Greening the post-Covid19 Recovery.

My name is Brian Appleby. I currently live in Nidderdale. I have a MEd in Environmental Education and EducationTechnology from Cardiff University. I am currently retired and a founding member of Zero Carbon Harrogate District. I am also a member of the Leeds and Ripon Diocesan Environmental Committee and an active member of Operation Noah.

This response to the questions raised is based on the work of two of the world’s top climate scientists – Dr (Nat. Academy of Sciences and NASA GISS) and the late Sir John Houghton (formerly co-chair IPCC and Professor Atmospheric Physics at Oxford.)

1. How can any fiscal and economic stimulus packages be aligned with the UK’s ambitions on net-zero, , the circular economy, and Goals?

Given the alarming urgency of global climate breakdown it is essential that the economy and environment be addressed together. The deep far-reaching effect of the climate impacts undermines environmental and all economic activity. The big alignment that is needed is to internalise all the external and environmental factors into the economy. It is important to end all subsidies to corporations by the banking and governmental systems. We must support all renewables like Wind, Solar, Tidal, Geo-thermal, Hydro, Biomass and all energy efficiency technologies.

The quickest and politically easiest way to fix the threat to our liveable world is for the governments to undertake a Carbon Fee and Dividend programme that can operate at long-term and short-term levels. The Citizens Climate Lobby https://citizensclimatelobby.uk/how-climate-income-works/ advise the following:

A Climate Income (carbon fee and dividend) is a quick way to cut emissions (40% within ten years), it’s cheap, and it protects the pockets of UK residents on low and middle incomes.

Who pays the fee The fee is a charge for greenhouse gas pollution. But it is different to VAT and petrol duty – the public is not charged. The businesses who extract or import fossil fuels would be charged through a new law, according to the amount they burn. The fee is set per tonne of greenhouse gases released from burning fossil fuels.

Climate Income protects people on low and middle income The dividend payment is vital to protect the pockets of UK people on low and middle incomes while humankind moves away from burning fossil fuels. The fee on fossil fuels must be high enough to make this work. But people must be able to afford heating and transport while we wait for clean energy to become the norm. And it must be popular with the voting public to survive successive governments. How Climate Income is distributed All resident adults in the UK receive a payment, children half. The payments are equal, regardless of household income or . It could be through an income tax rebate, as a benefit payment or through an app. But it must a separate payout, labelled ‘climate income’ or ‘climate dividend’ to help with its popularity so the public is reminded that this extra money is to fight and to help them budget for short-term rising costs.

Fossil fuel-burning businesses will be charged through a government law It will most probably be a new law or an amendment to the existing one – such as the 2008 Climate Change Act – or introduced into a government budget. This is why Citizens’ Climate Lobby works to influence our MPs and MEPs as our elected representatives in government and the EU.

Clever businesses will switch to cheaper, clean energy Although the public won’t be charged directly (like petrol duty or VAT), we expect business to behave as usual – ie they will raise their prices to cover their higher costs. So burning fossil fuels will become more expensive, but we don’t expect this to change behaviour by itself – clever businesses will stop using fossil fuels in their production because clean energy will be the cheaper option. And innovative technology will be encouraged because, again, it will be cheaper. So better and more affordable clean energy options will be created and people will want to switch to the cheaper option.

A climate income will stop the UK exporting emissions This is why fossil fuels are charged at source. Unless there is an equivalent carbon fee at the country of origin, fossil fuels – and fossil fuel intensive goods – will be charged. There’s no place for emissions to hide. It will not be cheaper to make a product outside of the UK and re-import. This also encourages other countries to have a carbon fee – they would want to keep the revenue from their own fee (or give it back as a dividend to their own people) rather than give this money to the UK.

2. How should the policy response to the current crisis differ from the response to the global financial crash in 2008?

The 2008 financial crisis was a direct result of excessive risk taking by banks. The bailing out of them by the UK government led to a policy of slashing public expenditures over a ten-year period. The current Covid 19 crisis has led to a massive increase in government borrowing and this is occurring at a critical time of serious climate breakdown. (For example just this week we hear about severe flooding in China, South Korea and the southern states of America caused by Hurricane Hannah and rising temperatures in the Arctic.) These crises are now inevitably intertwined and need Cooperative Governance across parties to enable solutions to be achieved. Thankfully, the initial response to Covid19 led to cross-party agreement and swift action. The next step is to continue this bipartisan approach and must include policies that end the dangerous risk taking by banks supporting fossil projects and the continued risk taking by the fossil fuel companies.

