32: 2021 wrapped

We managed an actual face-to-face catch-up in Fraser's flat! (squeezed in before the ramping up of COVID-19 measures). There *may* have been alcohol, as we reflected on personal, professional and podcasting highlights from an extraordinary year. Huge thanks for being with us in 2021. The whole LZ team wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. X

Episode Transcript:

[Music flourish]

Fraser:  Okay, we are now recording.

Rebecca:  De de da! [Laughter] Hello and welcome to Local Zero. You’re listening to Becky, Matt and Fraser and this is a super-duper special episode because it’s our Christmas special. Woo hoo!

Fraser:  And we’re all hammered [laughter].

Matt:  Ding dong merrily on high to all [laughter]. Yeah, this is the first time we’ve actually all properly gotten together to do the pod since we started back... time is blurry now but October 2020.

Fraser:  2020, yeah, even the live episode, Becky didn’t make it down to the live and so this actually the first episode we’ve recorded in the same room.

Matt:  It is.

Rebecca:  Wow!

Matt:  Yeah, which is quite shocking but there you go. That’s pandemics for you but no, it’s really great to get together. We’re currently sitting in Fraser’s kitchen which is the hub of all activity. 

Fraser:  It’s actually the centre of the climate and political universe, yeah [laughter].

Rebecca:  And I’ve just discovered the centre of the gin universe [laughter].

[Music flourish]

Matt:  No, it’s really good to get everybody back and obviously, it’s been a crazy year for all the reasons that the listeners will be aware of but personally, for each of us, it’s been a busy year. We thought today that we should really take stock and try and make a bit of sense of it all.

Fraser:  That’s it. It’s about that time. So much has happened this year and even if you discount the teeny tiny pandemic that’s still rumbling on between COP and the enormous run-up to that, it’s been huge for us personally, professionally and for the pod as well. We’ve actually put a bit of a shift in I would say.

Matt:  We have. I haven’t got the numbers in front of me. I probably should but the number of pod episodes we’ve produced and minutes...

Rebecca:  A lot.

Matt:  It’s a lot. It’s a long list. I have to scroll for about 30 seconds to get to the bottom of it now. Yeah, it’s been quite a lot. I think we’re all very happy with how this year has gone with the pod and we’re so happy that we’ve got so many listeners listening now. We really appreciate all the engagement that you’ve made on Twitter and by email and to all of you who have come to some of the events that we’ve been running, we’re thrilled that you’ve been able to come along for the ride.

Rebecca:  So as part of this – I think it was Fraser – you challenged us to think about our highlights from the year in terms of the pod, in terms of our professional lives and in terms of our personal lives. I have to say I thought that the easiest one of all of those was going to be the pod highlights and then I opened the page with all of our episodes and literally every episode I looked through, I thought, ‘Oh, that one. No, no, that one. No, that one.’ [Laughter] There have just been so many that have been great because of the topics that we’ve covered. I loved the episode we just did after COP with Dave Reay because it was so beautifully explained. He was so clear about the key things that had come out of COP that it was almost like a penny dropped in my mind around some of the issues.

Fraser:  Yeah, I think after the mania of COP  as well, it felt like a little bit of catharsis and a little bit like he kind of lined everything up and you thought, ‘Now it feels that there’s a bit more reason to it and we understand the next steps a little bit better.’

Matt:  It’s also nice having guests back and actually, that’s been a really nice thing, over the year, that we’ve had certain people returning. Beyond Dave Reay, we’ve had Jeff Hardy come back once or twice. It’s just great to have individuals come back and it is really difficult to pick. I’m looking through this and for me, one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this is being able to be a bit greedy and move into a space which you otherwise wouldn’t have had time for in your personal and professional life and it makes you kind of go into a space and hoover up a bit of knowledge about an area which you otherwise wouldn’t dip into. We’ve been lucky enough to have the experts to educate us which, lord, I needed educating [laughter] about a lot of stuff.

Fraser:  Okay then, on the spot, if either of you wants to open the batting... we talked about Dave Reay in the last episode. Cast your mind back over the last year and what were one or two highlights for you of the podcast?

Rebecca:  I loved the episode we did on the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.

Fraser:  I loved that too. Really loved that episode.

Rebecca:  It was so real hearing about the challenges and the opportunities as way more than just energy or transport. It was really digging into people’s lives and I loved it but the other episode that I loved was one that I wasn’t involved in at all and it was the one that you recorded on your own, Fraser.

Fraser:  I think that everyone agrees that that was the best episode [laughter]. I almost wasn’t going to mention it but now that you’ve said it, Becky, yeah, I think that was a very good episode. I loved the LTN episode as well. One of my favourite bits, and I’m maybe sort of kissing my own backside a little bit, was the segment with Brenda Peuch, the guerrilla parklets OG.

Matt:  Yeah, loved that.

Fraser:  She was just incredible; the ethos, the deeds not words. Ah, it was amazing and then, of course, Leo Murray from Possible and John Burke who were just a real double act at times too. It felt like a very warm episode.

Matt:  A formidable double act. Leo also came on to one of my favourite episodes which was Moving on Up, the one on transport. We also had Debbie Hopkins and Iain Docherty on that. I think my jaw hit the floor three or four times on that one because whilst I knew the scale of the transport problem, I didn’t realise how intractable it was and how difficult it was going to be to solve. I really, really enjoyed that one. I think the LTN one linked into that.

Fraser:  Yeah, they kind of flowed from each other. The other one that you mentioned, Becky, the local heroes one, I loved that one and not just because it was me, effectively, just interviewing my mates around Glasgow [laughter] but hearing from people who have been doing this for so long in their communities. Actually, that was the first one where we got to go out on-site and speak to people in their environments rather than doing it from behind the screen. I think that comes across. You get a bit of the ambient sounds. You hear the bustle. Everyone is relaxed and it’s a really, really nice episode and inspiring in terms of the work that they do and the insights they give.

Matt:  That was why recording – I nearly said filming. Not quite [laughter].

Fraser:  That’s the big news story. I’ve moved it on, yeah, [laughter] big time.

