Outlining new research, The Young Foundation’s Director of Sustainability and Just Transition, Emily Morrison, says with “person-centred, place-based” policies, the UK can plot a path to a fair net zero future.
Emily Morrison
The Young Foundation’s Director of Sustainability and Just TransitionChallenges of Achieving Net Zero for All
Reaching the UK’s ambitious decarbonisation goals – which means achieving ‘net zero’ by 2050 – requires the participation of everyone, in all parts of the UK.
To say this isn’t going to be easy is an understatement; the task requires a huge societal shift. It demands large-scale change in every aspect of life, rethinking how we spend money, how we travel and commute, the work we do and the industries jobs exist in, the food we eat, and even how we have fun.
Further complicating this is the cost of transition. The Legal and General Rebuilding Britain Index 2022 shows households with an income of under £20,000 are significantly less able to adapt their heating or energy efficiency, or make their transport greener, compared to middle- and higher-earning brackets. This is despite the 2022 Institute for Community Studies research showing that appetite for participating in the green transition is largely consistent across income brackets.
Addressing Inequalities in Net Zero Transition:
Current political debates do not sufficiently account for the role of the public in reaching net zero. In fact, policies for the UK’s transition remain primarily focused on industry and technological solutions and a macro strategy for retrofit of housing stock, including social housing.
For all the debate around investment levels and how highly our environmental challenges should be prioritised, there is a lack of discussion, evidence, and policy on the action needed from different households, communities, sectors, and places, and on the disruption any transition will bring. We still have no national public participation strategy to achieve a greener future – something that was recommended in 2021 by the (then) Department for Business, Energy, Innovation and Skills (BEIS) and reiterated in the House of Lords’ review in 2022.
If decarbonisation policies are designed and implemented without the public impact in mind, net zero transition risks exacerbating existing inequalities further – and risks excluding vulnerable families from making green choices, pushing whole communities who cannot pay for technology or upfront changes further into deprivation. As Our Journey to Net Zero, a new report from the Institute for Community Studies at The Young Foundation, puts it, current policies risk making the poor poorer – widening the inequality gap between those whose lives will become cheaper, healthier, more prosperous, and greener from transition and those who cannot access or adopt green choices.
This also risks further alienating those who – perhaps understandably – are sceptic or resistant to the small-scale policies already being attempted around net zero because constraints are being foregrounded over opportunities, and because the financial support and information required to make changes (such as switching from polluting cars) isn’t there or isn’t accessible.
The lack of clear, trusted government information and messaging to engage the public opens a vacuum for misinformation and conspiracy, wasted efforts, unregulated markets, and polarisation. We need to change the debate, focusing on the human impacts and the positive opportunities for communities through net zero transition.
Toward a Just Transition:
Since the 1980s, the ‘green’ debate has widened from economies and workers’ rights to include how welfare, services, housing, political rights, and decent quality of life should be protected – and indeed, improved – for all communities through decarbonisation. In November 2015, a ‘just transition’ was defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as “Greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind.”
In 2021, more than 30 countries pledged a ‘just’ transition at COP26. But policy solutions and inclusivity measures currently lag far behind the frameworks and if policymakers fail to consider the distribution of costs and benefits in net zero transition, there is a risk that existing inequalities in society will be exacerbated, and new ones created.
Our Journey to Net Zero calls for a “person-centred, place-based approach” to policymaking that accounts for the variable opportunities and risks faced by different households and communities, working towards fair outcomes alongside decarbonisation. In particular, this research identifies opportunities to revisit existing policies – particularly those with limited uptake – to make them more accessible and more attractive to poorer and vulnerable households.
This isn’t always a total overhaul; it can be small-scale improvements to access, such as changes to the credit score levels demanded, the way eligibility is measured, and how people demonstrate household income. There is also a significant opportunity to improvesupport schemes involving local social infrastructure, local government leadership, local networks, and collaborative community-centred approaches (such as community retrofit).
Our research calls for policy that will build participation transparently and that recognises the need for diverse approaches that will measure households’ different starting points, in different places – supporting green choices based on profiles of vulnerability to transition and access. The framework for the policy development we propose presents characteristics that make people and whole communities more or less ready to participate in transition but also recognises the reality of people’s dynamic, lived experiences and family and community relationships. All these things impact people’s motivations and decision-making.
Buried in the debates, policy U-turns, controversies and, sometimes, confusion, the UK’s transition to net zero can be a positive story. Our research finds that where people can see that the changes they can make will contribute to a greener future, 96 per cent want to participate in net zero – and what is more, many are already doing so on a small but significant scale. There is a huge opportunity here to build robust, people-focused net zero policies, not just technological solutions. Let’s do that effectively, inclusively, and in ways that result in fairer outcomes.
Read more here: https://www.youngfoundation.org/our-work/publications/our-journey-to-net-zero/
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