Net-zero Carbon Emissions: Behaviour Change

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I am very happy and glad to support this Motion, and I am equally glad to have listened to and learned from other noble Lords’ speeches on this crucial issue.

There is general agreement that a serious public engagement programme is necessary—every serious institution is urging this—for one simple reason: 62% of remaining emissions reductions will rely, to some extent, on individual choices and behaviour. The key issues of how we travel, what we eat and what we buy are made by not just institutions but individual people in and for their personal lives. They will need to be persuaded of this, brought to see that they have a personal responsibility to respond to it and motivated to do something about it.

So, first of all, people will need to be given accurate information about the challenge and clear guidance about what they, as an individual, might be able to do in response. The background picture that we have at the moment is highly unsatisfactory, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, brought out. People are generally aware about the impact of climate change but misinformed about the main causes of it, hazy about what should be done and confused about how to go about it. Concern about climate change is high: some 80% say that they are concerned and 63% think that changes affecting the UK will continue to do so. However, only 14% indicated that they knew a lot or a fair amount, and overall awareness has decreased, amazingly, over the last year. Only 26% of people asked had made any change in their own behaviour. Particularly concerning is the fact that, while young people are the age group most likely to be concerned about climate change, they are also the age group that is least likely to act upon it. So there is a huge gap between a general awareness of this issue and any kind of meaningful engagement with it by the majority of the population.

For people to be so engaged, the first requirement is clear and accurate information. Leaving aside the deliberate misinformation that is around, there are some basic misconceptions: as we know, many people think that recycling will be a key player in reductions, but, while it is vital for a whole range of reasons, it only accounts for 0.2 tonnes of CO₂ emissions a year. Some 50% of people think that using less energy at home is crucial. This is important, but it is actually less significant than reducing the amount of meat eaten. Only 15% think that avoiding meat is a major factor, and only 6% think that eating fewer dairy products is—but the CCC had recommended a 35% reduction in meat and dairy by 2050 if the net-zero target is to be achieved. Few responding to the survey realised that the most important thing that they could do would actually be to have one fewer child, accounting for 58.6 tonnes a year, not own a car, accounting for 2.4 tonnes a year, and avoid one long-distance flight, accounting for 1.6 tonnes a year.

So the first essential thing is accurate information, clearly set out; then, we want people to respond. However, if someone actually wants to do something about it, confusion can quickly set in. For example, try looking up installing solar panels, or switching from a gas boiler to one that emits less carbon dioxide, on the internet, and it is very difficult to disentangle what help the Government might be offering and what a range of commercial organisations are trying to sell you. For a start, I would like to see a short pamphlet sent to every household in the UK with some basic agreed facts about the challenge of climate change, what an individual might do in response and what help the Government might give to help them to respond.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, rightly reminded us of the very serious problem of emissions in the Asian countries, but surely the two approaches—doing what we can in our own sphere and encouraging those Asian countries to move into carbon capture and storage or to alternative forms—are not mutually exclusive. Surely we have a responsibility to do what we can in our own immediate sphere of influence.

Questions to do with diet, use of energy at home, how we travel and what we consume affect us all. Every day, we make decisions in relation to them that will affect the kind of world that our grandchildren and their children will grow up in.

But there is also another area that is surprisingly absent from some of the briefing material that we have been receiving: the use of our savings, if we are lucky enough to have them. How we invest our money is of crucial significance, and I am glad to say that the Church of England actively engages in companies that it invests in, with a policy of disinvesting if certain rates of emissions reductions are not reached by certain dates.

What the Government should do is essential, but this by itself is not enough. As we know, the Government are much less trusted than a whole range of other organisations and people, and they must mobilise that whole range of other organisations and people. A good example of this was the recent joint statement by the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, with its theme, “Choose life”. This is a crucial issue and I very much look forward to the Government’s response.