Matt:  Recording COP26 was just so liberating and exciting because all of a sudden, you had this recorder in your hand and you thought, ‘I could record anything.’ For me, going on the march and recording with the kids and just trying to catch these ambient sounds of people singing, protesting and talking was the sound of COP and the sound of this energy, this hope and protest. Yeah, I get goosebumps thinking about it because being in the middle of it was so invigorating and it gave me the energy to finish the year because I was pretty tired at that point [laughter] but it pushed me on.

Fraser:  I loved that episode. I thought it was extremely powerful. I thought you got a lot of real-world insights. It’s so difficult. I’ve got a list of another three or four but I think if I’m going to narrow it down, one of my real highlights of the year... and maybe it’s just the name and maybe it’s just the pizzazz but the one that we opened the year up with and that was the interview with Chris Stark. I thought he was awesome. He was quick with everything. It was actually a really warm conversation, despite it being around various high-level Climate Change Committee’s new report and the carbon budget. I thought that was a great way to kick off the year. Yeah, a big podcast highlight for me.

Rebecca:  Yeah, I can’t believe I didn’t mention that earlier actually [laughter]. It was a really amazing one. The other one that I loved which was one of our very early ones was around fuel poverty where we talked to Amiee Ambrose and we also talked to a couple of folk based in Orkney. I loved that because I think Aimee laid out the challenges really clearly and really beautifully but we also got to hear from people who were actually working on this day-to-day. That is what they are doing every day right at the frontline, so that was amazing for me as well.

Fraser:  Yeah, that was a really good episode. We touched on it a little bit as well. We’re effectively just going through every episode [laughter] but we did the energy crisis episode where we spoke with Dhara from Citizens Advice.

Matt:  Yeah, the energy crisis one was just so good.

Fraser:  Yeah, and Clem Cowton. Jeff Hardy was on that episode too.

Matt:  He was, yeah. It was very much at the outset of the energy crisis but we know the issues that we were unpacking are going to set the tone, not just about the energy market from a business analyst perspective but people in their front rooms and kitchens are going to be feeling this right now as this goes out and it’s arguably is going to get even worse in March and April, so it was great to unpack that. If you had to twist my arm, which you’re not, and I had to pick one... well, actually, I’m going to pick two [laughter]. I’ll put one as runner-up and then one as a favourite. For runner-up, I’d probably say the interview with Greg Barker actually which I really enjoyed. It was quite a personal thing for me because, through my PhD, I was covering a lot of work that Lord Barker was involved with then. He wasn’t a lord and was a minister. He was trying to unpack some of the policies, why they were designed that way and how he felt about them. Obviously, this is one perspective and it was from the government at the time but I actually felt he was remarkably honest about it. It was my first experience interviewing a former minister, so that was good. But if I had to pick one, it would be the first land episode we did with Malcolm Combe...

Fraser:  Oh yeah!

Matt:  ...and Kate Swade. We were talking about ownership of land and, again, it was one of those head-exploding moments where you think, ‘Ah, it’s all about land.’ Every little bit of net zero all kind of leads back to the ownership of land and the justice implications of that. I could go on and on and I won’t but... just go listen to that.

Fraser:  Yeah, that was a good episode. I did the interview with Magnus Davidson.

Matt:  Magnus was on that as well, yeah. Absolutely and Magnus has just been a fantastic voice to listen to around the trials and tribulations of rural Scotland, particularly the Highlands and Islands. He’s a really strong voice and commentary around green LEDism and what’s happening with high net-worth individuals, companies and off-setting. At COP26 and hearing all about this, it’s only going to get worse and worse. Yeah, it’s a real hot topic. I was glad we were able to connect with them about it because I’ve heard so much.

Fraser:  Fair play to you, Matt, for pinning yourself down on a single episode there. Becky, on the spot, a single episode?

Rebecca:  Goodness me. If I had to pick a single one, and we haven’t even mentioned it yet, it was the episode we did with Becky Willis.

Fraser:  Oh, that was a belter as well, yeah.

Rebecca:  It was a brilliant episode and I can’t even remember what it was called. I’m desperately scrolling... Power to the People.

Fraser:  That’s it, yeah.

Rebecca:  What a great title as well. I really enjoyed that one because for me, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That is what this whole thing is about.

Matt:  And it’s on the back of all of her work with the Citizens’ Assembly, the initial Climate Citizens Assembly in the UK, which I know other guests like Chris Stark were heavily involved with... Rich Lowes I know was involved with this but it has been replicated...

Fraser:  That was another episode.

Matt:  Another brilliant one [laughter]. We’re just going to be here all night. That’s been replicated elsewhere. Almost every city has set up its own citizens’ assembly now, so it’s real trailblazing stuff. 

Fraser:  Absolutely. I think a gun to my head, I’ll go back to the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). There was a feel about that episode and I think the conversation that I was lucky enough to have with Brenda, the original person who put together the parklets to reclaim urban space, was incredible. It’s one of my favourite conversations I’ve ever had with anyone in my life. Amazing. We’ve covered a fair bit of ground.

Matt:  Yeah, and there are many more I want to talk about [laughter].

Fraser:  A shoutout to everyone who has been on. It’s been amazing. Nobody was bad.

Rebecca:  Actually, this is the big thing for me is that this started out as a podcast where we started to think about what the episodes and topics would be but it’s actually become a conversation and a journey. It’s the links between the episodes and it’s the continuity. You mentioned, Matt, that a couple of guests have come back a few times. It’s the Future or Fiction? It’s the conversations that we’re having and it feels like it’s a story that is unfolding before our very eyes and that’s what I love.

Matt:  Sitting down with any expert and for them to be able to take a huge topic, which is too big for you to get your arms around and really understand and for them to just break it down into a few soundbites. Actually, I haven’t mentioned this and I’m throwing it in there because I’ve got the mic is Leo Hickman talking about COP26 just before COP26 happened. I was like, ‘Holy Moly. That’s what is at stake and that’s how it’s going to play out.’ Actually, I think he probably called most of it right which is difficult to do.

Fraser:  Although we’re not giving him any credit because he shafted us at the Carbon Brief quiz [laughter].

Matt:  Exactly! Yeah, so the praise ends there [laughter]. In fact, probably a professional high, or one of them, was going to the quiz. I really enjoyed that. It was so good to be with everybody.

