change Committee. Our net-zero goal, if it can be achieved, will of course have no direct impact on rising world emissions; we are brave but too small for that. That is just a statistical fact. Furthermore, the “zero” applies only to the production of carbon and not to the swathes of carbon embedded in the CO2 we import and consume instead of generating it here, as authorities such as the excellent Professor Dieter Helm constantly remind us.
The theory, I know, is that, by going all out for UK net zero, which might be attainable in the UK at considerable cost and hardship, we will set an example, offer a model for others and gain moral standing. The fact is rather different. The fact is that global emissions are all set to resume a rapid rise anyway after the year’s pause of the pandemic because, for most of the major emitting nations and regions, while they may note—even admire—our efforts, development and the escape for millions from poverty are the absolute priorities. For China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Brazil, to name but a few, these are goals from which they deviate at their peril. Of course, that is why we can see that some of these countries have rejected the COP 26 wording for an end to coal generation.
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on securing this debate on such a vital topic and setting out the issues so comprehensively. It is increasingly recognised that the equation of human advancement with economic growth has been catastrophic in fuelling the climate crisis, and that tackling this crisis will require not just technological and scientific innovations, but considerable shifts in the way we behave. We must all consider the implications of our choices and actions on societies beyond our shores and lifetimes and put ourselves in the shoes of future generations when choosing how we act in the here and now.
Encouraging and maintaining these changes in behaviour will require much more than just a laying-out of the logic. Sustained behaviour change will involve calls on our imagination, compassion, creativity and ability to empathise. If ever there was a time to “only connect”, it must be now and on this issue. We will need to combine the prose and the passion, the heads and the hearts, if we are to achieve the change we need at the speed required.
The obvious place to start is with education, and yet the presence of climate change in primary and secondary school curricula is, at best, limited. Where it exists, teaching generally takes place within natural sciences, explaining the devastating impact of human activity and the potential consequences of rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and increasing sea levels. Yet climate change cannot be seen in isolation from the social, political, cultural and economic, all of which are absent from climate education. This is problematic, not least because this broader agenda would offer routes for young people to study potential solutions, rather than to focus on the catastrophic.
Research has found that this focus on fear and disaster can lead to a growing sense of hopelessness and panic in young people, with a poll last year by the Royal College of Psychiatrists revealing that 57% of child and adolescent psychiatrists have seen patients who are distressed about the climate crisis and the environment. While these responses are normal, to some degree, a balance needs to be struck in which education about the consequences of climate change is matched with a focus on solutions, empowering children to respond positively and with hope.
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The Lord Bishop of Blackburn
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, for the opportunity of this debate. I have just finished reading a book about wilding in the UK, and it is a classic story of how difficult it is to change a culture, attitudes and expectations from deeply embedded practices and convictions, in this case about how we manage our land—which was appropriate, with the Environment Bill this week. The same difficulty applies in this debate, which is less about government policy and more about how we, as citizens, choose to live.
My main point, in discussing the role behaviour change can play in helping us towards net-zero carbon emissions, is this: it is essential that our expectations are aspirational, but also realistic. They need to apply to all people. It is my fear that the poorest 10% will be left not just behind, but feeling that they are part of the problem, when they would rather be part of the solution.
So far, the behaviour changes we wish to see have been inaccessible to many on low incomes, simply because they cost much more. I believe cars that are powered without petrol or diesel are the future, and I hope to see a mix of financial incentives and legislation to encourage their uptake and so change our choices, but they remain considerably more expensive in outlay and then do not hold their value. A petrol car is cheaper and easier to sell on and, if I live in accommodation without a driveway, is considerably easier to fill with the required fuel. So it is for other goods, such as locally grown organic food, which remains more expensive than highly processed food grown out of season abroad. Similarly, I have complete sympathy with any working single parent who decides to shop for the cheapest school shirts money can buy, instead of those made of fair-trade cotton. Food, clothing, travel—all these remain prohibitively expensive for some. When we seek to change the behaviour of the whole population, we must consider how we might incentivise with price reductions or even subsidise these things to make them accessible to all.
Also, the industries that employ people on lower incomes must be those we seek to incentivise, and possibly most strongly penalise when they fail to make the necessary changes. Manufacturing, food production, aspects of the gig economy: these are all sectors that will have to put their greenhouses in order or presumably risk facing sanctions designed to force a change in behaviour. Wages could be pushed down and jobs could even be lost to pay for the necessary changes in production and carbon offsetting, and the burden will be borne by those at the bottom of the pay scale.
