This post is by Juliet Michaelson, co-director of strategic development at Possible.
After a period of British politics characterised by the risk of climate descending into culture war, it’s welcome to have a government that accepts the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) on setting targets for emissions cuts, raising our goal to cut emissions by 81 per cent by 2035 at COP last week. Now it needs to follow the CCC’s advice on the action required as well.
Because, in the same breath that he raised ambitions, our prime minister distanced himself from the obvious implications of his own announcement. When asked if “he was prepared to get more people to change their heating systems, take fewer flights and eat less meat to reach the climate target” – which are demonstrably necessary to achieve these cuts – Keir Starmer dismissed the idea and said that we “will not be telling people how to live their lives”.
We can’t prevent climate change through the power sector alone
He points to his clean energy mission as the means to meet this target but, as the CCC’s most recent Progress Report noted, more than three quarters of the emissions reductions needed in the next three carbon budget periods (to 2037) will need to come from sectors beyond energy generation. Even more pointedly, the CCC is clear that 60 per cent of emissions cuts required will involve behaviour change.
Put simply, there is no route to 81 per cent emissions cuts in the next ten years without, to some extent, changing the way we live our lives: how we get around, how we heat our homes and what we put in our shopping baskets. Achieving this will require a joined up approach of cultural transformation, public participation and good policy making to enable the requisite demand management and behaviour change.
At the moment, the government is pretending it can hit the target without the public noticing, petrified of negative headlines and backlash from political opponents. A critical task for the climate sector over the coming years will be to use the myriad examples of positive and popular climate policies to allay these political fears by demonstrating active consent for changes to the way we live.
Transport should be a major target for change
Transport is now the largest source of UK emissions and stands as a perfect example of a sector where the government’s present policies offer no hope of achieving the cuts needed because they do not enable or encourage behaviour change.
Decarbonising surface transport will require a huge shift from private cars to public transport and active travel, even with EVs in the mix, but our policy framework orientates behaviour towards the opposite outcomes, as the cost of bus and rail have risen higher relative to motoring since 1990. Labour has shown no signs of deviating from this trajectory, with last month’s budget preserving the 14 year freeze on fuel duty, while hiking bus fares by 50 per cent at a stroke.
The wrong lessons have been learned from the notorious Uxbridge by-election in which the ULEZ (ultra low emission zone) expansion was portrayed as being the reason Labour failed to take the seat, only for Sadiq Khan to be re-elected for an unprecedented third mayoral term on his largest ever mandate. This was followed by data showing that the air was cleaner after the policy was implemented. While division was stoked by the media and reactionaries, the polling consistently showed that more Londoners supported ULEZ than opposed it.
Possible’s own polling shows the public sees traffic reduction as desirable: 72 per cent of Londoners say they want less traffic in the city and over half support a completely car-free city centre. A Censuswide survey in September 2024 also found that a clear majority of UK residents want more car-free zones. Still, even Sadiq Khan is scared on this, burying plans to bring in a pay-per-mile scheme that experts all agree is inevitable.
The budget for warm homes is too low
Home heating is also a policy area in which the government’s plans fall well short of setting the conditions for the rate of heat pump installations called for by the CCC. The Labour manifesto promised an additional £6.6 billion for a Warm Homes Plan, contributing to a total of £13.2 billion spending during this parliament. But, again, the same manifesto recoiled from any insinuation that we will have to make any active changes to how we heat our homes, promising that “nobody will be forced to rip out their gas boiler”. In reality, there is a positive story to tell: 80 per cent of people who have installed heat pumps are happy with them. But in the recent budget, just £3.7 billion of investment was promised in the next three years, putting Labour off track on its own spending target, which is already far short of what the CCC is calling for.
Common to all these examples is a striking misalignment between actual public support for positive climate policies, and politicians’ willingness to implement them. Closing this gap will be critical.
MPs still underestimate the appetite for change
Recent polling by Climate Barometer showed that this parliament is the greenest ever, measured in terms of highest recorded support for net zero targets among this cohort of parliamentarians. However, the same polling found that MPs still severely underestimate the degree of public concern on climate change and public support for climate policy.
This, surely, is key to understanding why politicians are so afraid of implementing climate policies, despite having manifest public support. Even the most climate friendly politicians we have ever elected have still not absorbed the evidence of the polling and the electoral results which make it clear that the public is on board with climate policy, as long as there is support in place for the transition.
If we close this gap, the government can start getting real about the systemic changes needed to enable and encourage the behaviour shifts required from the public. A policy framework should make the most climate– friendly behaviours the cheapest, most convenient and most desirable, like buses which are low cost, reliable and get you where you need to go. And it should end the deliberate suppression of the price of private motoring, like fuel duty freezes.
The public is ahead of politicians on climate. The next five years presents an opportunity to leverage the most climate friendly parliament in history and put into place policies to influence behaviour change, supported by the public, which will facilitate deep and rapid emissions cuts in all sectors of the economy. We can’t let the chance slip through our fingers.
Image credit to Number 10 on Flickr.
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