Fraser:  I think that’s quite a neat segue. We did a podcast highlight. What about professionally? Because actually, COP being in Glasgow, I think professionally and specifically has been huge for all of us. How do you feel?

Matt:  Obviously, COP26 was a massive highlight and for me, it’s a professional and personal thing I guess, and we’ll come on to the personal in a minute, and having Glasgow as the host city was a dream come true. I’m not Glaswegian and I’m not Scottish. I’m British. To be honest, it could have been my home city like Manchester or other places I’ve lived in and I’ve been here for five years. If you live there long enough, you care about a place. I truly, deeply care about this city and to see it as the host of this international conference was fantastic and to contribute to so many different events was brilliant. There was the Local Zero live that we did and we had a fantastic panel but it was also the audience and to have them all in one room in a beautiful building... we were in Rennie Mackintosh’s Lighthouse and it just felt like there were all these things coming together. I felt so lucky to have this event that we were part of. After Covid as well, it made it even sweeter.

Fraser:  I can say from first-hand experience as well that it was expertly hosted, Matt. I thought it was very good. You picked up a lot of the slack because I was monstrously hungover that day as well [laughter].

Matt:  I didn’t notice. Many lessons were learnt like do not wear a big, thick, tweed jacket under spotlights [laughter]. That’s a life lesson learnt.

Rebecca:  Hang on a minute, you do not wear thick, tweed jackets anyway if you’re under 70 [laughter].

Matt:  I think there was the jumper underneath it that was the killer but there you go [laughter].

Fraser:  So Becky, how about you? Professional highlight because there’s been so much this year.

Rebecca:  It’s been challenging and I’m sure that there’s lots of stuff that just isn’t popping into my mind. I’m just thinking back to what I was even doing in January. I think it was COP as well. For me, the big thing about COP... I can’t even pick out one event like the Local Zero live. It was just the fact that instead of talking to somebody on a screen where you just see their faces and maybe their shoulders, I actually got to interact with my colleagues in person. It was phenomenal but for me, it was also more than that because it wasn’t just that I got to see people in person. I actually totally immersed myself in COP and I managed to disconnect from my role as a mum and I managed to completely be my work self, fully engage and connect with colleagues in a way that I don’t think I’ve done since lockdown started.

Fraser:  Yeah, that’s so nice to hear. Obviously, it’s a separate thing but I remember – maybe a bit of a confessional now – at the start of the podcast, I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel myself. We know each other in real life, right? I think everyone felt that kind of Zoom fatigue and a little bit of depersonalisation when you’re talking through a screen. I found it really, really difficult and I think you’re right that COP felt like that point where you thought, ‘These people are real. They exist and we get to actually see them and connect eye to eye.’ It was lovely. It was a really monumental thing.

Matt:  It was remarkable how many people I met for the first time at COP who I’d been working with for a really long time and who had written funding bids with, recorded pods with or written papers with. I thought, ‘Oh wow! You’re so much taller or smaller than I thought you were.’ [Laughter] You’re kind of looking at them and saying, ‘You really are three-dimensional.’ [Laughter]

Fraser:  Yeah, our producer, Dave, at Local Zero live is enormous [laughter].

Rebecca:  No! Really?

Matt:  He was either going to be much taller or much smaller than we expected and it turned out he was taller [laughter]. Professional highlight then?

Fraser:  Yeah, there have been a lot. It’s been a big year and lots of exciting stuff has happened. COP is the obvious one. Everything that I’ve been doing this year kind of culminated in COP and I’ve just been rocking back and forward in a dimly lit room ever since.

Matt:  Yeah, sounds familiar.

Fraser:  I’ve been privileged. I’ve won some nice awards of recognition for my work but I wrote a piece at the beginning of the year on my experience as someone from a deprived background and working-class background in climate and energy and it was received so amazingly. It was shared and it led to a much bigger discussion. I’ve been really fortunate to have that discussion with people that I’ve idolised professionally in the media and all kinds of places for ages. I’ve made some cool friends and managed to get to do lots of cool things. That was a piece that I’d sat on for a while and I thought, ‘Do I write this? Do I make it personal or is it a little bit too informal?’ It was just received so well. I couldn’t have expected any more. That was the snowball for everything else that I’ve gotten to do this year.

Matt:  Oh, it was a fantastic piece. For listeners, we’ll maybe try and link this in because you should definitely have a read. It was really warmly received by the likes of George Monbiot and others. I don’t want to give spoilers but you’re obviously doing some really fascinating stuff with some well-known household names... not me.

Rebecca:  I feel like Fraser is going to be abandoning us soon for his bigger friends.

Matt:  We’re a footnote [laughter]. It’s funny you say that... we’ll maybe hold that to towards the end. As professional highlights go, that’s some serious stuff.

Rebecca:  Hang on a minute, are we not going to be talking about your big moment on stage during COP?

Matt:  From the professional to the personal highlights of 2021, obviously, personally and professionally, it’s been a challenging year. I’m hoping there are some highlights.

Rebecca:  I don’t know if this is because COP was so recent and fresh in our minds but one of my personal highlights was the Moving for Climate Now bike ride. The reason that that was a personal highlight for me is purely to do with the physical element of it. I’m not a cyclist. I have a mountain bike and I had a mountain bike lesson for my birthday in the November when we started the pod. Shortly after that, I injured my ankle and had to have surgery earlier in the summer, so I’ve actually not done anything in terms of physical fitness. I’ve not been able to walk for more than about ten minutes. In fact, during the bike ride, I was still on crutches to get around COP [laughter]. I reckon we probably cycled around 250 kilometres over the four days and I don’t cycle. For me, that was my highlight. Oh my goodness, I challenged myself. I’m genuinely surprised I didn’t fall off and that I’m still alive right now.

Matt:  I’m very glad that you didn’t fall off. That would have been tragic and also this Christmas episode wouldn’t have been half as interesting [laughter]. Have you carried on with the cycling? [Laughter] That good, was it?

Rebecca:  No, I have actually. During the bike ride, one of our stops was at Whitelee Wind Farm just outside of Glasgow which is a phenomenal place. Unfortunately, the day that we went there during the bike ride, the weather was so bad that you actually could barely even see the turbines. I’ve been back up there since to have a cycle around and it is amazing. There are so many trails up there and it’s absolutely beautiful.

