Category: Climate change

20 September 2019.  A day to remember.  A global climate strike, involving millions of people around the world, led by schoolchildren. 

In New York, over 1 million children from 1800 schools were allowed to skip school in order to protest.  In Britain, a meaner attitude emanated from the authorities:  “Every child should be in school,” declared our Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, “they shouldn’t be bunking off and it’s very irresponsible for people to encourage children to do so.” 

What is very irresponsible is to emit a lot of greenhouse gases.  If the UK Government had a good track record of progress in responding to climate breakdown, it would be easier to sympathize with Mr Williamson.  But according to our Committee on Climate Change, Government has over the last year delivered only 1 out of 25 critical policies necessary to get emissions reductions back on track. 

With pressure from people like Mr Williamson, all the more respect is due to those headteachers who allowed their schools to take part in the action.

Political distraction

And yet, it is all too easy for demonstrations to be politicised; and for peaceful protest to be hijacked by revolutionary zeal and a different agenda.  One of the rallying cries in the strikes has been “down with the rich and powerful”.  Certainly inequality is disturbing for all sorts of reasons, but if we simply re-distribute wealth without changing average consumption patterns, the impact we have on total carbon emissions is … zero.  Some progress will be made if billionaires curb their luxuries, and the aggregate of emissions from everyone else does not rise to compensate, but not enough.  Most of us need to change the way we live: it’s at least as important to focus on that sobering fact, as it is to decry the richest 1%.

Power progress

On the same day, the Government announced the results of its third Contracts for Difference auction round for supporting renewable electricity generation.  Around 6 GW of wind power capacity – which, when it is operational, might generate 8-9% of our electricity – has been successful in gaining contracts at record low prices: less than half the price per unit of energy of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station unwisely agreed by the previous administration.

The decarbonisation of the British electricity generation sector continues at an impressive rate.  It means that a common perception of what actually produces carbon emissions in this country is outdated.  The image of a power station cooling tower belching steam – never appropriate in the first place as it’s the chimney belching exhaust gases that matters – is increasingly wide of the mark.  The power sector now accounts for less than 100 MtCO2 per annum, out of a national total (based on our consumption rather than our production) of over 800 MtCO2.  In this country, very roughly, transport contributes about 200 MtCO2, food around 150 MtCO2, gas heating 100 MtCO2, and imports 300 MtCO2. The latter bit is generally ignored (i.e. attributed to other countries, principally China).

And what target are we aiming for as a country?  Under 200 MtCO2 in total, as far as I am aware, based on an average per capita global sustainable level of greenhouse gas emissions.  The Government’s ‘net zero’ target is actually 300 MtCO2 by my arithmetic, but even that will require changes that are much larger and more socially disruptive than changing the fuel mix underpinning our current electricity demand.  While it’s great that we are decarbonising power, we really need to get out of our cars, buy less stuff, change or reduce our heating, alter our diet, and fly less. And sadly that means (nearly) all of us.

 

“If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die” Twelfth Night, c.1601

“Observe due measure; moderation is best in all things,” Hesiod c.700 BC

It is sometimes difficult to discern progress.  In nearly three millennia since the Greek poet Hesiod observed in c.700 BC that moderation is best in all things, we have not yet understood his message. 

How many of us, for instance, would agree that we should exercise a degree of restraint in how much we try to learn?  Algnernon, in The Importance of Being Earnest, apologises for being over-dressed but says he compensates by being immensely over-educated.  It may be light banter but most of us indeed believe the more we try to learn, the better.  We don’t give much thought to our capacity to assimilate information: in our culture, to question it is to appear feeble.  M’Choakumchild, Dickens’ fictional teacher who would have taught infinitely better had he learned a little less, is not in vogue.

Or how many of us believe we should apply moderation to international travel?  Or to music?  These things we love, and, like Orsino or Othello, we love not wisely but too well.

Consider this.  The typical CV of a professional pianist lists the number of countries in which he or she has given recitals.  The more concert venues, the more miles covered, the better.  How likely is it that you might read: “in the interests of the environment, so-and-so has decided to limit round-the-world tours to one per decade”?  Or perhaps: “(s)he tours without flying, sailing across oceans as necessary”?

Of course we would retort: “but nothing compares with live performance!”  Really?  How different is the quality of the sound given live streaming technology?  How much worse (or better!) is the audience’s view of the performer if it is projected on to a large screen?  How likely are you to talk directly to the artist in a concert hall? 

Which is not to say that live performance is not a great pleasure once in a while, but rather that we music lovers have perhaps got a little carried away with it.  We are thus encouraged by producers and performers, for whom it is about money as well as prestige.  Moderation means less money: somehow, we need to get our heads round that.

Moderation in all things, including travel

On 22 August 2019, the Science and Technology Select Committee issued a report on the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector.  People, it said, would need to get out of their cars; technology alone is helpful but not sufficient.  The government needs to look at the demand side, not just rely on the supply side to come up with solutions.

This is a welcome conclusion indeed.  It’s a pity that the BBC’s Roger Harrabin, in reporting the findings, chose to link them to another report that found tyre wear from electric vehicles (EVs) contributes to pollution.  There is a difference between local air pollution, to which all traffic contributes in part through tyre wear, and global warming.  It is unhelpful to conflate the two.  Most European governments have, rightly, ambitious targets to electrify road transport in response to the threat from global warming.  If we have to drive, it is better to do it in an EV (and longer term, perhaps, in a hydrogen vehicle if the necessary infrastructure is developed). 

But the EVs still have to be made, and their batteries use rare-earth elements.  So the Select Committee is also right that we should try to reduce the number of cars and the amount that we travel.  Their report is a refreshing change from the normal brainwashing that car manufacturing is important for economic growth and, by implication, national prosperity.

Maybe there is still hope that we will take Hesiod seriously.  After all, 2700 years late is better than never.