Certainly environmentalists and sustainability consultants, and hopefully increasing numbers of the general public, will be waiting with baited breath for the outcome of the COP 16 International Climate Change talks being held currently in Cancun, Mexico.
On Monday 29th November 2010, I was lucky enough to attend a discussion with Gregory Barker MP, Minister of Energy and Climate Change, just before he left for Cancun. The event was fairly small and intimate, organised by the Conservative Environmental Network and held at RICS. RICS itself was an apt location as with 100,000 members worldwide, it has the potential to make a large impact in reducing energy use in the built environment.
The discussion with Gregory, facilitated by Peter Ainsworth MP (former shadow Secretary of State for DEFRA), was fairly general and not entirely about Cancun; the audience were encouraged to participate as well.
The first question was regarding how well he and Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, work together, to which Greg replied ‘it works extraordinarily well’, before following up with ‘well, of course I would be expected to say that wouldn’t I?’ He explained that despite the previous public worry that the lack of a clear parliament would mean instability, incoherent policy terms and uncertainty, their work so far has proved that when it comes to energy and climate change, there is a genuine coalition of interest. One of the things they have achieved so far has been the scrapping of the third runway. Greg mentioned that Chris stands back a bit as he wasn’t intimately involved in the policy writing (for example the Green Investment Bank was a Conservative idea), but there is a definite commonality of interests on the agenda and in general there is not much between the party views in this sector.
The second question was regarding the current public mood on climate change. In a recent survey, it was found that most liked the idea of the Green Deal as it is nice to improve one’s home, whereas only 6% supported the idea as it is beneficial for the environment to improve energy efficiency. Gregory agreed that the global issue of climate change has taken a back seat for the past 12 months in part due to the economic crisis and consequent employment issues. In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is the main provider of climate change evidence for policy, had their reputation damaged with the discovery that scientific evidence associated with the Himalayas was faulty. The science is getting more compelling by the day, but we need a new way of communicating it.
Greg compared the concern-action gap issue with medicine. If a Doctor tells you that there is a 60-90% chance that you will die if you continue with this lifestyle, it does not matter that the science is inexact; you will listen because the consequences of inaction are disastrous. Similarly, we should not wait for more and more scientific certainty- it has already been shown that it is extremely likely that we are causing this rise in carbon emissions above the natural level and that if we continue in this way the consequences are catastrophic.
Moving onto Cancun, when asked ‘are you going?’ Gregory replied ‘yes and if you read The Daily Mail you will know where I am staying!’ It is true that there has been a lot of media speculation that there will be more tequilas, flip flops and jacuzzis than concrete policy agreements in Cancun, yet Greg feels that the UK has huge scope to make a difference and in general there is great respect for HMG. There is a great need to reinject some credibility and momentum into multilateral approaches and a formal UN process should be established. What is important is an agreement on the principles of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) to allow comparability between countries- India has actually come up with some international proposals for that (see also UK India Business Leaders Climate Group). The establishment of the Green Fund is an important step; private sector finance alone cannot do it, particularly in developing countries, thus public sector support is also needed. Greg joked that the aim this year is to get people to do what they said they were going to do last year at Copenhagen.
Agreements could all fall down for several reasons. There is a danger of a ‘climate change culture’ with the ‘usual suspect syndrome’ inducing a loss of perspective, as all attendees know each other from the previous COPs. Less economically developed countries believe in climate change but not that it is there problem, whilst others agree that it is their problem but are concerned about the short term impact of tackling it on the economy. Then there is the issue of sovereignty and economic prosperity, particularly with China who are also wary of any external committee that binds them. One school of thought with China is that they will sign a global agreement once they have secured the export markets. In relation to America, Gregory stated that ‘Obama is a disappointment’ (he did not embrace the green republican view, the republicans who were willing to stick their neck out, until it was too late) and without America on board we simply will not win.
One place where we may make progress is in forestry, with the establishment of the Forest Fund. Luckily there is a strong preference for sovereignty combination to tackle issues that require a global response, such as this.
An audience member asked whether we are taking inspiration from Germany, where there is a ground swell of public support for economic incentives that trigger the development of renewable technology. They started Feed In Tariff schemes over 10 years ago, but Greg stated that the Tories are committed to the UK FIT, which began in April 2010, on a large scale. He said it was disgraceful that we opened up the world’s largest wind farm recently, but over 80% of it was manufactured overseas and created ‘British jobs for German workers’.
Next, a member of the audience posed a fairly broad yet important question: ‘is the transition to a low carbon economy compatible with increasing quality of life and lifestyles?’ The answer from Greg was that we do not yet know as no one has done it yet, but we hope so and we are going to try.
In general, there is a lower expectation for Cancun than for Copenhagen, so the level of disappointment is likely to be lower. However, it is clear that Gregory and the other UK representatives are going to do there darndest to at least make progress towards a global deal for energy and climate change, even if they are able to enjoy a martini in their Jacuzzi afterwards.
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