Matt:  What I like about that example is that you’ve got this facility, a wind farm, that’s generating power and ostensibly, that’s what it is there for but these turbines are just part of the wider landscape. It depends on what you want to do with the landscape but the amount of people that go there and do things like running, walking their dogs and you see people on horses and riding bikes shows it’s more than a wind farm. People may argue about access rights and people have very strong views on this and I appreciate that but ultimately, that space is used for more than just generating power and I can’t say that about most nuclear power plants or coal-fired power stations.

Fraser:  That’s a good point. It’s a really interesting point actually. It’s almost a little country trail. You can extend it too and you could spend a whole day there if you wanted to.

Matt:  The access to it is largely because they had to get the turbines there, so you have to have these access tracks. They’re already there.

Rebecca:  It was amazing and so many people were out there walking their dogs. It was absolutely beautiful and you’re right, you don’t get people walking their dogs around a nuclear plant.

Matt:  Well, not normally [laughter]. It depends on what you’re into [laughter].

Rebecca:  More than that, it’s at the top of the hill, it’s at a high point so that you can get the wind but it also means you’ve got the most phenomenal views from there. I’m not going to lie; it makes it a really, really cold cycle around on a Glasgow winter day. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know if you’ve been up close to any turbines as they’re spinning. Wow! It’s a little bit scary.

Fraser:  Yeah, they’re big and I know a lot of listeners are going to say, ‘Well, obviously they’re big!’ Yeah, when you’re right next to one and standing underneath...

Rebecca:  Yeah, and the sound of it coming past you. You think, ‘Please don’t fall off.’ [Laughter].

Matt:  So, Fraser, have you got another long list of personal highlights?

Fraser:  No, no. Only nine or ten [laughter].

Matt:  Do you want to take the top three?

Fraser:  No, one of them is just a smug little side thing.

Rebecca:  Working with me and Matt, right?

Fraser:  Yeah, that was it.

Matt:  Scratch that one out [laughter].

Fraser:  The big personal highlight was getting to give a speech at George Square during COP26 on the stage with Greta and all those activists that were there. It was amazing. That was the first big march of COP. It felt big and it felt powerful. Everyone had been looking forward to seeing all those people on the stage talking and doing their piece. I was massively privileged to be invited to go and do the same to 10,000 people in George Square who were from all kinds of places and not just ‘typical’ climate people but people who do community work in the East End to indigenous groups from West Papua. Everyone was covered in that crowd and it was incredible, it was received well and, in general, it was a powerful day and I was privileged to be a part of it. That’s the obvious one but aside from that, at Glasgow Community Energy, we hit our fundraising target all from local investment and none of it really from big donors or anything like that. It was all small investments. We’ve been working on Glasgow Community Energy since 2016 which was the inception and so to finally get to that and raise the money with everything generating and working as it should be... I’d say they’re split at the top for that. It’s a kind of professional highlight as well. The last one, the little soppy one, that I had at the end... this means nothing to listeners but I’ve got a few pals, including my younger brother (they wouldn’t mind me saying this) back home who have bounced about struggling for the last few years and who have actually found their calling, as it were. They’re doing stuff now that they love and that they enjoy. They’re finally in jobs or running their own business, whatever it might be, and they’re just thriving. In the midst of all the chaos, the noise and the nonsense, it’s just really, really nice to see. That’s the kind of thing where you have friends or family doing well and you feed off that and you bounce off that. So that’s my soppy little one, yeah.

Matt:  That’s a really good one and a very important one. Personally, my kids are growing up now and they’re twins who will be five in January. It’s been interesting to see my family, as they’re growing up, then start to capture these environmental sensitivities too and start to become aware. As they make greater sense of the world, they start to make greater sense of the problems but also the solutions. Taking them on the march when we did the climate march, for me, was a real eye-opener. It wasn’t just the kids, it was my wife, Kat, and slowly but surely, she’s become more green and in many respects, she’s the one calling me to account for certain things. So what ends up happening is you’ve kind of got this little unit of education at home which people are teaching each other. I’m learning stuff from the kids. They’re coming back from nursery saying, ‘We learned this today, Dad.’ It’s a pride thing but it’s a personal thing and we’re moving through this weird kind of net-zero just transition thing as a family first and foremost. So personally, that’s been quite eye-opening. You sit around your kitchen and you start looking at what’s in your fridge and what’s on your driveway and you start asking these questions. Kids ask you really amazing questions which you’re not expecting [laughter] and you have to think really hard about answering them. I think in a COP year with COP here, that has been a personal highlight because it’s been a personal challenge as well; trying to walk the talk which is not easy it turns out [laughter] but we’re willing to give it a go.

Fraser:  I find this as well. It’s my fiancé who hauls me up on stuff. I’m really, really bad for things that might be recyclable going into a whole pile and I’ll just chuck it in the bin. She’ll say, ‘Fraser, you’re meant to be the guy... if anyone should ever hear about this, I could end your whole career if I wanted to.’ She’ll say, ‘No, he doesn’t even know what stuff is supposed to go where.’ Not that Glasgow takes the bins anyway but that’s another conversation. That’s interesting. It’s nice though. So do you feel like COP was a bit of a moment for them as well but maybe in a different way?

Matt:  Yeah. I have a frustration as well though with not just Glasgow but with the UK. I think we really did miss an opportunity though. I don’t think we had that discussion more broadly about what it means and I think we need to have that. There was a perfect opportunity to have that in the lead-up to COP and so that’s why I think these citizens’ assemblies we were talking about before are really important. COP26 was the opportunity to start asking those questions. I think the BBC actually, in fairness, have started to lay out some of those questions through the kind of stuff that’s been coming out, whether it’s the super soap drama about climate change. We had some other fantastic stuff like shopping programmes about how to save the planet. That’s all happening but I don’t feel like it’s cut through yet.

Rebecca:  I think it’s too conceptual for me. Even when it’s coming through, it’s still at the concept level rather than the action level. The example you gave about recycling, Fraser, is a constant source of tension in our household [laughter]...

Matt:  It’s the biggest source of tension.

