43: Energy demand and Net Zero

What is the impact of our own behaviours and attitudes, as households and consumers, on carbon emissions? The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report contains, for the first time ever, a chapter specifically focusing on how the choices we each make impact emissions. To discuss this, the team are joined by Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh from the University of Bath, director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST), and Oxford Professor Nick Eyre, director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS).

Transcript

Lorraine: We're kind of trying to grapple with the fact that behaviour change also seems to be kind of problematic for some people. Like the government, for example, doesn't like the idea that they need to change behaviour to tackle climate change. It's kind of too interventionist maybe. But we know we do need to change people's behaviours.

Nick: The polluter elite, which, you know, probably includes a lot of people we know, is a difficult one. Government could take a brave decision that it was going to drive the heat pump transformation, for example, through social housing. There are certainly areas where we could look, uh, for less advantaged people to be given the early benefits.

Becky: Hello and welcome to Local Zero with Matt, Becky and Fraser. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about how our demand for energy, mobility and food impacts climate change. And more importantly, how changes to our behaviour can have a big impact on carbon emissions.

Matt: So following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC’s, latest report, released last month, on climate change mitigation, this week's episode focuses on the role of demand when it comes to local climate action.

For the first time ever, the IPCC’s report quantifies the impact that behaviour change can have in a chapter specifically about the demand, services and social aspects of mitigation. Crucially, it explores how people's behaviour – the choices we make – can cut carbon emissions. 

Fraser: To dig into this very important topic further, we'll be talking with Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh, a psychologist and environmental scientist at the University of Bath. She's the Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, and her research considers how the public engage with climate change, energy and transport. 

Matt: We're also joined by Professor Nick Eyre. Amongst many other things, Nick is Director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions, CREDS for short. He's also Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute. 

Becky: So as always, if you're interested in the topics we're talking about today or in any other show, Do reach out to us on our dedicated Twitter handle. So if you haven't already do find and follow us @localzeropod to get involved with the discussions over there. 

Fraser: And if you struggle to constrain your thoughts to a few hundred characters, email us at localzeropod@gmail.com. 

Becky: So before we get into today's show, team, how is everyone doing? I missed you all last episode, but you did a great job. 

Fraser: Becky, we struggled to hold it together.

Becky: Of course.

Fraser: The whole podcast more or less collapsed. 

Matt: Complete disaster. So glad you're back. How was your, your journey, your trip? 

Becky: It was good. So for those that don't know, I, uh, I took a trip over to America. So the first international travel I've done in a very large number of years. The trip was amazing. It was, it was to do with, uh, to do with my new role at Sea Change Institute, which is a research institute in the US. Um, looking at kind of behaviour and practice around, uh, around a whole lot of interesting issues around climate change. The trip was phenomenal. The journey was hideous. I hated every second of it. 

Matt: Yeah. Gone are the golden days of air travel where you could kind of sit and have a cocktail in the lounge and put your feet up. 

Becky: Well, I think you still can if you pay for it. Uh, I mean, but my dad, my dad was actually recounting to me like the, the golden olden days, I guess when you could travel on Concorde…

Matt: Well, you could smoke on planes as well. Oh yeah.

Becky: But no, I mean, it was. It was very challenging and, and it actually really did make me think about, um, I mean, it's perfect, you know, timing for today's episode, like the impact that my behaviour, you know, I chose to take that flight. I didn't have to, although I do think there are elements of work, which are really difficult to do remotely, but you know, that, that has a huge carbon emission impact.

And I, and I felt, I mean, aside from the fact that I, I hated the travel, I wore my mask the whole time and like next to no-one else was wearing their mask on the plane. And just that alone was horrible. The lack of sleep, the jet lag, like aside from all of those issues, I did feel quite guilty about my, about the contribution I was making to, um, to carbon emissions. But I don't think anyone else was really thinking about that from the, at least the conversations I was having with my, uh, with my neighbours. 

Matt: Well, as you say, you know, the choices we make, the behaviours that we kind of exhibit, are absolutely critical to climate change, uh, and the emissions we generate. And that's really the focus of today, right? In terms of the IPCC's report, which is pointing the finger squarely at the decisions that you and I have, to have to make every day. 

Becky: I know. And Fraser, of course like, so Fraser, what have you done? Well, let, let's have, let's have like a…

Matt: He’s not special.

Becky: Let's have a sharing, sharing moment. Like what have you done that you feel guilty about in the last two weeks?

