Appendix 5: Minutes of proceedings on the report
Wednesday 7 September 2022
Present:
Baroness Parminter
Baroness Boycott
Lord Browne of Ladyton
Lord Colgrain
Lord Grantchester
Lord Lilley
Lord Lucas
Baroness Northover
Bishop of Oxford
Duke of Wellington
Baroness Young of Old Scone
Apologies were received from Baroness Chalker and Lord Whitty.
The Committee considered the draft Report.
It was moved by the Chair to insert three amendments en bloc. The amendments were: first, in the third sentence of the second paragraph of the summary:
“Drawing on the CCC’s assessment, we have identified that 32 per cent of emissions reductions up to 2035 require decisions by individuals and households to adopt low carbon technologies and choose low-carbon products and services, as well as reduce carbon-intensive consumption.[1]
[Footnote] As we explain in Chapter 2, we are pleased to have worked with the CCC to reach this figure since we adopted a narrower focus on individual and household-level behaviour change compared to the CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget and 2022 Progress Report.”
Second, to insert in the second sentence of paragraph 6:
“We have worked with the CCC to calculate that 32 per cent of emissions reductions up to 2035 relies on decisions by individuals and households, while 62 per cent relies on the involvement of the public in some form. some degree of change in people’s behaviour.[1]
[Footnote] In this report we are concerned with behaviour change by individuals and households, which is a narrower focus compared to the CCC’s important consideration of related decisions by businesses and public authorities and of changes requiring public engagement and consent”
Third, to insert after the first sentence of paragraph 19:
“The sum of emissions reductions delivered by individual and household-level decisions is 106MtCO2e or 32 per cent of all abatement up to 2035.”
The Committee divided on the Chair’s first amendment:
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Baroness Parminter Baroness Boycott Lord Browne of Ladyton Lord Colgrain Lord Grantchester Lord Lucas Baroness Northover Bishop of Oxford Baroness Young of Old Scone |
Lord Lilley |
The first amendment was agreed to accordingly. The second and third amendments were agreed en bloc.
It was moved by Lord Lilley to leave out the summary, as amended, and insert:
“1. Most of the reduction in carbon emissions achieved so far (largely by switching from coal to gas and renewables for electricity generation) has had no direct impact on the way people live (other than the cost of subsidies).
2. It is generally assumed that further progress towards the net zero target will require significant changes in lifestyles–more frugal consumption of carbon intensive goods; eschewing fast fashion and other sumptuary waste; a change in diet away from meat and dairy; less travel by cars and more by bike, foot or public transport; less foreign travel; and lowering the thermostats in homes and buildings.
3. Our Call for Evidence therefore asked about “the lifestyle changes that may be required by individuals, households and communities and other groups to reach the government’s long-term climate change and environment goals”.
In particular, we asked about:
“areas where lifestyle changes may be most needed”,
“the UK public’s appetite for key lifestyle changes”,
“Government approaches … to behaviour change focused on: encouraging changes to individual behaviour; regulatory changes .. which restrict or eliminate choices; and fiscal measures”.
4. For a few witnesses, the prospect of government having to induce people to adopt more frugal lifestyles–even if they have collateral health benefits–represents an unwelcome and daunting challenge. They doubt the public appetite for such changes, are reluctant for government to engage in ‘nannying’ and fear it may require intrusive restrictions on freedom of choice.
5. However, most of our expert witnesses assumed substantial life-style changes will be needed to meet net zero and environmental targets and many actually welcome it. Net zero provides them a welcome additional reason to bring about more frugal lifestyles which they believe are desirable in themselves, regardless of climate change, because they are good for the health of body, mind and soul.
6. This enthusiasm for substantial life-style changes tends to dominate the public discourse and predominated among our witnesses - though we received little evidence that it is shared by the general public.
7. The other way households can reduce their carbon emissions (which did not feature in our Call for Evidence) is by adopting new low carbon technologies - e.g. replacing fossil fuelled cars by electric cars, and gas boilers by heat pumps or hydrogen boilers.