Finally, it feels that every time I am here I bring up the same matter. I follow the focus of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which is that public transport in the north of the country remains inadequate, particularly between the big cities and most especially for those on low incomes who need it most. It is essential for the change of behaviour we seek, and for the sake of the climate, that funding per head on transport infra- structure is, to use Her Majesty’s Government’s phrase, levelled up.
My Lords, it is a genuine pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I commend him for reminding us how important it is to consider first those at the bottom of the pay scale; I thank him for that.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Blackstone and thank her for instituting and introducing this important debate on the role of behaviour change and the case for a public engagement strategy in helping us to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. She made an excellent and comprehensive speech, which has already been commended. I hope the Minister will respond positively to it, as she asked him to do.
I thank all the organisations that have circulated briefing papers to speakers and more broadly. They are all of value and, like the excellent Library and Peers for the Planet briefings, have increased my knowledge and contributed to our debate even before a word had been spoken in the Chamber. On that point, let me take just a few seconds to repeat a suggestion that I have made twice before in the context of debates in your Lordship’s House.
I cannot do justice to any of the briefings—I have no intention of going through the many proposals they suggest; we can all read them for ourselves—but they contain many good points and, as the focus of this debate is on public engagement, I ask again: can we not open a web-based portal for every debate, or at least some, which would allow people who wish to engage with us to post their briefings in real time and have them preserved with the official record of the debate, and would expand the debate out into society? It would create a much more inclusive context for our work and allow us a significant amount of outreach too, given that we are constantly seeking ways to make our deliberations more relevant to a wider audience.
According to the CCC report, three-fifths of the measures required to get to net-zero emissions will require at least some degree of behavioural and social change. However, as Lorraine Whitmarsh, professor of environmental psychology at the University of Bath, commented:
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on this debate; I wish we could have this sort of debate every day. It is absolutely true, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, said, that our young people are terrified. We need to talk solutions. I try to offer solutions in this Chamber, but I am afraid that the Government simply do not understand the urgency. This is an emergency and a crisis, and the Government are not stepping up. For all their fine words, they do not measure up to the task.
Most of us here in this Chamber will die of old age; that is what I suspect we would all like. By contrast, many of the young people at school today will die from the consequences of climate change: flash floods, droughts, and conflicts brought about by shifting climatic conditions. It is going to be an unstable world—more than it is already.
I will deal with only one aspect of this crisis: sea level rises and their impacts. To some extent, of course, every single person has to do something—behaviour change has to be universal—but I am afraid that the Government have to take the lead on this. The Government can make it easy for people, and at the moment they mostly are not.
In 2007 the IPCC had a worst-case scenario of a 0.5-metre sea level rise in the next 100 years. It was a fairly reassuring analysis that did not include any figures from melting glaciers and ice sheets, because that was not going to happen in anyone’s lifetime. The evidence started to say otherwise, and has rapidly changed with each new report from a satellite or Arctic monitoring station. Every IPCC assessment in the last 14 years has shifted the worst-case scenario much closer to us. The most recent assessment has shifted everything upwards again, but the really terrifying bit is that, due to the IPCC’s rigorous process of analysis, consensus building and governmental oversight, those conclusions are already likely to be out of date.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and I totally agree with her that we must have a sense of urgency in taking action now. I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, for introducing this debate and bringing it to us. It is so important, and I was very impressed with the way she introduced it.
It is self-evident that we will all have to start doing things differently if we are to stand any chance of keeping warming within the aspirant 1.5 degree target agreed at Paris. The Climate Change Committee’s report to Parliament in June this year said that profound changes in behaviour and high-impact action from consumers, workers, households, businesses and citizens are needed to reach the target. However, there is one other crucial sector that has to step up to the plate and change its behaviour if we are to have any success whatever in asking others to change theirs. I am speaking, of course, of Governments.
My remarks will concentrate on the importance of the Government leading by example. Time and again, they have demonstrated that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. All too often, they seem to be engaged in a tug of war. Government departments are pulling in opposite directions. They seem to be acting in a contradictory manner and sending mixed signals to all the other sectors.
Let me take policy on fossil fuels as a glaring example. In its sixth assessment report, published last month, the IPCC makes it crystal clear that fossil fuels must stay in the ground if we are to stay within the 1.5 degree warming limit. The International Energy Agency states in its report Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector that the necessary wide-scale transformation of the sector dictates that reliance on fossil fuels must cease almost completely by 2050.
