The climate and nature crises demand an urgent response—and that necessary action is about to affect our daily lives more than ever. The progress the UK has made so far on reducing emissions has largely taken place in the background. Government and business have made great strides in switching to renewable energy sources, but while this change affected those in the energy sector, it has not made a material difference to many people beyond it. The pressing changes that must come next—to what we eat, how we get around and how we heat our homes—will be felt much more keenly by the general public.
Unless the government steps up, at best we will miss the opportunity to tackle endemic inequalities through action on climate and nature. At worse, we risk perpetuating them. We can tackle fuel poverty, improve people’s health and wellbeing, end childhood hunger, create jobs, avoid polluting ecosystems and repair the harms we have caused to the natural world, but only if we purposefully direct the money and energy that has been put behind decarbonisation towards these goals.
Transport is currently the largest contributor to the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 2019 surface transport made up 22 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and 60 per cent of those came from cars. But when the government’s top priority is shifting from one type of vehicle (polluting petrol and diesel) to another (electric) it misses the opportunity to shift our transport system to a more equitable one. Not everyone is well served by the system as it stands. Low-income households are less likely to own a car, and more likely to suffer the negative consequences of dirty air, road traffic accidents and noise pollution. If you are a woman, person of colour or disabled you are likely to have fewer transport choices. If you live in a rural community you may be locked into car dependency, failed by poor public transport options and a deficit of local work.
The Environmental Justice Commission has run a series of citizens’ juries across the UK. We heard from people from communities across the UK that they want fairness to be put at the heart of tackling the climate and nature crises. People living in the South Wales Valleys told us they want to be able to live a good life without needing to own a car. In Thurrock we heard how the community want planning decisions to benefit nature. In Tees Valley and County Durham our jurors told us that a one size fits all approach to policy making isn’t good enough. In Aberdeenshire they argued that retraining costs for workers in carbon intensive industries should not fall to those who could least afford them.
The jurors’ recommendations are at the heart of the commission’s work. The commission now proposes that the government and devolved authorities put the same premium on the ideas and experiences of the public—the people without whom a fair transition just won’t happen.
Local communities bring practical knowledge from their society, and they want to be involved in shaping decisions that affect them. When communities are involved, the decisions are fairer, the outcomes are better and public support is longer lasting. Communities know what it’s like to walk their local streets; they can see what change is needed, and how it can be done.
The gilet jaunes protests in France, triggered by President Macron’s proposals to increase fuel tax, show the public anger and resistance that occurs when policies are not perceived to fairly account for the challenges people face in their day-to-day lives. The gilet jaunes have gone on to campaign for green measures such as mandatory building insulation. These protests were not a rejection of environmental issues; they were about public trust, which is lost when policies seem disconnected from people’s everyday priorities.
Spending now is an investment in the future. Recent modelling by the Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that debt as a proportion of GDP could increase by around 180 per cent by the end of the century if we do nothing to tackle global heating. This is far higher than the costs of acting urgently to decarbonise and mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis. The choice is to pay now and pay less, making the most of low interest rates and reaping an array of benefits, or to pay more later and face the escalating impacts of climate breakdown.
Speed is clearly of the essence. But urgency cannot be at the expense of policy makers taking the public with them. Indeed, done well, we can do more than stave off the worst; we can seize this once in a generation opportunity to build a fairer society and fix an economic model that is not only driving environmental destruction, but failing millions of people around the country.