Unlike more frugal lifestyles, new technologies do not bring the co-benefits of healthier bodies, minds and souls. Indeed, insofar as these new low carbon technologies are affordable and work as well as the fossil fuel technologies they replace, they enable people to maintain their existing lifestyles which some see as unhealthy and self-indulgent.
So, advocates of more frugal life styles tend to ignore, downplay the importance of, or even oppose, the role of low carbon technologies and emphasise the key role to lifestyle changes.
8. However, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), in its 6th Carbon Budget, projected that only some 10 per cent of the reductions in carbon emissions needed by 2035 on its ‘Balanced Pathway’ to net zero will require individual lifestyle choices. The vast majority of planned reductions come from adoption of new low carbon technologies by industry and households.
9. The CCC projects that by 2035:
- Upstream: switch to low-carbon options within the supply side (e.g. renewable electricity generation) would produce 39 per cent of emissions abatement.
- Adoption of low carbon technologies: (e.g. electric cars and heat pumps) by individuals and businesses would achieve 45 per cent of emission reductions.
- Energy efficiency: “5 per cent comes from improving efficiency, in use of energy and resources, especially by better insulation of buildings, improving vehicle efficiency and improving efficiency in industry.”
- Life-style changes: “Around 10 per cent of the emissions saving in our Balanced Pathway in 2035 comes from changes that reduce demand for carbon-intensive activity. Particularly important in our scenarios are an accelerated shift in diets away from meat and dairy products, reductions in waste, slower growth in flights and reductions in travel demand.”
10. The 10 per cent contribution expected from life-style changes is far smaller than generally assumed. This is disappointingly minimal to those who advocate wholesale moves towards more frugal lifestyles.
11. Moreover, 10 per cent is not even a minimum. The CCC emphasise that its ‘Balanced Pathway’ to net zero is not the only one conceivable–“there are multiple ways to meet the net zero 2050 target”. So, despite witness claims that life-style changes are “essential”, alternatives involving, for example, more Carbon Capture and Storage could in theory entirely obviate the need to adopt more frugal lifestyles. However, such alternative pathways would probably be significantly more expensive and therefore impact living standards negatively through even higher taxes and costs.
Equally, if more extensive life style changes than those envisaged by the CCC are credibly attainable, that would make possible a pathway to net zero involving less reliance on adopting new technologies.
12. Much of the debate within the Committee has been about whether to highlight how small is the contribution from life-style changes required by the CCC. Instead, we have broadened our definition of behaviour change from meaning just life-style changes (as in our Call for Evidence) to include: a) the adoption of new technologies (electric cars and heat pumps) and b) improved energy efficiency (insulation), as well as c) lifestyle changes.
13. These total an impressive 60 per cent of the emission reductions needed on the Balanced Pathway by 2035. Readers should be aware that within that 60 per cent only one sixth (10 per cent) is provided by lifestyle changes–the heavy lifting is done by adoption of new technologies.
14. If, as we are assured, electric cars become as convenient as fossil fuelled cars, a switch from diesel to electric can no more be described as a lifestyle change than a switch from petrol to diesel. By contrast, everyone accepts that riding a bike or walking instead of driving a car is a genuine lifestyle change. Likewise, if, as we are assured, heat pumps plus insulation will be as effective as gas boilers, adopting them cannot be described as a lifestyle change–whereas setting the thermostat at a lower temperature and wearing warmer clothes would be a change of lifestyle.
15. Moreover, the adoption of new technologies like electric cars and heat pumps do not bring the co-benefits which motivate many advocates of a more frugal low carbon lifestyle.
16. Indeed, new technologies like electric cars and heat pumps will enable us to perpetuate current lifestyles (if we can still afford them). Once electricity is fully decarbonised (by 2035) there will be virtually no climate change reason for owners of electric cars to drive less or for homes heated by heat pumps or hydrogen to be kept at a cooler temperature. Hence the lack of enthusiasm for promoting new technologies among the more ardent advocates of lifestyle changes. The case for healthier and more frugal lifestyles will depend solely on their intrinsic benfits.
