Renewable energy in the South West – a role for the RSA?
The independent Committee on Climate Change reports that the Government is a long way from having any credible account of how it is going to reach its target of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. This comes after Professor David MacKay, the Government’s Chief Energy Scientist pointed out last week that the UK exports up to half its energy use through its reliance on imported industrial goods. Meanwhile hardly a week seems to pass without more bad news about the impact of climate change.
These were the issues that provided the backdrop to the Eden Forum which I attended at the end of last week. I wasn’t there for the closing sessions as I wanted to get back for my younger son’s first football match of the season (he won 11-0, as you ask). But a strong view has begun to emerge about the direction the Forum – a collection of environmentalists, politicians and political strategists, writers and business people – might take its future work. The Forum had heard from community groups based in the South West how hard it still is to cut through the economic and bureaucratic hurdles to micro generation, despite the scope for local energy which exists in that wet and windy part of the country and the incentives the Government has tried to create through Renewable Obligation Certificates.
James Cameron, Executive Director of Climate Change Capital and a long time friend of the RSA, discussed with the Forum the idea of some kind of South West energy bond which could provide much needed capital for putative micro generators of renewable energy, while also offering a decent return to investors as the price attached to energy production and carbon emissions inexorably rises. There are many things that would need to be in place for such a bond to get off the ground. One might be to demonstrate a real commitment to invest among the people of the region.
I don’t know what came out of the last session (maybe someone who was there can add a comment) but if this idea was taken forward could there be a challenge here for RSA Fellows in the South West? Could they use their networks to sign up thousands of local people willing, at least in principle, to become small investors in such a bond (by the way, many small scale example of funds like this exist around the country)? Ultimately, a regional bond will require the backing of major institutional investors but showing that thousands of small investors are committed could be very powerful in getting the backing of bigger funds, Government agencies and energy utilities.
10:10 is great but what has really changed?
I’m delighted to say that the RSA has today signed up to 10:10, the new initiative to persuade organisations and individuals to cut their use of energy. The campaign, backed by a sparkling array of celebrities. is the brainchild of Franny Armstrong who was behind the film Age of Stupid which we launched here at the RSA.
The campaign is based on the simple idea that we all have a responsibility to help the nation meet its ambitious carbon reduction targets, and that it really isn’t that hard for us to make a cut in our own energy consumption of 10% by the end of 2010.
It won’t be easy for the RSA to meet our target as we have already done a lot in this area and the age and listed status of the House limits our room for manoeuvre, but we can’t bang on about ‘pro-social’ behaviour if we are not willing to do our bit on what is arguably the most important issue facing humanity.
Today’s 10:10 launch coincides with news that personal debt levels are falling for the first time in more than 15 years. A few months ago many commentators – including me – were suggesting that the global financial meltdown would lead to a fundamental questioning of the values that lay behind the debt bubble. The crisis would be a catalyst for a critique of a society that condoned greed and excess, that suffered from a range of social pathologies including falling levels of general well-being, and that was failing to grasp the scale of the environmental emergency.
But now we are clearly past the low point of the recession the question is: what has really changed? Bonuses are back in the City, house prices are picking up and we never stopped shopping even when it looked like things could be much worse. So is the only impact of the crisis to be on the direct victims – the unemployed and those who have lost their businesses? Is talk of a broader change of social values misplaced? I want to ponder this myself some time over the next few days, but I am, as always, interested to hear other people’s thoughts.
Suffolk against the state
Suffolk County Council worked me hard last night. I wasn’t sure whether to give my speech about the pro-social council or do my cultural theory experiment, so I asked the audience and they told me to do both! An hour and half later I made my exhausted way back to Ipswich station.
On the cultural theory experiment I ran the same process I undertook last week on the blog. Of the four approaches to climate change fatalism and hierarchy continued to be virtually friendless with the majority of the 120 strong public sector audience plumping for the egalitarian (we must change the way we live) option and a much smaller number going for individualism (technology and markets can solve the problem).
There is a number of ways of interpreting this. It could, of course, be the way I phrased the options. The one I tend towards is that both fatalism (there’s nothing we can do) and hierarchism (it’s up to Government to act) are seen as responses that reflect badly on those who adhere to them.
This doesn’t surprise me about fatalism, but it is fascinating that people don’t want to sound as though they are relying on governments to take the lead in solving a climate change problem which not only self evidently requires concerted state action but on which we have seen quite positive steps both by our domestic government and – over the weekend – by other national leaders.
Has supporting the idea that Government can do good come to be seen as naïve, or even shameful? If so it sounds like more bad news for Labour.
Green policies, green papers and why it’s worth listening to a dying Government
There are a number of reasons why it is hard for the Government to have its ideas taken seriously. It is unpopular, Gordon Brown is communicatively challenged, and its future policy plans are seen as irrelevant given it is unlikely to be in a position to enact them.