Fraser: You're going to have to be more specific. 

Matt: Politician’s answer, Fraser.

Becky: Oh dear.

Fraser: Um, no, no. Try my best. Always try my best. So very much back on the bike. I don't generally drive anyway, but trying to walk and cycle as much as is feasibly possible has always been top of my agenda. Thinking about travelling longer term, Eilidh and I are going to take a holiday.

Thinking much more around, you know, taking trains down to Europe rather than just hopping on, hopping on a plane to do it. We're trying to do as much as possible. There's also been, there's a couple of things, so within my, my new role at Regen where they're like, their hub is down in Exeter. Taking that long, long, long train ride down there.

Matt: Yeah. 

Fraser: And also taking the train down to, incidentally, taking the train down to Glastonbury…

Becky: Oh!

Fraser: Next month. Which, which is exciting.

Becky: Very exciting.

Matt: Yeah.

Fraser: Um, so yeah, just trying to, trying to, trying to, trying to do what we can. 

Matt: I'm guessing a flight to Bristol is looking pretty attractive at this point, Fraser. I'm talking not from a kind of environmental perspective. I'm not trying to get you on the hook here to say, “Yeah, it does”. But…

Fraser: Ah, mate, yeah, no but financially, time wise, it's all like, that's If you talk about, so – I know this means absolutely nothing to Local Zero listeners, but coming from Glasgow over to Edinburgh to get a train down to Exeter, which you can go direct.

It's like a nine-hour train sat in one place, not doing an awful lot. It's not the most comfortable and the trains aren't exactly the best down there. Um, so yeah, it's, it's that, it's that kind of thing where you really, you always want to make the choice, but the choice isn't always the easiest one to make.

Matt: And Becky, you’ve framed your question – this is me being a politician now about being quite negative, no guilt – but also what we feel positive about. Today as I speak, I live in a house that is now fully double-glazed. It is a revelation. I have transformed as a person. 

Becky: Well done. 

Matt: You know, it is, it is actually amazing.

Becky: Yeah.

Matt: But I have to say, and this is, we won't go into this too much, but from a retrofit perspective, the disruption, the stress, the cost has been eye-watering. And so for each of these behaviours, these decisions, there is a cost, uh, you know, a financial cost, but also a kind of a, you know, a lifestyle and a personal behavioural cost. You mentioned, you know, travelling. There is a cost to that in terms of time and stress. I'm very bad at travelling. That's why I mostly just stay at home. 

Fraser: On that cost though, right? On the, like, we're, we're having this conversation about sort of making those choices. We're also in the fortunate position that we can make those choices, right?

It's not, it's not open to everyone. If you're weighing up, should I fly somewhere or even thinking about how you travel around your local neighbourhoods, you don't always have the option, or you think about what you eat, whatever it might be, double glazing, heating. 

Matt: Oh yeah. 

Fraser: We're in a good position and it's not, it's not necessarily easy for us versus someone who can't afford to do it, generally speaking.

Matt: Absolutely, Fraser – the luxury of choice. 

Becky: Well, and so this is, I think that's a really, really good point. Like the luxury of choice, but also the, the, the, the different, um, not just costs, but the value associated with it, right? So that train journey that you're talking about, Fraser, that could be a better option.

You could imagine a future in which taking the train is a better option on so many levels than taking an aeroplane. Because actually, you know, if you, if you're travelling in a way where it's comfortable, where you could work and make the most of that time, where it didn't cost more than the flight. 

There are, there is a future where the low-carbon option could be the better option, where the disruption associated with low carbon that you've been facing, Matt – particularly some of the, the challenges around just getting the processes in place – could be minimised. But for that to happen, I think we need to see structural change in society, to enable those behaviour changes to occur.

And this is what really excites me about the IPCC report, is that by quantifying the impact that these behavioural changes can have, where I'm hoping that that might kind of play through, is in driving the policy and the wider infrastructure change that can then enable those behaviours to come through.

Fraser: I think that's so, so important. And we, we talk about it – especially on your first point, Becky, we're all right now falling into this, this trap. We still talk about it so much as it's an inconvenience, it's a pain in the backside, it costs more, et cetera, et cetera. In the same way that we still talk about, “Oh, actually the energy transition, it has to harm lower-income people”.

And it doesn't, it doesn't have to be inconvenient. It doesn't have to be something that we're doing because we're environmentally conscious. With the right vision, with the right investment, with the right sort of policy development, with the right framework, there’s no reason that that can't be the default option, that it can't be the better, more attractive option.

