Archive for October, 2017

The UK government’s new aviation strategy is a plan for climate chaos

Posted in Climate Majority, Transport on October 23rd, 2017 by Leo – Comments Off on The UK government’s new aviation strategy is a plan for climate chaos

This was originally published by openDemocracy

Arguments about a new Heathrow runway may have receded to a distant rumble, but it’s an increasingly important question, with the government now planning to drop rules intended to make a new runway compatible with climate limits.

In the effort to limit climate change, a new Heathrow runway is a big deal. It would produce around 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, which is about 8% of all the emissions the UK can release in 2050 if it is to meet the Climate Change Act. Even if more efficient planes could cut that slightly, it’s a vast amount for one strip of tarmac.

Even so, debate about the new runway is just part of a bigger argument. It’s nearly inevitable that meeting the UK’s climate targets would only be possible with restrictions on flying, regardless of what happens at Heathrow. But the government has quietly proposed a new aviation strategy that suggests it isn’t prepared to do that.

Suspension of disbelief

It’s mathematically possible for the UK to build a third runway at Heathrow and still meet its emissions target – but you have to suspend your disbelief to imagine it actually happening and the government now appears to have given up on the fantasy.

When the Airports Commission recommended expanding Heathrow, it knew it had to say something about climate change. So it came up with an answer that ticked the climate box, but which was hard to take seriously. Its cunning plan was for Heathrow to expand and then for every other UK airport to be prevented from doing the same. Even that wasn’t enough – to meet its climate limits, the UK would still have to leave some of its airport capacity unused. The Commission’s idea for how to do that was an implausible plan to ramp up ticket prices by eye-watering amounts, with the aim of discouraging poorer people from flying.

These were never realistic suggestions and, in its proposed new strategy, the government has given up the pretence that they would happen. Instead, it has set out a plan where “consumers are the focus of the sector and… their expectations continue to be met”. Since the government expects demand “to increase significantly between now and 2050”, its prioritisation of consumers over the climate means it is planning for more airport capacity “beyond the additional runway” – whipping away the justification of Heathrow expansion before the bulldozers are even warmed up.

This is a plan for the UK to miss its climate targets. It would mean aviation expanding well beyond what the government’s climate advisors say is possible within emissions limits. The result would be other sectors having to cut their emissions more than they are already due to, something the advisors say may not be possible. The only hope may be electric planes, but these still seem far off – if they are possible at all – for anything other than the smallest of aircraft.

Public support

Alarmingly, the government might well get away with this inconsistency – because its position is what most people want. A new survey has shown there is little public appetite for restrictions on flying for the sake of the climate.

The poll, part of the respected British Social Attitudes survey, found the UK public are intensely relaxed about the climate costs of flying. Only 35% disagree that people should be allowed to travel by plane as much as they like, even if it harms the environment. That’s a fall from a peak of 49% saying the same in 2008. And, when it comes to their own travel, just 21% say they would be willing to fly less to reduce the impact of climate change.

It’s striking that the survey also found that the highest-ever proportion now understand climate change is real and caused by human activities. So the lack of worries about the impact of flying don’t seem to be a result of doubts about the reality of the problem.

Instead, the survey reflects the fact that most people realise climate change is a threat, but haven’t had to confront what it will take to deal with the problem. This isn’t a surprise when many climate campaigners have focused on the easy and uplifting emission-cutting changes, like the switch to renewable power and efficient appliances, that make our air cleaner or reduce household bills.

Confronting the problem

Those uplifting changes are still necessary and it’s right to inspire people with evidence of how cutting emissions can make their lives better, but we can’t keep putting off the unwelcome conversations. The longer we do so, the harder it will be to win support for the difficult measures that will be needed.

As I argue in my book, The Climate Majority, flying isn’t the only one of these unwelcome issues, but it may be the first that countries like the UK will have to confront. Decisions that the government makes in the next few years could leave the UK with expensive infrastructure that could put the climate target out of reach.

The new aviation strategy reflects the obvious – but previously denied – fact that a new Heathrow runway would make it much harder to limit emissions. Yet public opinion is moving away from being willing to deal with the problem, just when wide support is most needed.

It’s possible that a new runway at Heathrow will be stopped by local protests that have little to do with climate change. But, whatever happens with that strip of tarmac, the UK’s climate target will be in trouble unless more people realise their desire to stop global warming is in conflict with the government’s plans – and the popular wish – for ever more flights.

The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism is published by New Internationalist.

 

Extract from The Climate Majority: the 10 people talking about climate change

Posted in Climate Majority on October 20th, 2017 by Leo – Comments Off on Extract from The Climate Majority: the 10 people talking about climate change

This was originally published by Business Green

Picture a small living room, crowded with 10 people and noisy with bad-tempered argument. As you watch, you realise not everyone is taking part in the argument – in fact less than half of the crowd are talking. One pair, sitting together, is arguing, not with each other, but with another two people, who are firing back retorts to everything the first pair say. And watching the debate, with expressions ranging from bewilderment to boredom, are the remaining six, who so far haven’t said anything (one of them has given up paying attention and is browsing on her phone).

In the debate about climate change those quiet six people in the middle are often forgotten – but they should have our full attention. If they were to join sides with either of the vocal pairs, the new group would have a comfortable majority. Yet it is obvious that the bystanders are not going to be well disposed to the arguing sides so long as the people doing the talking are ignoring them.

While climate deniers furiously denounce what they see as a conspiracy between scientists, the UN, and Al Gore to make us all pay more taxes to a tyrannical world government, the people whose opinions matter most don’t care that much either way. They are not angry at climate scientists, they don’t think climate change is a hoax, they don’t post comments on websites insisting that carbon dioxide is, in fact, good for us. They just don’t think about it very much.