Rebecca:  ...but half of it for me is figuring out what can be recycled, where it goes and what gets combined and different local authority areas are a bit different. I feel like there’s a piece in here that’s missing which is about making it the easy choice; not just the normal thing to talk about but actually making it something that is fundamentally easy to do in our day-to-day lives. You could look at that from a transport perspective. I still hate the fact that – goodness me – I do almost an hour round trip in the morning to drop my kids off at nursery and then my dog off at doggy daycare which is ridiculous and I have to do it in the car because there isn’t another easy option.

Matt:  Yeah, and we live in just our little Twittershere and listen to the debates that are raging there, those are the kind of debates that need to be happening in everybody’s front room, town hall, church – you name it - or at the school gates. I think we’re moving towards that. My concern is if we use the stick and maybe carrot before we’ve had those conversations, people may push back. Some people are always going to push back on this but for those that are willing to be swayed, encouraged and cajoled in the right direction, we can’t do that prematurely. It can’t be before the discussion. Nobody likes somebody unilaterally taking action on their behalf. Nobody. I don’t. I like to be consulted first. So how are we going to do that? That’s kind of what Local Zero is all about.

Fraser:  Yeah, it’s trying to dig into it and saying, ‘Here’s what it means,’ and trying to make sense of it. This is something that’s always guided the conversations we have. We try and make sure that the takeaway is by saying, ‘What is the practical next step? What do we do? What does a listener or someone who’s interested in this take away?’ I think something that has been interesting is that there were one or two polls - I think Opinium was one but I can’t remember the other – that had people ranking climate as their top concern which was ahead of Covid.

Matt:  Ipsos MORI did one I think.

Fraser:  Yeah, there have been a few. Obviously, you’re going to get that COP bounce in opinion but even having it top... I don’t think, even after COP, you would expect it to be the number one; whereas, for a country like the UK that isn’t actually all that progressive on these issues as a whole, I think it was really, really interesting. When you see the furore and people kicking off with each other around Insulate Britain and all that kind of stuff, actually, people do...

Matt:  I’m maybe getting into methodological questions which I won’t bore the listeners with [laughter] but I think it depends on what question you’re asking. If you’re asking somebody, ‘Do you agree with action to tackle climate change?’ Those people exist, of course, they do but most people are going to say, ‘Good. Do it. Sign me up.’ If you start saying, ‘Do you agree with action to tackle climate change with these associated costs and these impacts upon your daily life and business as usual?’ Of course, you’ve got to list all the co-benefits and the advantages like avoiding Armageddon [laughter] and all the other things like cleaner air. The devil really is in the detail.

Fraser:  It is. For these polls, what I can say is it was a bog standard poll. It’s political scientists coming at it rather than climate folk and it’s a bog standard poll of prioritising issues and more so than ever before, we’ve had climate at the top even above Covid or Brexit which actually is sort of tailing off just in general in interest. From a raw political opinion standpoint, that’s substantial. It didn’t get into saying, ‘Would you pay for something yourself? Would you change X to beat this?’ But people appreciate the scale of the issue and the urgency of it I think in a way that maybe they didn’t before COP or maybe we just didn’t before. I think it’s been a productive year for the conversation in general.

Matt:  I can’t go into some of the confidential work I’m involved in this space but there are whole marketing methodologies that the energy companies are engaging with and are asking these questions. I always think back to a restaurant. You sit down, you’ve got the menu and you’ve got only three courses (if you’re lucky) and you pick one from starters, one from mains and one from desserts, which ones are you going to have? Before you get to that point, if you just look at that list and if it’s a nice restaurant, you’re going to say, ‘All looks good to me. Sign me up.’ But when you start to impose parameters around that decision-making, budgets and trade-offs, that’s where the debate is going to have to lead because it’s not just trade-offs for you, it’s the fact that if I do this, Becky, the implication is going to be that. Fraser, the implication for you is going to be that. It gets very complicated very, very quickly and we don’t have time to have this debate in a few years’ time. It has to be happening today.

Fraser:  Becky, is this where there is space for maybe the justice conversation? We’re aware that people push back when they feel like they’re going to be penalised or left behind potentially. Do we need more of that conversation?

Rebecca:  I think so but I think one of the big challenges that I see in all of this is that all of these approaches are still very individualistic and at the end of the day, if you look at this in an individualist perspective, you’re always going to be giving up something, especially if you come at it by saying, ‘How do we deliver net zero? Net zero is the thing and these other things are co-benefits or things that we have to give up.’ Coming back to when we were talking about the episodes, the reason that one of my favourite episodes was the episode that you did, Fraser, with Bill and Lucy talking about the work that they’re doing on the South Side of Glasgow is because it took it away from talking to people as individual households and it started to bring it back to this kind of community perspective. The reason I loved the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods network (LTNs) is that it took it away from being all about energy and transport and it made it about community and how you actually get a better life. All of a sudden, you’re changing the conversation and you’re not talking about what you need to give up or what you need to trade off to deliver net zero. You’re envisioning what a better future for your community looks like, not just for you as an individual or your family, but for your area and it’s completely different.

Matt:  There’s so much truth in that. If you’ve got 11 players playing individually, you’re never going to win the league. There has to be coordination but it’s about sharing that ownership as well. You end up building these connections between individuals that you otherwise wouldn’t have because there is often, metaphorically but also literally, a wall between you. We’ve lost so much of that community ownership. When you speak to older generations, they’ll say, ‘Back in my day...’ We’re not really neighbourhoods or at least my experience has been that we don’t think that way. I think with energy, sustainability and transport, there’s a real opportunity, no pun intended, for a vehicle to bring us into that realm and it’s already happening with the cases we’ve talked about.

Rebecca:  This is what I wanted to actually talk about and I’ve realised we’re already quite far through into this episode [laughter]. Christmas is coming up and it’s got me thinking all about community, connectedness and I guess maybe how we are, or maybe how I feel, very disconnected. I’ve been reflecting on this quite a lot recently and in part, it’s probably due to the fact that I’ve had a very nomadic lifestyle. Since I left home to go to university, I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere for more than three years. I’ve moved around a lot.

Matt:  How long have you been in Glasgow now? Three years?