And I think it's important that we, we sell on that point, as well as having the real conversation about how we get there. 

Matt: The default option’s interesting Fraser –  I appreciate we've, we've got to bring the guests in a moment – but the default option is an interesting one. And I always think a really good example of that is when you're off at events or conferences.

I mean, we, you know, we're doing the academic circuit all the time, and the catering there, the default option is vegetarian. And people are still going to eat. They're hungry. They're just going for this stuff, right? But that people aren't giving you the option. And I don't feel any poorer as a result of it.

Okay? So there is, and you would say that's, that's at least nudge, probably more stick. It's somewhere between the two. You’re still getting fed, right? 

Becky: I actually went to a conference where they did this experiment, by the way. So traditionally it was the meat was the default and you chose between two meat options, but you could request a vegetarian.

And it used to be 80 percent meat eaters, 20 percent vegetarian. And then one year they flipped it as an experiment, two vegetarian options and you could still request the meat option.

Matt: Yeah.

Becky: And those numbers flipped 80 percent vegetarian, 20 percent meat. Fascinating. But you know what? We have some experts on this topic lined up, ready to come in and talk to us all about demand and the importance of that in, in climate change and climate action. So I think we should really just bring them in now. 

Matt: Bring ‘em in. 

Lorraine: My name's Lorraine Whitmarsh. I'm a Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Bath and I'm also Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations. 

Nick: My name's Nick Eyre. I am a Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the University of Oxford, and I direct the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions.

Becky: Well, thank you so much, uh, Lorraine and Nick for joining us today. I'm, I'm actually really, really excited about today's episode, which is all about climate action and demand, or the demand side, as sometimes we refer to them. And, you know, I work in this space and I think sometimes it's very easy to forget that most people probably don't necessarily understand fully what the demand side or what demand is.

They're not used to hearing that terminology. So before we sort of get really deep in today's discussion, I was hoping, and perhaps Nick, given that you direct, um, a huge centre focused on demand, I was wondering maybe if you could just kick us off by outlining, you know, what do we actually mean when we say demand or the demand side in the context of climate change and climate action?

Nick: Yeah, thanks Becky. I think it's a really good question, and we do tend to take it for granted, those of us who work in this area. The terminology comes to set demand against supply as the two attributes of, of any system. Somebody supplies something and somebody else demands it. It's very much economics jargon actually in its origin.

And I increasingly feel it's not helpful. I tend now, working on energy, to talk about use of energy – I think that's more comprehensible to ordinary people, and it implies a sort of a flexibility and a contingency that, that demand doesn’t, demand often by people elsewhere in the energy system is assumed to be fixed, and that's really, really unhelpful, for those of us who know it's not and that it depends on all sorts of other things.

So I increasingly I'm talking about use of energy. I think in the climate context you can talk about how we use food, as well, would be a similar sort of area. 

Matt: Yeah, no, I'm sorry, we're already getting stuck into the deep stuff here, but I like that distinction, Nick.

And does that lend itself to differentiating between, say, my energy demand might be the same in terms of units of energy, whether that's to go from A to B or to sustain myself in terms of food and nutrition. But actually how I use that energy might be different. It might be the, the vector, the type of energy, the timing, the source, the, or even just maybe, bleeding into more Lorraine's territory, the kind of the behaviours associated with that.

Is that, is use meant to be a catch all term in and to point towards those, those nuances?

Nick: Yeah, I started, I started doing it when I realised that if I talk to people about how much energy they use, and I know I mean in their house and say in transport, in their car for example, but most people have no way of adding these things up.

Because they, even if they know how much energy they use in their home, they measure it in kilowatt hours. And very few people, I guess including people on this call, wouldn't know how much a car uses in kilowatt hours. Right? Even though clearly it is a form of energy, in some sense it should be measured in the same units.

That isn't what people do, and they think of these things very separately. And they certainly think of the energy that's embedded in the products they buy differently again. So I think having a more differentiated approach is helpful. 

Matt: Lorraine, would you, would you agree with kind of Nick's terminology? Is use more helpful versus demand? 

Lorraine: Yeah, I think it's, it's just something that we can relate to and on a more intuitive level, isn't it? Kind of what we are, what are we using energy for? I mean, other people talk about sort of services provided by energy. That's potentially a bit more technical again, isn't it?