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A recent report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change reinforced the importance of focusing on a relatively limited number of changes in behaviour that have the most impact. One of the three measures that it cited was eating less meat. The others were reducing our car travel and our flying. A common misunderstanding, not just in the UK but many other counties, is that recycling is very effective. Though there are of course good reasons why we should recycle, it comes some way down the list for reaching net zero.
If far too few of our citizens are well informed about the actions needed to counter climate change, what must the Government do? Above all, they must engage the population, including those who are hard to reach. They should find ways to bring people together to discuss the challenge that we face and how to address it. One small example, close to home, is the citizens’ assembly that was run last year by six House of Commons Select Committees. It showed that, when problems and solution are discussed with members of the public, for the most part they support making changes.
Starting with pupils at school, only this week research on young people’s attitudes showed how concerned they are about climate change and how anxious they are about the survival of the planet. Three-quarters said that they are frightened about their survival and their future. It is noteworthy that 80% of those participating in the parliamentary assembly that I just mentioned thought that climate should be a compulsory subject in all schools. Can the Minister tell us what the current position is on the national curriculum regarding coverage of climate?
We must build on the positive mindset of young people, giving them the tools to take the action needed to stop further rises in temperature. Little progress can be made unless teachers feel confident about their own competence and knowledge in this area. There is evidence that many of them want more training. In a survey this year of 7,500 teachers, 70% said that they had received none. Knowledge alone is not enough. They must learn about best practice in learning approaches and how to convey to young people a sense of their own potential to be part of the solutions, as well as how to be ambitious and resilient in responding to the challenges. What resources are being put into initial and in-service training to help teachers rise to this task?
The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill is an excellent opportunity to address behaviour change among college students. The same issues apply to them as to their parents, such as the forms of transport that they use in their daily travel, where there are choices available to them. In addition, there is a need for FE to provide courses that will create the skills needed in a green economy and to make their students aware of the job opportunities available to them if they acquire these skills. More attention must also be given to phasing out qualifications that make no contribution to the net- zero economy. Just as schoolteachers need improvements in their preparation for curriculum initiatives on climate issues, so too do college lecturers, especially in specific areas such as decarbonising heat in homes. Please can we have a skills strategy from the Government to power the transition to green technologies?
The work needed to put in place targeted public engagement costs money, especially to reach those groups who feel socially and economically excluded, who do not typically take part in discussions about public policy and indeed are rarely invited to do so. Back in June, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, asked the Minister about spending and when figures would be released. The reply was, “in due course”. Has due course been reached, and can the Minister tell the House what the budget is for public engagement? It is all very well accepting the Government’s words that
“Public engagement can help build awareness, acceptability, and uptake of sustainable technologies … over the long term and can also help improve the effectiveness of policies”,
but they must will the means to do this as well as aspiring to it. Would it be too much to ask the Government to create a national debate on the contribution that each and every one of us can make to countering climate change and reaching net zero? In every city, town and village, invitations might go out to join community discussions around a short paper setting out what the options are.
I hope that the Minister will respond positively and be willing to set in motion an approach of this kind, which might be announced at COP 26 in November. At the last global conference, the Paris Agreement stipulated that measures should be taken
“to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information”.
Having done far too little since then, we now have the opportunity to take the lead at COP and, in doing so, particular emphasis should be placed on public participation. This can be done in the context of the UN’s action for climate empowerment, which commits all nations to engaging their citizens on climate change. At present, Governments are not measured on their commitments and there is a lack of infrastructure and no monitoring or reporting process, according to the charity Climate Outreach. If the Government could take the lead by announcing a comprehensive and radical approach, and in doing so get public engagement with climate change much higher on the international agenda, that would be a triumph. Let us try to be a world leader in this area.
Within the UK, we must evaluate and monitor our progress in getting the public participation that the Climate Change Committee espouse. Can the Minister say what the Government propose to do in this respect? It is vital to understand the barriers that may emerge, to know what forms of communication work best, who the best people to promote public dialogue are and how to get people debating together about what they as individuals can do, avoiding the feeling that they are being talked at or just bombarded with information.
My last point is the value of trust. Increasingly, there is an absence of trust in Government and a denigration of politicians. There is a need to build trust in the messages that are sent. To do so, the messengers must be perceived to have integrity and must demonstrate that they themselves are committed to individual action on climate change. The upside of any debate on tackling climate change is that it is not largely about party politics. We can and should put political differences aside and unite to meet the expectations and hopes of young people, to save the planet and to engage the hearts and minds of our citizens in doing so. I beg to move.