An Expansionary Policy is absolutely necessary to prevent an economic breakdown at an almost unimaginable level. Funding must be predominately targeted at the transition out of fossil fuel usage.

The estimates in economic terms reached in the Stern report and IPCC reports do not really emphasise the human cost in terms of deaths, dislocation misery, lack of security etc. Swift action is needed now after many years of delay after delay. The situation is now beyond urgent. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2020/20200706_ShiftingBellCurvesU pdated.pdf

3. In what areas should interventions be targeted to deliver both economic and environmental benefits in the short and long term?

Where are we heading now? The answer to that is quite horrifying. So it is important that the economy-environment tandem is being pointed in the right direction by Strong Cooperative Governance?

The market forces and technology are essential and effective tools but poor masters. We will need legions of risk-takers, big thinkers, innovators, engineers, entrepreneurs and smart business people to create a low emissions society.

However there will be the need for the government to open up joint programmes with industry and all those just mentioned to ensure successful outcomes.

The government will have to provide adequate resources.

The direction of the economic-environment tandem is pretty obvious. The Earth’s important sustainability issues must ALL be addressed as they are all intricately connected to one another:

 Climate breakdown

 Land-use change

 Consumption

 Waste

 Ocean habitat exploitation

To achieve genuine sustainability there must be a shift from the global attachment to economic growth and laws of supply and demand. The replacement should be the so-called doughnut model devised by Kate Raworth, Senior Research Associate, Tutor and Advisory Board member of the Environmental Change Institute of University of Oxford. She is also a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Raworth’s guide outlines what it means for countries, cities and people to thrive in balance with the planet. Amsterdam is using this to plan how the city will rebuild in a post Covid19 world to avoid falling back in operating in the pre Covid19 normal.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut- model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy

4. How could the Autumn budget be used to shift taxation from economically beneficial things, such as jobs and incomes; to environmental harms, such as pollution and waste?

The Autumn budget could make a significant step towards incentivising the necessary changes to transition out of fossil fuels and into ‘green’ jobs ( See Q6)

5. What sustainability conditions should be attached to Government bailouts for high-carbon industries?

Any form of bailout, however small, should be closely matched by necessary large reductions in the carbon-footprint of high carbon industries. Additionally, independent observers should be employed to closely monitor the reductions demanded.

Bailouts of the following would be both dangerous and irresponsible:

 Fossil fuel firms

 Motor manufacturing (standard cars)

 Aviation

 Farming

 Plastic production

 Timber extraction

However, the Government should be willing to promote and provide training for those moving out of high carbon industries.

6. How can the economic recovery stimulus be used to deliver green jobs at a time of potentially high unemployment?

There is a massive potential to create hundreds of thousands of ‘green’ jobs at the same time as the UK transitions away from polluting and high carbon footprint industries to sustainable and sustaining industries. Incentive Schemes are needed to give adequate resources for research and development of promising technologies and activities.

Sectors involved are:

1) Transport – a wide range of developments

a) E-cars and hydrogen cars

b) of railways

c) Shipping and aviation (drastic changes needed!!)

2) Building – energy efficient homes and businesses.

a) Rishi Sunak’s Insulation programme is a good start but more is needed to encourage the building industry to build carbon neutral homes.

b) Re-introduction of FIT payments to encourage people to use non fossil fuel sources like Solar Panels, Heat Source pumps and domestic roof turbines.

3) Energy production – Building and servicing

a) Wind, solar, grid-upgrade, tidal streams (possible 20% of UK energy needs), wave and geothermal and localised energy projects.

b) Nuclear – Small Modular Reactors. The SMR’s generate less than 300MW, and as little as 5Mw – for further information

c) https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/reactors/research-reactors/other-reactor- facilities/small-modular-reactors.cfm#_blank

4) Nature Conservation- re-wilding, biodiversity and

5) Agriculture

a) Linked to 3 & 4 above in terms of land-use.

b) Ban the spraying of fields with rich liquid cow and pig manure on fields.

c) Shift to alternatives to beef production

d) Electrification or hydrogen fuelled agricultural machinery and activities

6) Carbon Capture and Storage Projects e.g. Direct Air Capture (DAC)

7) Continue to increase waste recycling as we shift to a Circular Economy ( July 2020)

8) Encourage a shift to modular products for ease of repair and upgrading. e.g. Fair Phone https://www.fairphone.com/en/ 7. The pause in economic activity, fall in traffic and increase in working from home during the lockdown has resulted in rapid reductions in air pollution and ; what measures can be utilised in the recovery to continue these trends as economic activity resumes?

