Covid‐19 recovery and climate change

Can we really build back better?

The few short months that we have known Covid‐19 have been a brutal tutorial in dramatic societal change. Wave after wave of shocking statistics and astonishing measures. Covid‐19 has taught us all new lessons about how modern, globally connected societies respond to acute threats. For those of us working on climate change, how should we interpret this moment?

In the climate community, some new narratives have emerged. Many view the pandemic as symptomatic of our mistreatment of the environment – a parallel of the view of climate change as a symptom of our abuse of our natural resources. Others have seen the Covid‐19 response as evidence that governments can, when motivated, effect societal change quickly – a vindication of the frustration that governments haven't taken the climate threat seriously enough. And, latterly, there is palpable concern that climate change may now be forced to take a back seat – the hard‐fought momentum of the past 18 months, lost. All of these seem insufficient. They do not adequately express the engulfing change that has occurred in recent months.

Two crises

Let's begin by looking for the parallels between these two crises: Covid‐19 and climate. It is dangerous to draw equivalence between a pandemic threat and that of climate change, but let me try.

Both are global threats, requiring a whole‐society response and international cooperation. Both carry catastrophic risks if allowed to grow. Both are regressive, impacting disproportionately on certain demographic groups. And both are threats well known to us. We should not be surprised by the primal threat of the pandemic and neither should we be surprised by the modern threat of human‐induced climate change, forecast accurately for decades.

So the first lesson is to be better prepared. Follow the science (as we've heard so often in recent months), and acknowledge and prepare for the known risks we face. The UK was not as prepared for the Covid‐19 pandemic as it could have been – it is certainly not prepared for the climate risks, nor for the move to a zero carbon economy. That must change. Government must take firmer charge of our climate preparations.

“The UK was not as prepared for the Covid‐19 pandemic as it could have been – it is certainly not prepared for the climate risks, nor for the move to a zero carbon economy”

These parallels only go so far. Covid‐19 and climate change are not the same category of threat. And they do not (must not) have the same prescription. Covid‐19 is an acute, immediate risk to life without – so far – a cure and with only primitive deterrents. Climate change is a chronic threat with a cumulative cause and feasible remedies. There is no vaccine for global warming, but there is a successful course of treatment.

Rewriting the rulebook on societal change

The next step is to understand how the pandemic will cast a shadow over our future – and how it will change the context for tackling climate change. What do we know?

We know now that governments will act when a severe risk is recognised. In the financial crisis in 2008 and the Covid‐19 crisis, we have two recent examples of rapid government intervention in the face of a systemic threat. The rulebook on achieving societal change has been ripped up and rewritten. Telehealth consultations? From niche idea to the dominant form of health consultation, practically overnight. Cycling in cities? From marginal annual increases to a 150 per cent jump during lockdown. Flying less? Remote working? Reducing energy demands? A lockdown is not the way to achieve lasting, structural societal change, but we've had a glimpse of how quickly change can occur.

We should question intrinsic assumptions about how lifestyles can change to tackle climate change. We should re‐examine our assumptions about the role government may be prepared to play if a risk is apparent. And the lockdown teaches us that there is public support for many of these changes – survey after survey confirms no appetite to return fully to the pre‐Covid template. ¹

“A lockdown is not the way to achieve lasting, structural societal change, but we've had a glimpse of how quickly change can occur”

Building back better

We know, too, that there will be deep and lasting economic damage. At the time of writing, the chancellor's generous furlough scheme and business support schemes are concealing the true picture. But businesses will certainly fail; many already have. Jobs and skills are being lost. In many cases, this will hasten a transition that was already under way, but this will be a deep recession and the scarring longlasting if government does not step in with clear industrial priorities to promote fresh employment opportunities. And amidst all of this, a colossal challenge for the new chancellor: an abrupt drop in the nation's economic output; a larger deficit; more debt; and huge pressure on the public finances.

Already, the sentinels have begun to question if we can afford to tackle climate change. ² This kind of short‐termism must be resisted strongly. We are in the midst of a health crisis. It will shortly give way to an economic crisis. Meanwhile, the climate crisis grows – even this year, during the sharpest ever contraction of global economic activity, we will grow the concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere, warming our planet further. We can confront all three crises decisively. To delay merely slows the inevitable transition to a low carbon world. It locks us needlessly into a high greenhouse gas scenario and heaps up costs into the future. The fallacy is that we face a penalty in addressing climate change. We do not. A small increase in the country's annual investment, in return for cleaner air, a modernised economy and new jobs. The transition can be a fair one if we are clear sighted about the economic changes required and manage the social changes carefully.

“Already, the sentinels have begun to question if we can afford to tackle climate change. This kind of short‐termism must be resisted strongly”

In the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, governments around the world embarked on ‘green stimulus’ programmes, amounting to just 16 per cent of the total public stimulus. But global support for carbon‐intensive industries also continued. History shows that greenhouse gas emissions rebounded, returning to rapid global growth by 2010.