To take one example, this is an important week for the debate about climate change. After a mini blip, world temperatures are resuming their upward climb. Predicted weather extremes may have a major impact on crops and food prices. It got remarkably little attention, but there was important progress at the G8 summit, something for which the UK deserves some credit. Against all expectations just a few months ago, a substantial agreement at Copenhagen now seems possible. And later this week we will see the Government’s own plan outlining how it intends to meet the very ambitious long term target it has set for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It remains to be seen whether the public will be interested or willing to give Brown any credit.
From green policy to green papers; today’s report on social care may also be greeted with a shrug. After all, Labour has been putting off this issue since 1999, it hasn’t got time to act on its various recommendations before the next election, and anyway, on the toughest issue – who pays and how – the paper offers options rather than a recommendation. But regardless of whether Labour will be able to implement its strategy, the package deserves serious debate.
As I understand it, the green paper is bold in two contrasting ways. On the one hand, it seeks to turn social care from being a service for the poor to one that is universal. It does this by guaranteeing that everyone needing care – regardless of their income – will be entitled to advice and guidance from the state. On the other hand, the green paper clearly implies that of its various payment options it favours the social insurance (or as it is inelegantly referred to ‘co-payment’) model. In this scheme people are opted in (another example of nudging here) to an insurance scheme whereby they commit a lump sum either at retirement or death to insure social care costs. In this way, risk is pooled and care is affordable to both the individual and the state.
I am told that there were some in Government who opposed the publication of such a radical plan fearing a public backlash against being asked to pay. But the green paper’s advocates have two things going for them: first, focus group research showing that if people believed that insurance would protect them from the risk of having their other assets gobbled up in care fees they were happy to pay; second, the new health secretary Andy Burnham – perhaps sensing this is may be one of his last opportunities to make a big policy impact – has been a strong champion of radicalism.
Politically, things still look grim for Labour. The economic recovery is fragile and slow. There is a constant stream of criticism about the Brown style of leadership. From what I hear of the canvass returns from Norwich North, England are more likely to win the next four Ashes tests than Labour coming close to winning the by-election. Yet, despite that, or maybe even because of that, the policy ideas of a Government that has little to lose from being bold are worth taking seriously.
How to tackle climate change – the result
Time for me to update on the cultural theory survey I ran last week. In all – at the time of writing – seventy people participated. Thank you.
The survey was based on testing out ways of thinking about climate change using the four paradigms of cultural theory: the egalitarian, the hierarchical, the individualist and the fatalist.
I wanted to know whether people were willing to choose between the four, which was the most popular and whether there were any interesting correlations between people’s most favoured and least favoured way of thinking. I ended up doing two posts as I quickly realised that people would overwhelmingly choose the fatalist option as their least favourite. Fatalism is often how we behave, but Western culture tends to frown upon it as an attitude, especially on an issue we are all supposed to feel passionate about, like climate change.
So, this is what we found – with thanks to Barbara to doing the collation (hope I got it right – Barbara): only four people out of seventy plumped for the fatalist option, and this included a couple of people who don’t believe in anthropomorphic climate change. Of the other three, ‘active’ paradigms both option 1, the egalitarian, with 44% and option 3, the individualist, with 39% were reasonably popular. But, interestingly, option 2, the hierarchical managed only 11%.
In relation to people’s least favoured option there was another noteworthy result. Among the two options most people backed, the egalitarians (‘we must change our lives and values to stop climate change’) were equally likely to reject the hierarchical or the individualist perspective. But individualists (‘with the right incentives human ingenuity can solve the problem’) were twice as likely to reject the hierarchical (‘it is up to government to sort the problem’) as the egalitarian perspective.
So what do I take from this, albeit on a small self selecting sample? First that there is a discontinuity between what people think and what appears at the moment to be the reality. While readers rejected fatalism and hierarchy it could be argued that ‘do nothing and wait for the authorities to sort it out’ is the way society as a whole is behaving.
Second, it seems that those who believe human ingenuity can solve the problem are particularly unimpressed by the idea of relying on government, while those who emphasise the need to change the way we think are more open minded about the potential for state action. Does this in any way map onto a more traditional left-right axis I wonder?
Of course, it may be that the answers simply reflect the way I phrased the options. So the next test is when I try the game out next week on a group of local government officers. Presumably, they will be more inclined to think governments must take the lead.
It’s been an exhausting week – already – so I can’t quite think through where I want to take this next or what might be its implications. I’ll ask my cultural theorist friends what they think. One idea is to try out the options on a less emotive issue, but asking the same people to participate? But given that people seemed to enjoy playing the game, I’m open to other ideas.
Thanks again to all those who took part.
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