There is a saying: “Never waste a crisis.” The danger is that the Government will waste this one by not seizing the moment and not capitalising on the pause that the pandemic created. There is every reason to review, for example, business travel because Zoom can do much of it without the same waste of time or CO2. There are major opportunities for change, but we are also at a dangerous point because we are no longer bound to the EU where the rules have set world standards for so long. We must not allow ourselves to slide back from that.
Specifically, there is the problem of time lag. Vehicles manufactured today will still be on our roads in 20 years’ time. The time lag is even greater for buses, planes and ships. The Government need to influence what we buy and use now. We are buying enormous modern SUVs. The Government also need to influence how we drive them. We need information so that we understand all the implications of our behaviour. All social revolution needs this; it needed it for drink-driving, seatbelt-wearing and smoking. We must have government information backed up with regulations to give us a nudge. We need taxation to encourage us not to buy SUVs, to ensure that aviation tax is reformed and to discourage frequent flyers. We need regulation change; for example, to encourage us to drive more slowly.
We face an emergency, and emergencies require urgency. The rain is falling on the ice caps now. Belgium as well as Bangladesh face people dying in flash floods. It is not enough to plan for tomorrow. The Government need to plan for today, utilise the expertise of our universities, our scientists and throughout the Civil Service, and ensure that we have an effective public debate.
As a consequence—this must be faced as a reality—world demand for oil, gas and coal will inevitably continue to grow in the years ahead, thanks mainly to the Asian and African utilities. For the advanced economies, the best path to curbing soaring emissions of carbon and of methane, which is an even worse greenhouse gas, lies in a different direction to the one we are currently being enjoined to pursue in this country.
The Climate Change Committee asserts that, for us, net zero is compatible with our climate interests and targets. That is definitely not so under present policies. As the emissions figures clock up—as they will—going flatly in the opposite direction of the Paris goals, which require not just levelling but falling numbers, there will be considerable frustration and anger. Talk of betrayal will come not only from the likes of Greta Thunberg.
Legally binding reduction targets, extracted with huge effort by COP 26, will be washed aside by reality, simply because Governments in the big emitting countries, although they may have serious carbon-reduction targets, have no choice but to press ahead with power supply expansion by the quickest and, in many areas, the cheapest available means, including by using the sunk capital in their present energy systems. If we can offer a useful model to assist them in escaping this trap and decarbonising their entire energy grids, it must be built around a massive technology input, showing how all the smoking chimneys of Asian and African electric power, and all the coal stations, current or planned, could be retrofitted or capped with carbon capture swiftly and affordably, allowing an expanding flow of plentiful cheap energy to continue. This is the essential ingredient of sustainable growth.
I note, finally, that many of our own green voices are actively against carbon capture from burning oil, coal and gas, just as they are actively against the search for cheaper nuclear power. That eliminates two of the main means of checking global emissions growth. This is not progress; it is going backwards towards certain failure. Demand for fossil fuels worldwide will grow further before it falls.
If we are truly serious about averting climate catastrophe, we should be looking in other directions. Time does not allow me to expand on those: they are available, possible and should be tackled honestly. The COP 26 planners should be looking at these areas, instead of trying to pull together the shaky bandwagon of net-zero commitments, which will not—indeed cannot—materialise without fundamental changes in our policy direction and in the whole of Asia. Nothing short of that will do. Perhaps it is time to be honest, change direction and thereby remove a big barrier of misunderstanding and misdirection for genuinely lasting success for the forthcoming COP 26 conference in Glasgow and our national contribution to the climate struggle ahead.
Julia Bentz, from the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes at the University of Lisbon, suggests that this is where the arts and humanities can play a critical role. Arts-based learning about climate offers space for experimentation, perspective taking and the co-creation of imaginative solutions. It can help to transform emotions away from fear and towards hope, responsibility, care and solidarity. Evidence shows that this kind of arts-based engagement, from an early age, has a greater chance of leading to pro-environmental behaviours and attitudes. Despite this potential, climate change is rarely integrated into the curricula of arts subjects.
This disconnect between arts and science extends beyond education into the ways we think about research and innovation, with a persistent dominant view that science alone will deliver solutions to our most pressing challenges. The current HMRC definition of research and development reflects this view; it specifically excludes the arts, humanities and social sciences, and therefore excludes them from associated tax relief too. This misses the important opportunity for scientific and technical advances to be informed by insights into human behaviour, social norms and culturally appropriate communication, which reduces the likelihood of new technologies being adopted at the rate or scale required.