But I mean, for you and I, it's not even really, we don't probably think about energy very much at all. I mean, most people sort of just think about, you know, making your food and getting from A to B, and it's the things that energy allows us to do in our day-to-day lives to achieve other things altogether, like, you know, feeding yourself and travelling around and, you know, whatever.

But I think, I think use is definitely a lot better than demand. I think it's a lot more intuitive. Funnily enough, we're kind of trying to grapple with the fact that behaviour change is, is one of those ones which also seems to be kind of problematic for some people. Like they, the government, for example, doesn't like the idea that they need to change behaviour to tackle climate change.

It's kind of too interventionist, maybe, but we know we do need to change people's behaviour. So again, it's one of those things where maybe we just need to kind of get the language right, so that we can speak to people in ways that are more meaningful. 

Matt: Now, my final point on this, before I hand back over to Becky, was often when I think demand, I'm thinking, you know, I'm sitting in a restaurant sometimes, very rarely I might add, but sitting there thinking, having been a waiter once in a past lifetime, I demand some service now.

I want, I want to be dealt with. I'm hungry. The kids are hungry, but that demand may not be satisfied. So the actual kind of use, and I always think that when I hear demand, sometimes it can be latent demand. And then we're kind of bleeding into territory about fuel poverty. But just wanted to get that off my chest. Um, Becky. 

Becky: That's very true. I mean, I think language is such an important, um, such an important component of this discussion. And I completely hear Lorraine what you're saying, when you're talking about behaviour change. So I, I started my academic career as an engineer, but I always like to think more about kind of the social elements of that.

But the minute you start using language like “social engineering”, that has a completely different context and like, you can't even talk about that. And so, yeah, I completely understand where you're coming from, but I do think that, you know, language aside, the underlying concept of the way in which we use energy and the way in which we are, um, you know, the behaviours that we're, that we're conducting that result in the use of that energy.

And the fact that some of these things do need to change to address climate change is, is a really important discussion. And I was very excited to see, you know, for the first time ever, an entire chapter in, uh, the IPCC Working Group III report, looking all about demand and I guess the kind of more social aspects of mitigation, because usually we are constrained to a much more technical discussion around the supply side of things.

So, I mean, Lorraine, I'm just wondering, I know that you have some involvement with the IPCC anyway, like for you, was this a real big big step, like do you think this is a really important, um, an important step that it's now been considered in the report? Do you think that this could actually start to change some of the conversations that we might be having with government, you know, at that policy level? 

Lorraine: Yeah, I, I, I do. I think this is a really big step. I think it's quite significant. I think there have been gradually more and more social scientists getting involved in the IPCC, which, you know, this is the sort of big assessments that they do to bring together all the evidence on climate change and how we can try and tackle it. And it has gradually moved away from being very much about the sort of natural sciences and engineering to gradually there being a really substantial role for social scientists in those as, as well.

And that mirrors the fact that, you know, all of the evidence really now says technology alone is not going to solve climate change. We need behaviour change, social change. We need people to do things differently and demand and, and use of energy to change pretty radically. So I think it is quite a big, um, significant, uh, step that there is this new dedicated chapter in the IPCC Working Group III report.

And there are some really powerful messages that come out of there. I mean, one of the headline ones is that, in order to tackle climate change, tackling the demand side through, for example, behaviour change, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 percent in some sectors. So a huge amount of change by those kind of more demand, kind of behavioural, types of measures. 

And another headline finding that I think is really cool is that doing that will also tend to improve wellbeing. So in other words, we might be reducing the amount of energy use and consumption that, uh, people, people have, but that isn't reducing their quality of life, which I think some maybe policymakers assume.

Actually the, the contrary is the case. We're going to improve people's wellbeing. So for me, it's really. massive that this evidence is now coming to the fore and these messages are coming through. 

Matt: You began there Lorraine with something really interesting, that we can't rely entirely on technological innovation to get us out of this bind.

And then I often see innovations that are rapidly being adopted. Let's take electric vehicle for instance. I look at that and question, is that good or bad in terms of changing energy use and behaviours and delivering on net zero? So, And this kind of complimentary mix of technological and behavioural change.

So in my mind, you know, should we, certain innovations coming online, somebody would look at the EV on the driveway and say, “Hey, that's low-carbon. I'll hop in the car and do that journey”. Um…

Becky: I do that! I do that. It's shocking. I know it's terrible, but like now I have my EV, I do. 