We can do better this time. The UK is better prepared than it has ever been. My own organisation, the Committee on Climate Change, has laid the groundwork over the past 12 years with our forensic analysis of the investments necessary to decarbonise the UK economy by mid‐century and address many of the climate risks. We have never hidden that this is a capital‐intensive endeavour – now that fact takes a different complexion. It is the basis for an investment‐led recovery, one that is anchored in the long‐term priorities to restructure our economy to net zero emissions. A recovery that can stimulate confidence in the short run and build productive capacity in the long run.

Principles for a resilient recovery

Crucially, there is now a window to move more rapidly – to bend the climate curve more sharply in the years ahead. Our message to government in our recent report to parliament was simple: “Go for it.” ³ This was accompanied by three broad priorities for action: make climate investments the basis of the Covid‐19 recovery; lead the positive societal changes that are made possible by our experiences of lockdown; and hasten the transition to zero carbon with bold fiscal policies to change the incentive for system‐wide changes in transport, energy and land use.

“Crucially, there is now a window to move more rapidly – to bend the climate curve more sharply in the years ahead”

Drive climate investments

Upgrading our housing stock comes top of these investment priorities. Government is already committed to improving the energy efficiency of homes. New and existing buildings should also be water efficient and protected against the increasing risk of overheating as the climate changes. That programme can start now. It is labour intensive and geographically spread.

In the energy transition ahead, we have the regulatory tools to strengthen our electricity networks across the UK – an investment that will ready us for the new uses of zero carbon electricity – in transportation and low carbon heating.

Electric vehicle charge points required in the 2020s, under the government's own assessment, are a sensible public investment throughout the UK. They will remove anxiety about charging electric vehicles and accelerate the phase‐out of conventional vehicle sales by 2032.

New industrial clusters for carbon capture and hydrogen production are needed by the mid‐2020s, each requiring substantial public and private investment. These are a source of new high‐quality employment, targeted at those areas hit hardest by the economic crisis – and the coming transition from oil and gas.

The predicted doubling of flood risk due to climate change in the years ahead can be mitigated with new flood defences. Earlier this year, £5.2 billion was promised – this can be brought forward and front‐loaded to support construction jobs over the next two years.

And there is enormous potential to invest in nature and our natural capital. Improving the urban green spaces we have come to love in lockdown. Planting new forests to lock away carbon. Protecting, managing and restoring existing woodland. Conserving and restoring peatland. These are labour‐intensive programmes, strongly positive for the climate, which can begin immediately – even in times of social distancing.

“there is enormous potential to invest in nature and our natural capital”

Encourage a pro‐climate societal shift

As the structure of the economy tilts towards low carbon employment, there is a clear national need for reskilling and retraining. These programmes will close the skills gap that prevents the deployment of many low carbon technologies. Specifically, we need to train installers and designers of low carbon heating, develop the construction skills needed for zero carbon homes, and provide support for those employed in the oil and gas industries to transition to low carbon hydrogen production, carbon capture and offshore wind installation.

Other pro‐climate societal shifts can be led by government as we emerge from lockdown. Spending less on new roads and more on high‐speed telecoms will embed remote working, and reduce commuting emissions and congestion. Better provision for walking and cycling in towns and cities will ease the pressure on public transport as social distancing remains – and avert a move back to the car.

Drive a faster pace of transition

Bold fiscal policies can force an even faster pace of transition. New carbon taxes would raise the carbon price for these sectors that do not face the full costs of their greenhouse gas emissions, raising revenue for the exchequer. These can rebalance the incentive for a low carbon transition in transport and industry and energy supply. They can be introduced while global fossil fuel prices are low – so the burden on consumers is not increased in the near term.

Corporate bailouts are a further opportunity to set environmental conditions – important leverage to shift high carbon industries to lower carbon business models in the future. And targeted research and innovation funding can keep the UK's lead in innovating new low carbon and climate resilience technologies and services.

“Bold fiscal policies can force an even faster pace of transition”

These are credible steps for a recovery – not just climate policies. They meet the standard tests of policy during a recession: they can be delivered quickly; they stimulate further boosts to economic activity; they are labour intensive; and they boost spending in the UK, rather than overseas. They encourage new (pro‐climate) investments or bring forward planned investment – and they need not lead to permanently higher government deficits, especially in times of low interest rates.

Global Britain?

And what of the UK's place in our increasingly fractured, less cooperative world? Climate change, that most global of problems, still requires a multilateral approach. So, too, does a pandemic.

Next year, the UK will hold the presidencies of the G7 and the crucial United Nations climate summit, COP26. World leaders will meet in Glasgow, in November 2021, at the end of an 18‐month period when every government will attempt to stimulate its economy. True global leadership requires the UK to tie together the global climate goals with the economic recovery, using all of the UK's diplomatic machinery to encourage and cajole other leaders to make the period ahead one that achieves a faster transition towards the climate goals set in Paris in 2015. We must model that change at home.

Our world has been changed utterly by Covid‐19; our climate has hardly been changed at all. From the turmoil of recent months will emerge something new. We had no choice but to tackle the Covid‐19 crisis. But we can choose to make this a defining moment in tackling the climate crisis. If not now, then when?

Biography

Chris Stark is the chief executive of the UK Committee on Climate Change.