Rebecca:  Three years next July [laughter]. So yeah, getting itchy feet [laughter]. Fraser, we’ve talked about this before in a different environment and this kind of lack of connection to your area and to other people there. We’re talking a lot about our work and this idea of connectedness, the whole is more than the sum of the parts and working together to deliver this and I just wonder if there’s something in that. Can the connectedness lead to better decisions that can be better for not just your local area but also, ultimately, for the climate? Can climate and energy be a way to stimulate that connectedness?

Fraser:  I think so. I think one feeds the other. I don’t think you can separate them. I don’t necessarily think that one precludes the other but absolutely so much of the work that I do separate from the academic work is much more in communities like the one that I’m from, so areas of higher deprivation for want of a better phrase. You find that action tends to spring up where there’s a bit more of a sense of place or a sense of community and connectedness and that views towards action are more favourable when it plays into that as well. Going back to the episode with Lucy and Bill, they said, ‘We wanted to set out in our communities to do something and to take climate action.’ They started by saying, ‘Let’s bring the community together, see what they want to do and form a little space that’s social and build that bedrock to start with.’ From there, there was trust. There was a sense of pride in the area. I’m from that kind of place. They might say, ‘We live in a horrendous place. It’s awful. It’s the pits but nobody else could ever tell us that. We can say that but you guys can’t say that.’ Anywhere you look at communities across the country, we think we’re a bit more individual now and we’re pulling away but actually, you can have that lightning rod, whether that’s community energy or just community space. I think you can pull that together and I think when you have one, the other is more likely and when you have both, then you have an amazing combination of things.

Matt:  This is maybe a different way of saying what you’ve said but I maintain that doing something that’s sustainable or helping your community to do something sustainable often is a second-order benefit for some people but actually, the first thing that they’re doing or that they are really after is connecting with their community and to doing something with their community. Actually, the thing that they get behind is the project. For some people, it could actually be any project but it just so happens the project is solar PV on a church hall roof or a grow-your-own community-led allotment. That’s kind of secondary to what they’re after. Now I actually think there’s a hook there. If we can say to people, ‘Net zero, just transition and sustainable development can actually scratch that itch for you about feeling connected in...’ – some people will just be quite ambivalent to it and say, ‘I’m not against it. I’m not really into it but what I’d really like to do is connect with my neighbourhood.’ You can say, ‘Well, do this then.’

Rebecca:  What you were saying, Fraser, about – ‘You can’t come in and tell us. This is our area and we want to have a say,’ to me, it really marks a point of how we need to look at engagement going forward. We know that if we’re going to meet any of our climate goals and we’re going to meet any of our targets around mitigating climate change, everybody is going to need to take action because the actions that are needed are going to be in our homes, our neighbours, on our driveways and all the rest of it. The only that you’re going to do that is by bringing people together at a policy level, whether that’s national or whether that’s local but we’re going to have to do it in a way that listens, appreciates and truly hears what people that live in that area want and doesn’t say to them, ‘This is what you need to do.’ That’s just going to get met with pushback, right?

Fraser:  Absolutely. Any kind of finger-wagging or anyone saying, ‘You’re not pulling your weight. You’re not picking up your feet,’ is liable to be met with two fingers. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Again, it’s different for different communities and there are no two that are the same. We talk a lot about things being done with communities and things happening to communities and I think we need to distinguish between them. Before you come in, Matt, the one thing that I would say is we have this, I think, completely misguided idea that proper engagement or taking consideration of engagement and consultation and not leaving anyone behind... we have this weird idea that it has to take loads of time and that it’s going to hold everything up and I don’t think it does. I think there are people who have been doing this in all kinds of fields and all kinds of positions for years and years and decades and decades. We know where the justice issues are. We know who is most at risk, from research that we’ve done and that hundreds of people have done, where the potential vulnerabilities lie in leaving people behind or doing bad engagement or making people worse off. It’s about making sure that we bring those into the forefront of our policy design and just getting out into those ‘hard-to-reach communities’ and just talking to people. It doesn’t have to be big, complex and time-consuming. It’s just about having honest, authentic and sincere conversations with the people who live and work in the communities that are being affected. It doesn’t have to be more complex than that I don’t think.

Matt:  For me, net zero has to happen. Scientifically, it has to happen if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. So if you can move past that and hopefully, most of the listeners are already at this second step which is about how we do that, there is a question about, personally, how would you like to do it. Would you like to do it as a consumer and deal with a suite of privately-owned companies as part of the marketplace? I’m not offering any aspersions around that. I’m just saying that that’s one option and that many of us will have to do that regardless. Secondly, do you want to have a state-owned, top-down planned economy? Okay, fine. That might be what you want to do. Is there a third way with community-led cooperatives? It’s probably, ultimately, going to be a blend of all three. I’m a pragmatist at heart. I understand that. I’m not beating the drum for one or the other but actually, we’re lucky enough in the UK to live in a country where there is this weird blend of the three, give or take, and individually, we can kind of push for a bit more of one or the other... maybe less on the nationally-owned but that depends what happens in the next few years. If you wake up one morning, you might say, ‘Right, if I agree with net zero, how do I personally want to deliver that? What am I going to get behind? Vote, finance or investment? What consumer decisions am I going to make?’ There’s a whole host of things you can do when you get out of bed in the morning and it would be interesting to see what the British population plump for actually. There will be a lot who are disengaged but they will, by hook or crook, become engaged.

[Music flourish]

Well, I think on that note, as we’re starting to talk a little bit more about what the future holds, I think we should possibly wrap up on this. New Year’s resolutions?

Fraser:  Okay, okay!

Matt:  Obviously, there are personal ones but I’m talking maybe just in the context of a little bit of what we’ve been talking about. It’s been a big year with COP26, professionally, personally and with the pod. There’s a whole host of things going on. If I had to press you on New Year’s Eve, what might you say?

Fraser:  It’s the same resolution every year. World domination [laughter] in time for the end of the year so that the following year, I can put my feet up and just delegate. That’s my thinking, yeah. World domination. Every year, it gets to the end of January and I ruin it and fall back.

Rebecca:  I’ll vote for you [laughter]. Wait! Is that the point? We don’t get to vote?

Fraser:  I haven’t settled on democracy [laughter].

Matt:  Fraser has set the bar though for world domination [laughter]. Becky?

Rebecca:  Oh goodness me! I hate being put on the spot like this.

Matt:  I know [laughter]. That’s why I did it.