Matt: Exactly. But then you think if, you know, if that wasn't an option, if we'd have remained with the high-carbon option, then maybe it would push people down a different route, potentially a route which is more compliant with net zero. So I'm just positing kind of that, that idea. How complimentary do we need that technological innovation to be with the behavioural change? Nick, I think you were wanting to come in. 

Nick: Yeah. So I think net zero changes that discussion, Matt, from, from the point of view of somebody who's worked for 30 years on quotes, “the demand side”, it, I mean, Lorraine quoted the figure from the, the, the, the, the, the chapter five, which I was a review editor for, so I know it pretty well, on the 40 to 70 percent. It was great to see that get through to the summary for policymakers that I think the fear of the people involved in the chapter was that it might be found to be politically unacceptable, but it wasn’t. It got through.

But it's not a hundred percent, right? And, and even the most ardent proponents of demand side action, I think are not going to claim that we can reach net zero entirely by demand-side action. So, um, we can't have any petrol cars and diesel cars at the point we get to net zero – or in practice we can't in principle, I guess we could, but in practice, we're not going to be able to.

So I think it, it clarifies that discussion. We're not going to have the option of petrol and diesel cars. And so all we have to do is train Becky not to jump into a car at the least possible opportunity, as well. So that we've got less energy to decarbonise. I'm sure she knows the argument without me telling her.

Becky: I do. I do, Nick. And I honestly, I think that, and this comes back to, uh, the broader point that Lorraine, you were making earlier, which is that, you know, it's not just about energy on its own. It's part of these bigger lifestyle changes. One of the reasons I do jump in my car at the last minute is because I'm so time poor and you know, I can, I can prioritise other aspects. And so I think remembering it's part of that bigger, bigger conversation is so important. Lorraine. 

Lorraine: We don't only have to think about net zero, like obviously this is a massive issue, but there are other sustainability issues that maybe we, we wanna be thinking about. And this, this, this was that second headline point that I mentioned, which is that actually, done right, climate action can achieve a whole range of other sustainability and wellbeing goals as well.

So if you think about the, the jumping in the car, um, example, yes, maybe if you're jumping in your EV you are not polluting your local neighbourhood as much as you, you know, you're not, you're not polluting the air anymore around you, but you're not getting any exercise. And, um, you know, you're, you're on the roads and taking up space and maybe, you know, there's a risk of people like vulnerable people, maybe being run down.

I'm sure you're a very safe driver, but there's a whole rate, there's a whole range of reasons why we want to maybe reduce the amount of car use we have at the moment, which is not only to do with reducing emissions that cause climate change. We, we, you know, we, we're all overweight and we all, you know, that the air is really dirty and the roads are dangerous and, and, and.

So there are loads of these co-benefits, these wider benefits to changing our lifestyles that will help tackle climate change but do other cool things, too. 

Nick: Yeah I agree with that and I'd maybe go a bit further actually Lorraine. We do tend to think about, those who work on climate, tend to think about these things as co-benefits of climate action but maybe in some cases, we ought to think about arguing it the other way round. Which is that climate benefits are a co-benefit of things that are good, good for people's lives anyway, and, and not treat climate as they, as, as the principle goal.

Becky: And I, I wanna dig in a a bit more into this discussion around, like, me and my terrible use of the EV. Um, but I do, after that, I do want us to think a little bit more about what else needs to change. We've jumped into transport quite quickly. I think there's a reason, in that is a huge area where our behaviours as well as the technologies can make an impact.

There are obviously other areas and I'd like to unpick some of those a bit more, but if I actually think about jumping in the EV. Like, I know that I would rather walk or cycle. I know that it would be better for me, for the most part. Um, there are other things beyond that though, right? So to support me making that individual transition, it's not just about convincing me that that's the best thing to do or that even that, you know, I might get these other co-benefits or benefits. Let's take the word “co” off of that.

But there are other concerns for me, right? So I'm not great cyclist. Like I don't have great side-to-side control and I am terrified. 

Matt: You cycled across the bulk of Scotland during COP26. You’re a far better cyclist than I am!

Becky: I was terrified the entire time. Especially when I was cycling up from like Motherwell into the city centre, like I was, I was like in panic the entire time about being run over because of the poor roads, the poor infrastructure, the fact that most drivers did not seem to respect cyclists. And Matt, I know you've encountered this with the cycle into the city centre from where you live. 

