Category: Climate change

On 25 June 2020, a day when the temperature reached 38 degrees C in Siberia, the UK Committee on Climate Change published its latest progress report to parliament. The thrust of the report is that much more urgency is needed in greening our economy in order to meet carbon reduction targets.

The report places particular emphasis on greener transport, heating and energy supply. We need to be building much more low carbon electricity generation capacity, installing heat pumps (that use that green electricity), replacing petrol cars with electric vehicles (ditto), improving building insulation, substituting hydrogen for methane, …

All of which sounds great – but what about our lifestyle? Here the report is much more cautious. In a small number of places (pages 34 and 182 in particular), there is a tentative suggestion that perhaps we should reduce consumer demand and waste. There are a few euphemistic mentions of a “healthier diet”.

It seems to be very difficult for a public body like the CCC to propose that we alter the way that we live: buy less stuff, reduce travel, eat less meat and dairy, and so on. It is as though our lifestyle is sacrosanct, that to suggest we reconsider it is “playing politics” or preaching. And, with remarkable speed, anyone who dares to make such a recommendation will be accused of not understanding how the common man/woman lives, or not understanding basic economics (the old “jobs depend on shopping” chestnut).

Our Prime Minister recently suggested that we go out and “shop with confidence” for the sake of the economy. His exhortation is reminiscent of Keynes’ counter-cyclical recommendations for spending during the Great Depression in the 1930s. There is, though, one big difference with the 1930s, which is what we know now about climate change and its causation by human activity. So let’s spend money by all means: on home insulation, investing in renewable energy, a greener diet; or, for those who can afford it, a flight-free holiday or an electric vehicle perhaps. We need to re-build, but not the same house as before.

In the Guardian newspaper’s report on the Siberian heatwave, a sub-editor snuck in the term “climate breakdown” instead of “climate change”, much to the disgust of some individuals, including the author herself. According to these people, “climate breakdown” is emotive and unscientific.

Emotive, I would agree with. Unscientific? Well “breakdown” is vague, but then so is “change”. The former may not be universally appropriate but the latter is insipid. There is something to be said for a description that conveys a sense of urgency. And what is really rather worryingly unscientific is to assume we can continue with our sacrosanct way of life and rely on technology (much of it nascent, unproven and/or non-existent) and green jobs on their own to protect the biosphere and our future. At the risk of incurring the wrath of those who cannot abide change, bodies like the CCC, and individuals like you and me, need to be bold in calling for and implementing a gentler way of life.

On Wednesday, the BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin summarised a new academic study entitled Climate change: top 10 tips to reduce carbon footprint revealed. His news report demonstrates how easy it is to create popular myths in the name of science.

For context, the study was produced by the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS), a team of British academics from fifteen academic institutions across the UK. The study was global in its remit, not GB-specific, something that the BBC news report should have made clear up front.

Myth 1: A vegan diet “doesn’t quite have the impact of other measures”

How do we reconcile this finding with that of Joseph Poore, the Oxford academic who led the largest (hitherto) numerical assessment of food’s impact in a global study of 2018 and concluded “avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest way to reduce your impact on earth”, as quoted in newspaper reports at the time? Or that of Tim Searchinger and colleagues at the World Resources Institute whose December 2018 study in Nature concluded that the average European could reduce their carbon footprint by 9tCO2e per annum by becoming vegan?

These are clearly very different findings. It would help if news reports could at least acknowledge, and ideally attempt to explain with the authors’ help, such differences. It is likely that the CREDS study does not attempt to analyse land opportunity costs, as Poore/Searchinger did – e.g. the fact that around half of the earth’s land surface is used for livestock in one way or another; and much of this could be freed up for reforestation if our diets were more plant-based. It also seems likely that the CREDS study was looking at the global average, not a meat-heavy Western diet. And that the CREDS study defines the food industry more narrowly than Poore et al.

Myth 2: Following these 10 tips can reduce an average Brit’s carbon footprint by 90%

This is not stated explicitly. But in consecutive sentences, Harrabin’s report states firstly that 9tCO2e per annum can be saved by following these tips; and secondly that the average Brit’s carbon impact is 10tCO2e per annum. So it is a natural inference to draw! The news report fails to point out that the figure of 9tCO2e was given as a maximum for a “high consuming high income” footprint, and in that respect is not directly comparable with the average British per capita footprint.

It is of course nonsense to think that with a small number of simple measures we can bring our carbon footprint down to 1tCO2e per capita per annum. The vegan diet on its own would account for that, before we get into heating, transport, clothing, stuff, electricity, … The CREDS study has nothing to say about clothing or stuff.

Myth 3: Switching to a green electricity tariff saves 1.68tCO2e per capita

This is the annual figure given in the CREDS report. It is a global average level of carbon emissions from electricity generation – not to be confused with an amount that can necessarily be saved – and is broadly consistent with the BP Statistical Review 2019. Globally, coal is the main fossil fuel used for generating electricity.

In GB, coal is hardly used any more, and half of the electricity is generated from renewables and nuclear. Here, the corresponding figure is around 0.3-0.4tCO2e per capita, around one quarter of the global average. Economy-wide we have a large carbon footprint compared with the global average – but not because of our current patterns of electricity generation.

There is also the point that, to date, switching to a green supplier has been largely a matter of attribution, leaving those consumers who aren’t bothered to pick up the brown power, as it were. Over the last couple of decades, GB renewables have been built in line with the national pot of subsidies available, not to any significant extent because of consumer switching.

So it is thoroughly misleading to give the impression that switching to a green electricity tariff is one of the top four measures for reducing our individual carbon footprint. At least in this country.

Conclusion

The CREDS study is, reportedly, based on 7000 other studies – which immediately raises questions about the comparability of all those different studies. Be that as it may; however well researched an academic paper is, poor communications can completely undermine both the public’s understanding of its messages, and faith in experts more generally.