Drivers of vehicles are constantly being held responsible for the significant rise in air pollution and climate breakdown. However, primarily, it is the fossil fuel companies who should carry the near total responsibility for the use of their products. They are totally aware of the effects of their products, as were the tobacco companies in the 1950’s. The fossil fuel industry has known about the role of its products in global warming for 60 years. Exxon’s own scientists warned their managers 40 years ago of “potentially catastrophic events”

David Hone, Shell UK’s Climate Change Adviser, has been quoted as saying that “Shell UK is waiting to be given “permission” by the UK Government to transition out of fossil fuels”

Applying a Carbon Fee and Dividend system would send a clear signal that the transition must be implemented.

Additionally car and lorry manufacturers should now be required to clearly mark their emissions per kilometre on an exterior plate so that everyone is aware of their own level of responsibility. There is a good case for banning manufacture of cars with emissions of more than140g/km. (how to live a low- carbon life: p152, Chris Goodall). Most car emissions are from commuting journeys and personal trips to visit friends or ‘places’. Covid19 has shown that commuting to work can be avoided. The shift should be encouraged to implement as much home working as possible.

City emissions could be reduced even further, by providing park and public transport rides for the last couple of miles into town.

The Government should be encouraged to help people buy electric/hydrogen cars as the emerging technology is far too expensive for many who would like to transition from petrol and diesel cars.

In addition the aviation industry stands out as a high contributor of CO2 contributing to12% of global emissions, as well as oxides of nitrogen and water vapour into the atmosphere. Covid19 has shown how the skies became so much clearer during lockdown in many countries. Chris Goodall is quoted as saying “The particular virulence of aviation’s impact on eventual global temperatures means that severe and uncompromising self restraint is an obligation”. The overall impact of aviation is a disaster for the environment and Governments should seek to find ways to reduce flying unless absolutely necessary.

8. In the run up to Conferences of the Parties to UN conventions on climate change and biodiversity next year, how can the UK use its influence, as both host of COP26 and when holding the Presidency of the G7 in 2021, to influence the nature of economic rescue packages around the world? The UK is in the enviable position to be able to promote a “Great Green Shift” if it leads by example. Show, not tell, will influence those at COP26. All nations will need to work closely together (both developed and developing) with national, international and multinational industries to craft solutions that are both sustainable and equitable.

Perhaps there needs to be a “Declaration of Interdependence” to show we are all bound together in the face of adversity. From this can emerge Technology Transfer from developed countries to developing countries to ensure that energy growth in developing countries is going to proceed in a sustainable way.

Secondly, the UK government could discuss and develop an international legally binding duty of care towards the Earth – an Ecocide Law. Making ecocide a crime will not only act as a brake on the companies themselves by making the senior executives personally criminally responsible; it will discourage government ministers issuing permits for it, banks from lending on it, investors from backing it and insurers from underwriting it. In fact, the whole infrastructure that silently underpins and sanctions acts of large scale environmental destruction will be seriously weakened.

Discuss and float to other members of COP26 the idea of international grids powered by solar floating fields on dams, reservoirs and large harbours.

In conclusion -

The world needs to be envisioned to see cleaner skies (as we experienced during Covid19 lockdown), purer water, healthy children free to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation, their bodies not hindered by pollution, their brains not diminished by toxins. We see an economy that is the envy of the world, producing the technologies that help us to achieve life, liberty and happiness. We see technologies that lead to a cleaner environment and plentiful, affordable energy to power our homes, vehicles and businesses. ( p64 Caring for Creation Mitch Hescox & Paul Douglas)

This is not an impossible vision if the world’s governments will pull together and demonstrate practical care for the planet; it’s population and future generations.