Net-zero Carbon Emissions: Behaviour Change

Lord Grantchester Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

Once again, this has been a very interesting and stimulating debate with many notable contributions right across the House. Overall, there has been repeated recognition that the achievement of net zero can be accomplished only if it is accompanied by the public embracing behaviour change in their everyday lives. Certainly, the necessity for action is ever more widely recognised and expressed through the ever more frequent reporting of extraordinary weather events all around the globe.

My noble friend Lady Blackstone introduced the debate by setting out the case for a centrally led strategy for engagement in facilitating behaviour change. Many contributions have drawn attention to the many reports from leading agencies. The International Energy Agency has said that behaviour change plays a role in almost two-thirds of emission reductions. The Energy Research Partnership points out that, with motivation through multiple channels, interventions will be required through education, incentives and affordable low-carbon alternatives to change deep-seated habits that become embedded as societal norms. There is no question that the British people, especially our developing young people, are alarmed by the climate crisis and wish to engage.

The Covid-19 pandemic has proved that decisive intervention by the Government, local authorities and agencies can achieve significant shifts in behaviour. By comparison to the pandemic, the effects of climate change have still largely to be felt to affect most people’s daily lives. Behaviour change to embrace a net-zero lifestyle will require a cultural revolution of information-driven decision-making; visible peer pressure equal to the effect experienced following the smoking ban; and strong, coherent government policies across all departments and services.

Various Climate Change Committee reports and commissions from research bodies and universities indicate that more than 40% of the abatement necessary involves some degree of consumer change, through their choices, to reduce demand and improve efficiencies. Many examples have been promoted today. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn is right in his analysis that people want to feel part of the solution and not the problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has identified mixed messages and confusing price signals, which can only bring delay and frustration with unintended consequences. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, spoke of the unco-ordinated right and left hands of government, with its encouragement and subsidy of fossil fuels. Indeed, all of us send signals through our own consumption patterns, as expressed correctly by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. For every pull forward, there arises a push back from another interest lobby.

Perhaps the hardest behavioural change to achieve is that of government itself. The biggest challenge no longer comes from climate deniers; it comes from climate dither and delay. It comes from a scattergun list of points in a plan, instead of a comprehensive set of strategies that sets out all the Government’s policies in a coherent framework. The Minister may claim to have undertaken to address quite a few of these acknowledged gaps, which I respect, from the difficult hydrogen strategy, published in the Recess, to the critically important decarbonisation of transport plan. However, the acceleration of climate change underlines every week the urgency of this decisive decade for change. With five weeks remaining before the opening of COP 26, the Government have yet to publish the equally important heat and buildings strategy, the Treasury’s finance plan and, most critically, the net-zero strategy, where the Minister identified in June that the Government would communicate their approach to public engagement and support the public to make green choices. The Public Accounts Committee identified that the Government have

“no coordinated … messaging about the changes and choices people will need to make”

and identified many critical areas where they needed to engage, from central governance to local authorities, to communicate effectively. The Government need to switch from targets without delivery and rhetoric without the reality that faces households and families in their everyday activity.

The Government can now be congratulated that, in 2019, they finally recognised that international aviation and shipping need to be included in the UK’s net-zero calculations. However, transport remains the biggest source of emissions where the least progress has been made across the country and the most attention by the wider public is needed. The Government have pulled forward the phase-out date for new diesel and petrol cars to 2030 and, in support, the Climate Change Committee has identified that 48% of cars sold by 2025 should be electric vehicles. However, we are currently way off that. In their decarbonisation of transport strategy, the Government reported that less than 15% of cars sold in July this year were EVs. The biggest challenge and barrier to change for an eager population comes from affordability and lack of infrastructure. The CMA has expressed concern about the unequal and patchy rollout of charge points. Policy needs to recognise these barriers, identify enablers and target interventions accordingly, such as tiered vehicle scrappage schemes weighted in favour of essential car users and the lower-paid. Behaviour change modelling needs to become embedded in departmental procedures and policies. What plans do the Government have to meet the issue of affordability to increase the uptake of EVs?

The need for as yet nascent technologies, such as hydrogen, has also been identified as essential for public transport such as buses and trains, and indeed aviation, and is already part of government plans. Hydrogen as a fuel also has applications to the decarbonisation of gas, with a link across to another key area of everyday life, the nation’s housing stock. As working from home has become a clear behavioural change for so many, the opportunity must not be lost from the many aspects of changing work patterns. As far back as 2018, the National Infrastructure Commission identified energy efficiency as a clear imperative in reducing demand and improving homes. It is easily said but, as many Administrations have identified, so difficult to attain. The green homes grant scheme, supposedly so obvious yet rushed in with limited finance and hopelessly short timetables, was doomed to failure. The National Audit Office revealed last week that just 20% of the inadequate £1.5 billion was spent. The total spend on home improvements is anticipated to be £314 million, but with a massive £50.5 million spent on administration. What lessons will the Government draw from this sorry experience? How do they propose to recalibrate their plans for home improvements, and will these be incorporated into and announced along with the heat and buildings strategy?

I have mentioned the hydrogen strategy as vital in the urgency to decarbonise gas in the heating of homes, where progressive regionalised introduction has been identified as the best transitional approach. In setting future dates for the compulsory introduction of hydrogen-ready boilers for all new installations, perhaps the pricing disadvantage inherent in this new option is a key area to be addressed. Will the Minister raise the public’s awareness of the urgency of this transition by mandating all quotations for new boilers to include the hydrogen-ready option alongside the conventional replacement cost?

The alternative of heat pumps is also identified as being more costly than conventional choices. The Government will need clearly to recognise that cost barriers remain high in the public’s mind when embracing renewables and sustainable long-term solutions. The rising cost of energy for this winter and the disruption of the interconnectors from France have received wide- spread notice. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, mentioned the finance industry. With interest rates on mortgages having fallen back to less than 1%, the cost of the net-zero challenge needs to meet this competitive threshold. Does the Minister expect the Treasury’s net-zero finance plans to be ready for COP 26 or more likely to be delayed until the autumn Statement?

The challenges to be faced remain substantive, yet everything is impossible until it happens. Can the Minister give the House an update on the Government’s objective to announce international investment commitments totalling £100 billion per year from developed countries at COP 26? Can he report a successful response from the US, and is China included in this designation? These two nations remain the biggest sources of climate change emissions. What investment in this fund is planned by the United Kingdom Government and how will it be spent, and with what priorities? This initiative would set a serious benchmark towards world- wide progress.