17. Because our Call for Evidence was focussed on lifestyle changes rather than the adoption of new technologies and energy efficiency we received little evidence about them. Hence the Committee’s decision to carry out a future study of changes required to reduce carbon emissions from domestic homes.
18. The government is driving the switch to electrification of cars and home heating–not by persuasion or applying the science of behaviour change–but simply by announcing the elimination of choice of fossil-fuel based options respectively in 2030 and 2035.
19. The Committee endorses this approach and calls for the government to “set dates for banning the use of technologies with the highest emissions and environmental impacts where suitable alternatives exist or are foreseeable”. At the same time, we criticise the government for putting “too great reliance on as yet undeveloped technologies to get us to net zero”.
Unfortunately, because adoption of new technologies was not part of our initial focus, we have not been able to identify any foreseeable new technologies the government should rely on enough to ban conventional alternatives, nor any undeveloped technologies which they should rely on less.
20. The extent to which the public will voluntarily adopt even the modestly frugal lifestyle changes requires by the CCC - even if given clear and persuasive messages about what they should do - is not clear.
21. Our enquiries into the science of behaviour change revealed only that all factors are relevant.
22. We were urged to apply lessons of the COVID pandemic for bringing about widespread behaviour change. However, those were a short term response to a short term emergency. Covid posed an immediate threat to people’s lives whereas the impact of climate change is decades away. We caution against trying to replicate the pandemic approach, especially in the light of warning and advice - unexpectedly - from Sir Patrick Vallance “to avoid messages based on fear or disgust” and to rely on people’s common sense. Since “people were pretty smart about knowing what to do … They decided not to interact quite so much - irrespective, frankly, of how soon or late governments decided to implement changes. The same is true here [with climate change]”.
23. Although life-style changes are expected to make only a modest contribution on the Balanced Pathway to net zero, the CCC did identify scope for savings from:
a. an accelerated shift in diets away from meat and dairy products.
Although the Committee believes “it may ultimately be necessary to use taxes in this area we that it is not the right moment to introduce a tax on emissions associated with … food”. As St Augustine might have said: ‘Make us vegetarian–but not yet”!
The CCC envisage a reduction in meat consumption of between 20 per cent and 35 per cent. We did not investigate whether similar reductions in bovine methane emissions could be achieved by selective breeding and changing animal feedstuffs, thereby protecting our cattle farmers.
b. reductions in waste.
The Committee endorsed criticisms of cheap ‘fast fashion’ and other forms of sumptuary excess but did not consider whether this will deprive many people in developing countries of a livelihood.
c. slower growth in flights.
Although the Committee calls on Ministers to “lead by example” on climate policy the Committee rejected a proposal that the Committee itself should set an example by members pledging to make no more than two overseas flights each in future years.
d. reductions in travel demand.
So long as some fossil fuelled vehicles remain in use and/or electricity has not been completely decarbonised, emission reductions could be achieved by encouraging people to walk, bike or use public transport instead of driving. However, we received evidence (not included in the body of the report) that the overwhelming majority of fuel consumption is on journeys which are longer than could be undertaken by bike or on foot. So, a switch to ‘active travel’ for local journeys would make negligible savings. The case for encouraging ‘active travel’ rests primarily on its health benefits.
Once electricity generation has been fully decarbonised there will be no net zero reason for owners of electric cars to restrict their mileage or switch to bike, foot or public transport.”
The Committee divided:
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Not-contents |
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Lord Lilley |
Baroness Parminter Baroness Boycott Lord Browne of Ladyton Lord Colgrain Lord Grantchester Lord Lucas Baroness Northover Bishop of Oxford Baroness Young of Old Scone |
The amendment was disagreed to accordingly.
The Committee agreed to publish the Report, with amendments.