As Greta Thunberg said recently, “The political will to solve the climate crisis is nowhere to be seen”. With this in mind, the Bylines Network continued their Debates for Progress series this week, by hosting a cross-party discussion on what climate actions the next UK government would need to prioritise on day one of governing in order to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement to cut emissions by 68% by 2030.
A congenial consensus (especially between rival political parties) was immediately evident as each of the highly accomplished speakers agreed on the core point that the UK had to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Moreover, apparent agreement emerged that an enthusiastic and positive approach to better alternatives would be absolutely necessary. Hope is a much more powerful motivator than fear – and a key observation was that the people should be at the heart of each of the proposals, especially given the majority of the British public support net zero policies.
The four priorities at the beating heart of the matter were addressed with zeal and depth by each of the panelists: housing and insulation, green finance, transport, and energy. The full debate video can be viewed at the bottom of this article.
Housing and insulation
Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, opened the debate by putting forward a strongly articulated plea for a focus on housing and insulation, arguing that:
“A nationwide home insulation programme would not only reduce carbon emissions, but give everyone warmer, more comfortable homes.”
Denyer convincingly argued that the main barrier in tackling climate change was political will and not in technological approaches. She logically described how a nationwide home insulation programme with a deep retrofitting of housing stock would ensure that the UK no longer had some of the least energy-efficient homes in Western Europe.
Denyer explained that decarbonising housing stock was a vital priority in reducing emissions and methodically outlined that a permanent carbon tax, with no convenient loopholes, would finance this proposed action for the next government. She acknowledged that more incentives need to be offered to privately rented properties to induce landlords to make the necessary changes. Positive inducements across the board may be a powerful factor in energising political will.
Green finance
Ryan Jude, programme director at the Green Finance Institute, Labour Party councillor for Lancaster Gate, and deputy cabinet member – climate action and biodiversity – at Westminster City Council, then made a convincing and principled case for green finance. He simplified his argument into three main strands: public finance, regulation and tracking, commenting that “Finance is the thread to meet all the other outcomes”.
Jude made the case that annual long-term capital commitment would be essential and argued that the Labour Party Green Prosperity Plan pledge would commit £28bn per annum of public capital spending.
“The priority of the next government must be to ensure we mobilise enough green finance to meet our climate goals – through proper regulation of the private sector, ambitious, targeted public spending, and fiscal incentives. Finance underpins every climate ambition we have: decarbonisation of our housing stock, building our electric vehicle supply chain, nature restoration, net zero and a resilient grid, and much more.
“The next government can solve this through ambitious public capital spending, such as Labour’s £28bn p/a Green Prosperity Plan pledge, alongside regulations such as the green taxonomy and tracking green financial flows.”
He was challenged by Carla Denyer as to whether the annual amount of roughly £30bn would be enough, but countered by saying that there would be opportunities for course corrections if required.
Jude maintained that tracking climate funding accurately would ensure that the next government could course correct quickly if necessary and that this would hold the public and private sector to account through a transparent process. He insisted that at present, under the current government, there was “never adequate funding or regulation to back up climate rhetoric”.
Jude concluded his case that local authorities would play a key role in implementing climate finance, proposing to change the ineffective and wasteful competition-based model the Conservatives have imposed, his summation emphasising the simple unarguable reality that “the consequences of not having the finance would mean that we don’t reach net zero”.
Transport and private car ownership
Leo Murray, co-founder and director of innovation and engagement at Possible, opened his case by insisting that a mass public transition from fossil-fuel-based transport would form his proposal for priority government action.
“One-third of the UK’s carbon emissions come from transport. Transport emissions are almost no lower today than they were in 1990.
Each individual private car on the road represents convenience for its owner – but disaster for the communities it is used in and for the national interest as a whole.”
Murray bolstered his argument by explaining that traffic reduction targets had to be rigorous to ensure emission pledges could be met and suggested that they needed to halve over the next seven years. He argued that a car-centric approach has been a deliberate policy for successive governments and hence “There is a powerful aversion from governments to act, when they have placed private cars at the centre of transport demand”.
Murray was conscious that there was a central paradox in that, when questioned, the public agrees that there is “too much traffic”, but that they can view transition methods to more sustainable transport modes as being an attack on their freedom. He acknowledged that a government which had just come to power was not likely to begin with what is perceived as being an unpopular and negative policy.
Murray drew a fascinating counterpoint by suggesting this could be sidestepped by mapping traffic-reducing actions (particularly in urban areas) to the electoral cycle using the Goodwin curve which indicates that unpopular actions slip out of memory and are actually welcomed at a later stage as they grow in popularity over time. He maintained that a transport transition had to happen if we are to match climate targets and therefore “tearing the plaster off” may be an effective early approach. Long-term thinking, but short-term action, was needed to avoid transport emissions getting away from us.
Energy
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, and the party’s spokesperson for energy and climate change and transport, made the case for transforming the energy sector.
“My party’s policy from 2019 is for the UK to be net zero by 2045. This means that fossil fuels will be staying in the ground and we will power our homes, our production and our economy with renewables.
“The most important change for government is to remove all barriers to new renewables. This means no limit on the ambition for wind, solar and marine power in the UK and no barriers for grid expansion. Most of this can be done in the next decade if we make it a political priority.”
Grid expansion and grid connection were the two main arguments outlined by Hobhouse. She outlined that the UK could be a “world leader in renewables and be a lead exporter”. The many barriers that inhibited renewable growth were seized on as examples of where the energy sector could be transformed.
Hobhouse argued that more stringent regulation could make an incredible difference, with incentives being created to speed up renewable power. She emphasised that we needed to overproduce renewable energy to encourage a systematic overhaul. “Once renewable power is cheap because it is overproduced, everyone will switch.” Again, the strong implication that the eyes of the public must be opened to the real benefits of transition emerged as thematically fundamental.
Government climate commitments
Although there was no government panelist on the Bylines Network Debate, moving to net zero is already a central commitment, with the acceptance that the time has come to act on climate policy. The government’s own net zero Strategy, published in 2021 states:
“From heating our homes to filling up our cars, burning fossil fuels releases the greenhouses gases that increase global temperatures. We are already seeing the effects here in the UK, with devastating floods in the West Midlands in January and torrential downpours submerging London Underground stations earlier this summer.”
The Conservative manifesto of 2019 which contained the pledges that voters approved of stated, “We will lead the global fight against climate change by delivering on our world-leading target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as advised by the independent Committee on Climate Change”.
The results
A truism that undeniably transpires in any debate on climate, this included, is that the mitigation priorities are interdependent and each impacts on the other. All are equally vital courses to follow. The ecosystems of the natural world are enmeshed and connected in ways we do not yet fully understand and we must take the same systemic approach to our mitigation efforts.
Having initially favoured Ryan Jude’s solution that focused on the importance of securing Green Finance, the audience settled in the end on Carla Denyer’s argument that energy-efficient housing and insulation should be the priority for any new government. It was close though, with clear cross-party consensus on the panel and in the audience.
All political parties are then aligned in the overarching need to act on to mitigate climate change, yet there is evidence that some are more committed than others. Perhaps, to mis-quote Greta Thunberg, “The political will is there, but political action is missing”. We have yet to see what the next UK government will prioritise in its climate policies.
The full debate is now available on our YouTube channel, where you can catch up on more from the Bylines Network.