The AHRC’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, backed by a wide range of sector bodies, has called on the Government to amend their definition of R&D to drop this explicit exclusion. Can the Minister say, in winding up, how the Government will respond to this call following their consultation on R&D tax credit schemes? Acknowledging that the definition of science includes the systematic study not just of the nature and behaviour of the physical and material universe, but of humankind, culture and society would be a valuable step towards the integration of technological and behavioural advances that will be vital, if the UK is to reach its target of net zero by 2050.
One should not be surprised to find out that spending on transport infrastructure is higher in London than in any other part of the country, but that spending per head is so considerably higher in the capital than in the north of the country is less easy to comprehend. Indeed, I recently read that it is twice as much per head than in the north-west and more than three times as much as in Yorkshire and the Humber. How can people be expected to change their behaviour and choices if the opportunity is not given them to do so? Without proper and fair investment in greener ways to travel, reliance on road travel will only increase, especially after the pandemic, which still impacts the numbers who use our trains, trams and buses.
In summary, the blend of incentives and penalties I have heard suggested will be essential in helping us all change our behaviour, which is incredibly important and very possible as we seek to reach net-zero carbon emissions. However, we must do it in a way and a manner that does not leave any constituency behind. Lack of financial means should not prevent some sharing the journey to net zero. I mentioned the book I read just recently, in which the quote is given: you can’t be green if you’re in the red.
“But this only factors in changes in consumer behaviour, such as switching from petrol to electric cars, or gas boilers to heat pumps.”
The list is endless; it has already been covered substantially in contributions. She continued:
“This is a very narrow definition of behavioural and social change. People are not only consumers—they are citizens, parents, members of communities, employees, employers and political actors.”
I add to that that people are company directors, politicians and Ministers. One view is that the truth may be that all the measures required to get to net zero depend on behavioural change by people.
As I have already said, I cannot do justice to any or all of the briefings I received, but for the rest of what I am going to say I will concentrate on the issue of trust, because that is about our behaviour—not just that of Ministers but of parliamentarians. I was struck by the last bullet point in the Climate Outreach briefing I received, which says:
“The public takes strong cues from government action so policies and government spokespeople”—
I would add parliamentarians—
“need to be seen as being in tune with the action being asked of individuals.”
The heading that it gives is that the Government needs to be in step.
Regrettably, at a micro level the Government, and probably many of us, have recently had problems in this area. The sight of a Cabinet—at which there were at least 27 senior members of the Government sitting close together around a table without face masks—agreeing that a key message to deliver to the people is to wear a mask in crowded settings was not helpful, nor is the regular drumbeat we have of Ministers and others being embarrassed by being asked simple questions such as, “What sort of car do you drive?” This is really important, and all of it is very good fun at this level, but at the macro level there is an important issue. If people are to be persuaded to change their personal behaviours, Governments, leaders and we must inspire confidence that we are tackling the larger and more difficult challenges—and we are comprehensively failing to do that. We regularly say that the Government’s primary responsibility is their duty to protect citizens. We have to be really careful that asking individual citizens to bear the burden of a substantial share of global warming does not reverse that relationship, moving responsibility from the protectors to those who should be protected. Part of the public engagement strategy must be empowering citizens to hold their Governments to account for their responsibilities, first and foremost.
A relatively recent report from the Carbon Disclosure Project—now known as the CDP—found that just 100 companies were responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988 and that a mere 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global emissions. Mostly these are fossil fuel companies, and China is responsible for a disproportionately large share of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its coal production and consumption. A few countries and companies are responsible for so much of global greenhouse gas emissions that our first response should be, at business and government level, to ensure that people take responsibility for curbing industrial emissions. That should be our priority.
This is not to say that individuals cannot do things. They can, of course: we have heard about them and there are lists of them. Every contribution helps, but we must be careful not to get to the point where these failings are considered morally blameworthy. In particular, individuals living in poor countries who have contributed almost nothing to climate change deserve the most support and the least guilt.
I repeat that the most effective change in behaviour will be to empower citizens to hold those who are responsible for climate change accountable for their actions. That is why a successful COP 26 is so crucial. Unfortunately, I am not very confident that it will deliver.
