Net-zero Emissions: Behaviour Change

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I start by acknowledging the report, In Our Hands: Behaviour Change for Climate and Environmental Goals, produced by the Environment and Climate Change Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lady Parminter. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, who, by tabling this debate, has given us an early opportunity to address the crucial role of behaviour change in meeting our net-zero targets—a debate I was hoping would be informed by hard evidence, experience and sound judgment. The future of our planet deserves no less.

That we are in a climate emergency is borne out by hard evidence—the evidence of our own eyes and the experience of those who are already feeling the catastrophic impact of extreme weather events and slow-onset effects such as the depletion of nature and the rise in sea temperatures. I think that a sentence or two here on the evidence for the need for urgent action would not go amiss, given that we still have parliamentarians who deny that climate change is real, that immediate action is necessary and indeed that the public even want change.

There can be few harder indicators of the damage we are doing to our planet than the monthly measure of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere carried out by the Mauna Loa Observatory. The annual peak in May this year was the highest ever, at 422 parts per million of carbon dioxide. In the preceding 800,000 years for which we have ice core data, concentrations have ranged between 170 parts per million to a peak of 300 parts per million. To put this into context, over the mere 150 years since the start of the fossil fuel era, carbon dioxide concentration has rocketed from about 200 parts per million to the 422 parts per million we see today.

We are in uncharted territory. It is a fact that the temperature of our planet rises in tandem with concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The effects of that temperature rise, at a rate unprecedented in geological time, must dictate urgent and immediate action—anyone who denies that is wearing blinkers, quite frankly. Hard evidence clearly says that the Government must act now to fulfil the aims of their laudably ambitious agenda to reach net zero by 2050, with an interim goal of a 78% reduction by 2035. However, the Government’s own advisory body, the globally respected Climate Change Committee, has said that this is unachievable—not difficult, but unachievable—without leadership by the Government and a well-designed campaign to get the public on board. The British public have indicated that they stand ready to play their part; all that they lack is leadership in how best they can do this, and there is plenty of evidence in the report to back that up.

Experience shows that where the Government have taken a lead and delivered a well-designed policy, the results have been positive. Take the example of renewable electricity: emissions from electricity generation have fallen by nearly 70% in the last decade. A second example where clear leadership by the Government has had excellent results is in the uptake of electric vehicles, which are being adopted in greater numbers each year.

I will mention two important areas where decisive leadership from the Government has been sadly lacking. First, the gap in policy for better-insulated homes is, quite frankly, shocking. A well-designed, government-led campaign to effect behaviour change would reduce demand in homes and deliver the co-benefits of reducing emissions and helping to bring down energy costs for vulnerable households. What is holding the Government back? This is a question I would really like the Minister to attempt to answer.

Secondly, agriculture and land use policies are vital to delivering net zero but are virtually non-existent and, like everything that this Government have touched, currently bathed in confusion. Yet it is clear that a well-designed and well-communicated policy will generate a number of co-benefits, not least in long-term food security and biodiversity.

In conclusion, the public have clearly indicated that when behaviour change is urgently needed, they will step up to the mark; for example, with the unusual demands made of them during the days of the Covid pandemic. It is time that the Government too stepped up to the mark.