But their climate apathy stops the world talking about what it will take to avoid extreme warming. As long as so many people aren’t particularly bothered about climate change, there is little appetite for conversations about the difficult measures that are needed to deal with it. Instead, mainstream discussions about the issue mostly stick to uncontroversial proclamations that the world must work together to tackle the problem, or they focus only on the easy measures that will never be enough.

We need to have those difficult conversations. To have a good chance of keeping warming to a reasonably safe level, the world needs to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to zero well within a generation. In fact, overall emissions will almost certainly have to be negative – more greenhouse gases will have to be absorbed each year than released. This is a phenomenal challenge and the progress of the past few years in stopping the annual increase in emissions is trivial in comparison.

Meeting that challenge will be impossible without widespread public support. It’s true that some of the measures to cut emissions come at little cost and bring benefits unrelated to climate change. For these, public opinion is unlikely to be an obstacle. But some other measures, like switching entirely to clean electricity, would impose costs on the public, even if those costs would eventually be outweighed by savings and don’t require most people to do much. And a third set of measures presents the greatest challenge. Cutting emissions from activities like flying and meat-eating is likely to put a direct burden on the public and, apart from reducing climate change, will bring few benefits to balance those costs.

As long as apathy about climate change is widespread, these difficult emission-cutting measures will be endlessly delayed. General public agreement that climate change deserves attention means most governments think there is an electoral advantage to being seen to be dealing with it. This helps explain why so many leaders were willing to sign the Paris Agreement – and why those who openly dismiss the threat of climate change are rare.

But signing up to targets is not the same as achieving them. When meeting the targets depends on voters accepting costs in their everyday lives – through higher bills to fund clean energy, increased taxes on more-polluting vehicles or restrictions on flying or meat consumption – politicians will put off the hard decisions. If only a small proportion care passionately about tackling climate change, the cost to politicians of making decisions that eventually lead to missed emissions targets will be less than the cost of the ire they may face from voters who have been forced to accept sacrifices.

So we must understand how we can hasten the demise of climate apathy. My new book sets out some of the answers, focusing on those quiet six people in the living room, who accept that climate change is real and a problem, but don’t pay much attention to it and aren’t yet willing to make sacrifices in the name of cutting emissions. Until climate apathy is overcome, it will be as if the world is driving with the brakes on as it tries to escape the disaster that is rapidly closing in. Turning apathy into support for serious measures to cut emissions would give everyone a much better chance of reaching safety.

The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism is published by New Internationalist.

 

Why don’t we just stop climate change?

Posted in Climate Majority on October 17th, 2017 by Leo – 1 Comment

This was originally published by Big Issue North

Last year was the hottest on record. The year before had been the hottest on record too – and the one before that as well. This year looks set to be, if not yet another record breaker, at least one of the top two.

This is climate change and we are now living with the effects of those rising temperatures. The devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma was made worse by seas that were hotter because of climate change. Global warming made the 2014 floods in southern England more likely too. The same goes for storms, heatwaves and droughts the world over.

Now that billions of people are suffering the reality of climate change, will the world finally deal with the problem?

The good news is the world has indeed started doing something about it. For the first time in the modern age, global emissions have stopped increasing, not because of a recession but because of decisions to cut pollution.

But it’s not good enough that global emissions have stopped increasing – they need to fall fast. In fact, to avoid climate change getting much worse than it is already, the world must eliminate emissions entirely within a generation. If I was in a car racing towards the edge of a cliff I would be glad if the driver stopped accelerating, but I would still be desperate for them to step on the brake.

So far the world has stopped emissions from rising without having to do anything too difficult. Most people are happy about changes that also clean up their polluted air, like closing coal power stations, or rules that make their fridges and washing machines more efficient.

But pressing the brake will be harder. Soon we will have to confront the polluting lifestyles that most people don’t want to give up, particularly flying and eating meat. Emissions from those are growing at a time when the world should be cleaning up.

Unless we deal with flying and meat eating the world’s inhabitants will be condemned to much worse climate change than we face today. Yet it would be a brave politician who suggested that voters should cut back on the things they enjoy. So the world keeps racing towards the cliff edge.

This will only change if politicians believe the public are ready to make sacrifices to stop extreme climate change. But at the moment, most people aren’t. Millions of people in the UK, in fact, the majority of people, recognise that climate change is an immense problem – but they don’t think about it much. They want the threat to be dealt with, but they don’t see it as an issue that affects them or one they need to change their lives to address.

There is a way to fix this. The answer lies with the people who realise what extreme climate change would be like, and are ready to cut their own emissions. For now those people are in a minority, but if they persuaded their friends and family that it’s worth making the effort to stop climate change getting even worse, the balance would swing.

Those of us who are worried about global warming have both scientific evidence and the power of stories on our side. Neither facts nor emotion alone are enough – we need to get better at using both if we are to change the minds of the millions who are apathetic about climate change. Until we do, we will just be fiddling while the world burns.

The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism is published by New Internationalist.

 

Sustainababble podcast – interview about The Climate Majority

Posted in Climate Majority on October 14th, 2017 by Leo – Comments Off on Sustainababble podcast – interview about The Climate Majority

I was interviewed about my book for the Sustainababble podcast recently. You can listen to the result here (and see them calling me a mega brain, which is nice).

It was a good conversation – they asked interesting and difficult questions, including about possible objections to my argument. Probably most relevant to people thinking about climate change campaigning or who work in the field.

The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism is published by New Internationalist.