Matt: It's interesting. When, when you're framing this around your transportation as an issue. So you've got an EV sitting on the driveway. We've got a single car. I'd like to keep it like that, although two kids and living in a kind of suburbia is going to challenge that shortly, but it isn't an EV, it's diesel.

So I try and not, I try not to use it, try and hop on my bike where I can. And last night was a good example. So I had a trustee meeting with South Seeds, a charity that I work for and, and the car was available. Rarely it is available and I'll have to cycle, but it was available. And I looked at it and said, “No” – even though it was raining – “I'm going to cycle”.

And the reason that was driving me to do that apart from trying to be green and a better person is I thought, well, “I haven't had any exercise today”. And then I ended up cycling 10 miles and, you know, getting, and I felt a lot better at the end of it. And Lorraine, that you're pointing there to the co-benefits of climate action, or as Nick says, you can kind of flip that and look at the other way.

And that's, in my mind, there's an education point here, I think, to kind of support and encourage people to take those, those behaviours. Is there? How, how do we make people change these norms and routines that Becky's pointing to as an example, and I'm not picking on you, Becky. How do we make Becky change?

Lorraine: Well, I mean, you, you, you both between you picked up on loads of different issues here. So I think, I think you're right, that basically part of it's about understanding why people do the things they do. And usually there are multiple reasons why someone would do a particular thing, e.g. get on the bike. So you're thinking “That's good for health”.

Oh, that's the main reason, but actually, you know, "I'd have eco guilt if I you know, got in the car”, so there's also that environmental reason, etc. So there'll probably be, you know, a few reasons that kind of push you in a particular direction. And so once you kind of know that, you can kind of try to reduce the barriers that are maybe pushing people in the wrong direction, as it were, and, and kind of, align the incentives and the infrastructure and all the other things, so that it's really attractive to like go the green route.

And to pick up on Becky's point, I'm also fairly terrified of cycling, so I don't do it very much. But what we need to do to make it less terrifying is to have fewer cars on the road. So we need to like actually have, say, dedicated space on the road for bikes or you know, so have less space on the road for cars so that it's less attractive and easy just for everybody to just be filling the roads with cars, and have some more space for people to walk and cycle. So we need to kind of really shift the incentives, shift, like, everything so that suddenly it's like actually, why would, like, think about European cities where they just, everybody's cycling.

That's because there isn't like a thousand cars coming at you, like everybody's on the bike anyway and there's the facilities and it's just the norm and it's just so much easier and more pleasant to do that. So we need to kind of be moving and, like, having all of these things work in favour of those low-carbon options.

Nick: Yeah, I think the norms are really important. I lived in Oxford and then I lived in Leeds and then I lived in Oxford again. And I found that I cycle much more in Oxford than I did in Leeds. And that’s, okay, it's partly due to it, to Leeds being bigger and more hilly, but it's actually mainly just the, "Well, that's, that's what we do here” effect. 

So I think we need to think about these things as as systems problems. We know what mobility system we've got. We know what mobility system we'd like to end up with that's compliant with, with, with, with with a net zero world. And it involves changing the technologies and the infrastructure and the public policies and the social norms.

The hard thing is to work out where to break into that to move you away from the vicious spiral towards the virtuous. Personally, I think it has to be public policy. I think you have to say “We are going to put money into the bus service, even though that might not appear cost effective at the moment. We are going to reallocate road space to public transport and cycling and walking, even if there aren't enough of those, the people using those at the moment”.

And you will, you get negative, you will get negative stories about that. You know, I saw letters to the Oxford Mail just this week saying, you know, “There's all this space for cyclists and, and, and it's not being used”. Well, the answer is, is, is, yeah, the one Lorraine gave, unless you do that, you won't actually get people cycling. You have to cut into that, that problem somewhere that takes sort of quite brave policymaking in some cases. 

Fraser: If you build it, they will come, right? That's, that's the, that's the slogan. 

Lorraine: Well, not only that, because you need the sticks and the carrots, you need to basically, yes, you need to build it.

But they won't necessarily come, because you need to disincentivize and really make the, the mainstream, the current option really less attractive. So you need to put in place something that will break people's habits, because otherwise they're just going to keep doing what they're doing and they won't even notice this beautiful thing that you've built over here. So you've got to like kind of push people over.

Fraser: I think that's entirely fair. How do you do that? What is the breaking the habit side of the cycle? 