Rebecca:  Earlier this week, which won’t be this week when we release the podcast as it will be last week or the week even before that, I wrote a small blog about how COP26 had really affected my life. It wasn’t anything to do with climate change at all. It was actually making me realise what I’d been missing out on in the last few years. Thinking about that, I came up with five things that I’m going to do or try and do next year. Can I have five resolutions? Is that too many? I don’t want to pick one. I don’t want to leave the other ones feeling left out.

Matt:  I don’t make the rules. I just ask the questions [laughter].

Rebecca:  I think the biggest thing out of all of this is recognising that we’re all feeling this way. We talked a bit about this at the beginning and getting out into COP and realising that life has changed in the last few years and often, in very negative and challenging ways. I don’t think we really talk about that much and I don’t think we open up a space for that. I’ve actually been overwhelmed by the people that responded to my blog.

Matt:  Yeah, it was fantastic.

Fraser:  Yeah, an amazing blog.

Matt:  Yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Rebecca:  Thank you, thank you. Honestly, it made me realise that a lot of people are feeling this way but nobody opens up the space to have those raw conversations. I think they’re the sorts of conversations that we used to have when we’d be in the office, we’d go and grab a coffee with someone and we’d just have that conversation as part of our day-to-day lives. Now I grab my coffee with the dog or on my own.

Matt:  What’s he on these days? [Laughter]. Skinny frappuccino?

Rebecca:  So a big part of it is I think opening up the space and really realising that we need to recultivate these connections that we have completely lost through how we’re working. That’s the biggest thing I think for me next year.

Fraser:  Sorry, Matt, before we come back... I don’t think it was one of your five, Becky, but it was in the theme of saying no to stuff more. This year with COP being on, you wanted to take on everything. There was such a massive FOMO with COP. You didn’t want to miss a single thing. This year, I took on so much and it was too much and now other stuff has suffered. I think just saying no... unless the price is right [laughter].

Matt:  Yeah, weddings or bar mitzvahs [laughter]. You name it [laughter]. As long as the price is right. I don’t know but I say this one every year. I don’t know if my wife is listening. She may or may not be. She gets annoyed that I say this every year but I kind of think I really need it now. In fact, in my respects, your blog inspired me a bit, Becky. It’s about going slow and your point, Fraser, about saying no to stuff. I have actually got quite good at that. I’m no less busy but... I’m trying to link that to this notion of wanting to learn more about how the world works, about sustainability, wanting to spend more time with my kids and just getting a bit closer to the world around us. What I really valued from lockdown was being able to step out onto my front doorstep and absorb what was around me rather than aspire to be somewhere a hundred miles away because we couldn’t be a hundred miles away. Now I need the space... I’m lucky enough to have a garden but with kids, I want to go slow. I want to be able to breathe, look around and absorb what’s happening around me because for me, that’s where the really interesting questions emerge and that pop into my head when I’m standing somewhere I wasn’t expecting to be and I’m going slow. Some of the answers start to fill that space in between that question but if you’re going a hundred miles an hour, 365 days a year... and I have to say that 2021 has been no different from the last few, you struggle to make sense of it. I’m going to go full circle here. Hence, that’s why I’ve enjoyed the pod because we’ve been able to pause and ask those questions... even though, of course, it’s crowded out our diaries in other ways. Yeah, go slow, think more, say no and enjoy the slower pace but I’ll probably say this again in 2022 [laughter].

Fraser:  So basically, to any of the listeners who are thinking about emailing us or getting in touch, just don’t [laugher]. We’re not going to check it.

Matt:  Yeah, we have closed the account [laughter].

Rebecca:  Well, on that note, shall we move on to our favourite part of the show?

Fraser:  Well, it wouldn’t be a Local Zero without a Future or Fiction? I think maybe now is the point to announce the news that it will be the last Future or Fiction? for the foreseeable future – no pun or callback intended there – and I don’t know, producer Dave, if I can say this but I am buggering off. I won’t be doing Local Zero for the next few months. Insert crowd crying at this point.

Rebecca:  Or cheers [laughter].

Matt:  Just so we definitely do get you back, Fraser. You are coming back?

Fraser:  I’m intending to come back. Yes, very much.

Matt:  A politician’s answer [laughter].

Rebecca:  He is a political science student [laughter].

Matt:  Exactly! ‘I intend to come back.’ [Laughter]

Fraser:  We had the enormous off-the-cliff edge after COP finished and I remembered, or was reminded, that I have a PhD to finish.

Rebecca:  Just a small thing [laughter].

Fraser:  A small thing that I’ve got a few months left to do it in and I kind of need to do it.

Matt:  And full disclosure. Becky is your supervisor, so it’s majority rules here [laughter] as a democracy [laughter]. But Fraser will certainly be back.

Rebecca:  Winning or otherwise.

Matt:  Yeah, exactly [laughter].

Fraser:  As a guest if I can fit it into my diary in a year’s time. I’ll need to check with my PA [laughter].

Matt:  So as punishment, Future or Fiction?

Fraser:  Of course.

Matt:   Ironically, this is the first we’ve done live.

Rebecca:  We can actually look at your face. Will it give it away?

Fraser:  I’ll hold my screen away from you [laughter]. 

[Music flourish]

Future or Fiction? for the uninitiated is a game that we play at the end of every show or we have done until now where I present, in this case, our hosts with a new technological idea and they have to decide if it’s real, i.e. it’s the future, or if I’ve just made it up. For this year’s Christmas episode, of course, it had to be Christmas-themed. This year’s technology is called... Wrappers’ Delight. I don’t know if we can get the royalties to insert the baseline from the song but that’s what it’s called. I know that Becky is this way inclined but if Local Zero listeners are anything like me, the least favourite part of Christmas will be wrapping presents which invariably means wrecking loads of nice paper and Cellotaping yourself to the tree and/or dog but how about this? A tech start-up in the US has perfected a gift-wrapping machine powered by an efficient battery system. Your gift has to be quite a nice, neat cubic object which you place into the machine and it uses a delicate combination of 3D printing, sensors and vacuum technology to create the perfect wrapping fit. Do we think it’s the future or do we think I just made it up because I’ve had a horrific time wrapping presents [laughter]?