Any debate we have in this place or the other place needs a new starting point. In the last year, a large section of the scientific community has realised that the models were wrong and that we have lost the 70- to 90-year buffer we thought we had to turn these things around. Things that were not meant to happen until 2100 are happening now. The poles are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, as receding sea ice reduces the ability to reflect heat back upwards and melting permafrost releases methane that creates a warming cloud of local gases. The decline of the Greenland ice sheet is inevitable. That alone would lead to an estimated 7-metre rise in sea level. To put that into perspective, this House is 6 metres above sea level, so much of London will face regular flooding unless multi-billion-pound mitigation works are undertaken. Even then, it will not stop the flash floods.
When we discuss behavioural change, we are talking about more than switching off the lights when you leave an empty room, not leaving your TV on standby or even buying an electric car. As for all these technological advancements that are going to save our planet, they are not here yet. We cannot rely on something that could be five or 10 years in the future. We absolutely have to deal with what we have now.
We need wholesale change, which requires government to make the choices easy and more obvious for people. For example, the cost of travel by car has declined by 16% since 1997, but the cost of coaches and buses has gone up by a third. Why has the cost of domestic flights gone down by 16% but the cost of a train risen by a quarter? That is the Government sending signals in the wrong direction. When the Government finally put a charge on plastic bags, the result was a huge public switch. They have refused to put a deposit charge on plastic bottles or plastic-lined coffee cups, so the results have been completely different.
Plastic has been the one big growth area of the oil industry, and it nearly all goes in the waste-bin. The oil companies make money out of making it and the waste companies make money out of burning it. The consumers end up paying the long-term cost for something they did not ask for. We need the Government to make the alternatives cheaper and easier to use.
None of this can wait until 2050; we have lost that chance. The fundamental changes to our lifestyle have to be made now. Our biggest challenge is not stopping the Greenland ice sheet melting—that chance has gone—but stopping the massive glaciers of Antarctica slipping into the sea. If that happens, no walls will be high enough.
When our current Prime Minister was Mayor of London, in the first few weeks of his term I wrote him out three simple rules of sustainability, which I will list now in the hope that your Lordships can use them in future. I stood over him and made him read them, and kept them simple so that he could read them quickly. The first was that every single person has to do something. It is not enough to say that we will all do our personal bit; the Government have to do something as well. The second was that you have to make sure that there are no unintended consequences of something you do now; for example, that green airline fuel does not mean we cannot grow food in a certain area. The other thing is that there is no one answer. People always look for a big solution, but it is too big and too complex. Al Gore said there is no silver bullet, only silver buckshot.
The IPCC and the IEA are agencies whose reports are underpinned by rigorous scientific evidence, yet the Government appear to be in hock to the fossil fuel lobby. How else does one explain their willingness to toy with giving the go-ahead to the new Cumbrian coal mine and the expansion of the Cambo oilfield to the west of the Shetlands? How else does one explain the report in the Guardian six days ago that:
“Ministers, including the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, held only seven private meetings with renewable energy generators between July 2019 and March 2020 compared with 63 with fossil fuel producers”,
among them controversial biomass interests? When will the Government make it clear that the era of fossil fuels is over in the UK? When will we finally draw a line under the anachronistic MER policy, which says that the UK Government must maximise economic recovery of oil and gas in the North Sea?
Surely tidying up our policy on the extraction of fossil fuels will send a message to countries such as China and India that we mean what we say about being a world leader on climate action. What a fillip it would give to COP 26, which is just a few weeks away, if we were to signal our intent to phase out fossil fuels. The industrial economy based on fossil fuels started here. Let us end it here too.
I am going to give other examples of where behaviour change on the part of the Government is necessary, and where questionable policy changes that they have made ought to be reversed. Why is it that sectors that pollute receive far greater subsidies than sectors that do not pollute as much—for example, road tax and fuel duty freezes versus train and bus fare increases; subsidies that airlines receive on fuel versus train fares; and keeping gas prices low at the expense of cleaner electricity?
Subsidy reform would be a great tool, as a carrot and a stick, to push forward behaviour change. Businesses and consumers will change their behaviour when they see that the Government are also getting their house in order. Indeed, government actions signalling policy certainty are a prerequisite for business to change.
My noble friend Lady Randerson also impressed on us the importance of tackling transport emissions, and I shall end with a few words about a simple, proven, popular and cheap measure that the Government could take which would signal their willingness to encourage the behaviour change needed to get more people out of their cars and walking or cycling instead. Introducing 20 mph speed limits on roads where people live and work has been shown to do just that. Introducing such a limit in one fell swoop would reduce the number of vehicles on our roads, reduce fine particulate matter from brake and tyre wear, reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured and reduce demand on the national grid. Surely this is a measure that is a compelling candidate for encouraging people to embrace behaviour change.