Matt:  Can we just have a replay on those technologies? 3D printing, vacuum technology and what was the other one?

Fraser:  Sensors. 3D printing and sensor technology are linked. I will say you couldn’t wrap a rocking horse. It has to be quite specific.

Rebecca:  Why if it’s got a 3D printer? You could print anything. Is the 3D printer printing the wrapping paper?

Fraser:  No, no. That’s just kind of baseline technology.

Matt:  Is it printing the rocking horse?

Fraser:  Guys, [laughter] this isn’t a 3D printer. It uses technology involved in 3D printing, as I understand it, more the sensory side of things, to establish the size and the shape of the object and then it wraps it. It’s effectively a big sort of basin.

Rebecca:  Is this something you buy for your house or do you go into a store and you shove your gift in?

Fraser:  I imagine it’s something that a shop might use. It’s certainly not at this stage. Maybe or maybe not. I mean commercially.

Matt:  My gut reaction is this is nonsense but I want it [laughter]. I really want it.

Rebecca:  How many of your gifts are perfectly cube-shaped? 

Matt:  Not many [laughter] but now I know it will only wrap cubes, I’m only going to buy cubic presents from now on.

Fraser:  It’s helpful if they’re a neat box sort of shape.

Matt:  I’m thinking back if you remember many moons ago when we were able to get on a plane and fly somewhere. I’ve still never really understood people wrapping their luggage in lots of plastic. This is pre-3D printing and vacuum technology. 

Fraser:  Wrapping their luggage in plastic?

Matt:  Exactly!

Rebecca:  Have you not seen it?

Fraser:  No, no.

Matt:  You don’t even know. This is crazy.

Fraser:  How far back are we going?

Matt:  It’s there now but if you go back four or five years ago, people would wrap their luggage to protect their case. This is an environmental hate crime we unpack later [laughter]. The point being is that thing is out there.

Rebecca:  Hang on a minute. If we just wrap gifts the way that we wrap our suitcases... I can wrap better than that because basically...

Matt:  I can’t [laughter]. I genuinely can’t. I’m absolutely terrible.

Rebecca:  ...imagine you get cling film and you literally just roll it over everything in every way imaginable and that’s it. It’s just covered in cling film. 

Matt:  He hasn’t seen cling film before [laughter]. Oh dear.

Fraser:  It’s not necessarily the kind of thing that you’re likely to have in your house. Becky, you told me a story, off air, earlier about your wrapping exploits [laughter].

Rebecca:  Yeah, so I’m in all sorts of pain now. Some people, when they’re wrapping, they’re very good. They cut the Sellotape (this is what my husband does), and attach it to the table so it’s all ready to go as you’re wrapping.

Matt:  He’s a pro!

Rebecca:  Total pro. I’m not. I don’t use scissors. I just rip the Cellotape with my teeth and then I just leave the bit of Sellotape attached to my mouth whilst I’m wrapping [laughter].

Matt:  It’s doesn’t sound effective or pain-free either [laughter].

Rebecca:  No, maybe not. I wrapped about three gifts and I’m...

Matt:  So you are customer number one for Wrappers’ Delight.

Rebecca:  Oh, dear me.

Matt:  Before I say this is fiction, which I’m definitely going to say [laughter], let me ask you a question. Do I buy this product or do I send my cuboid present off?

Fraser:  As I understand it, I don’t think it’s for the general public. I think it’s for a larger scale and maybe Amazon send you something gift-wrapped. You’re not going to be churning out thousands of...

Matt:  So it’s a warehouse technology type of thing?

Fraser:  Yeah, it’s much more that kind of scale.

Matt:  So it comes wrapped?

Fraser:  Yeah, you can order something off Amazon gift-wrapped. That’s more what it’s for.

Rebecca:  You can already do that though. Here’s my big question for you. We have this right now and it’s called people that are very good at wrapping and that’s what they do. 

Fraser:  We used to have people that would just walk around building sites and keep an eye on things overnight and then we got CCTV. It’s like, ‘I can just go to my bed now. That’s fine.’ Not that I’m arguing for a robot revolution or anything like that. 

Matt:  I’m sorry to say that he has a point [laughter].

Rebecca:  I’m really worried. We were talking about a dictatorship taking over the world and robots. This is a different side of you, Fraser [laughter].

Matt:  We are going to have to decide on this. As much as I would like this to exist, I don’t believe it does and I don’t believe it ever will [laughter], I’m a no. I’m out.

Rebecca:  So I think this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard but I think that the Yanks probably have invented it, so I’m going with future.

Fraser:  Future?

Matt:  Fiction.

Fraser:  Fiction? The answer is... it’s fiction [laughter]. Of course, it’s fiction. Of course, it was. I was looking up all kinds of stuff and I was going, ‘Could Santa’s sleigh be real? Can I get this past them?’ [Laughter] No. People are terrible at wrapping and they will understand that. There might be a need for it. Well done, Matt. That’s a good way to close on my last Future or Fiction?

Matt:  That’s probably brought my average winning percentage up to about 10%, so it’s been a good year [laughter]. It’s been an absolute pleasure to do this in person. Sadly, this will be Fraser’s last pod for the moment. We’ll make sure he comes back in spring screaming or smiling, whichever it may be [laughter], but until then...

Fraser:  Have a great Christmas. Have a great break.

Rebecca:  Hang on a minute. Until then [laughter], remember how much you love Local Zero. Follow us on social media, please. We are on Twitter @LocalZeroPod and do feel free to email us. We are LocalZeroPod@gmail.com and as we’ve already said, we’re clearly not going to be checking that until the New Year [laughter] but do send us your thoughts. If you’ve got any episodes you want us to look at in 2022, we are very open to ideas. We’ll have an amazing schedule of episodes coming for you next year.

Matt:  Yeah, we just need to figure out what they are [laughter].

Fraser:  For now, thanks to the guests that we’ve had that made it so amazing. Thanks to the listeners for tuning in. We appreciate it a ton. Thanks, Matt and Becky, for being expert professional hosts and we’ll see you in the New Year.

Rebecca:  See you in the New Year.

Matt:  Happy Christmas.

Rebecca:  Bye.

Matt:  Bye-bye.

Fraser:  Bye, bye, bye, bye.

[Music flourish]

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