Lorraine: There's, there's a number of options. You could pedestrianise. I mean, you could put in like physical things like pedestrianisations or, you know, there's low-traffic neighbourhoods or livable neighbourhoods that are kind of popping up all over the place that actually just force you to like either go a different route or, you know, think about kind of your, your, your options.

Um, so that sort of physical thing can work quite well. Obviously an economic option is like a congestion charge or a clean air zone. Those are popping up all over the place as well. Anything that basically sort of forces you to think like, “Oh my God, do I really want to pay like eight pounds to go in this?”

Or “Do I really want to have this route?” And like, there's not, or, you know, a workplace parking levy, you know, like “When I get to my place of work, there's going to be hardly anywhere to park. And if I do, I'll have to pay this amount”. And these sorts of things will then make you think, actually, do I really want to be driving?

Or, “Hey, I've just noticed there is actually a bike route that would take me like there in no time at all”. 

Matt: There must be an important role here for exemplars as well, so being able to point, I mean, Nick, you mentioned Leeds versus Oxford. You couldn't get two more different cities in terms of public transport. I've lived in Leeds, not Oxford, but visited.

Um, you know, Leeds is renowned for having one of the, the worst public transport systems in the UK. I always forget that the factoid, but I think it's the largest UK city without a kind of a light gauge railway or tram system or underground. 

Nick: It is, yeah.

Matt: Okay. So if you're living in Leeds and looking at Oxford, there's your exemplar in terms of cycling or, you know, looking at another city, London, Glasgow, in terms of underground.

So how important is it to have these exemplars and how do we put these exemplars in place? Because then whether it's organisations, Lorraine, you pointed to workplace and employers, but also councils and governments, as well as individuals to say, “Ah. That's how it can be done. I'd like a bit of that”. 

Nick: Yeah, I think it's important. I would just be a bit cautious – two employees of my university have been killed cycling in the past few months, so it’s, it’s hard to…

Matt: Very sorry to hear that, Nick. 

Nick: Float Oxford as an, as an exemplar. I think there are some much better ones in, in other European countries, as, as, as Lorraine pointed out. Um, but I take your general point, Matt, that people need to see the possible future. It's, it's easier if there is an example to construct it solely as a, as, as what my social science colleagues would call an imaginary. Reality is, I think, more convincing for most people. 

Becky: So I want to comment on this like carrot versus stick, or carrot and stick. And I think actually that that is the point, isn't it? Is that a lot of the time we might see these sticks being put in place that have the potential to penalise individuals and to create situations that could be unfair, or that could widen inequality. So people perhaps being charged to do something but unable to then actually take advantage of, of an alternative solution.

Because when we put those sticks in place, they affect individuals, but the carrots are often things that, um, enable individuals, but are implemented at a more public level, so at a community level.

And so, I mean, have you, you know, we talk about some of these exemplars and to me, particularly when you're looking at the European context, it looks at the, um, at spaces where it looks like they've put in the carrot and the stick. And so, people would be penalised for doing the wrong thing, but there is another option that is affordable and accessible and easy to engage with. I've lived in Oxford, Nick. I am absolutely terrified of cycling. Now I'm actually more terrified of cycling in Oxford than I think I have been in Glasgow.

Partly because of the other cyclists, partly because of the, sort of the, the challenge between like some of the, um, the attitudes between car drivers and cyclists, or even pedestrians and cyclists actually, come to think of it, in Oxford. So, you know, is this, is this something we need to think about? Like who needs to be driving this action to make sure that we don't have those sticks in place without the carrots, without that wider infrastructure change?

Lorraine: I mean, I think local authorities have a pretty big role to big role to play in, in, I mean, it does depend the area you're looking at, we're talking about transport here. So, so definitely there's a, there's a pretty big role for local authorities, um, to, to create the, the right sort of environment to enable people to change their behaviour, but they can't do it without, obviously, support from national government.

And, and it is also about working with communities and bringing people with you. So you sort of need, you do need kind of all levels, but, but definitely there, there's different locations will have different specific solutions that work for them. So you do need to have some level of that kind of local decision-making.

But, but I think the examples of some of these European countries is that, you know, they took decades, in many cases, to get from like car dominance to say, you know, bike and walking dominance. And so it is about having that long-term vision, that buy-in, that consistency and investment across, you know, many years to, to gradually sort of shift the incentives away from car use to, to other modes. So yeah, you, you kind of need it to be really a long-term, pretty committed set of actions. 

Nick: Yeah. I mean, I think the sticks policy needs to take that into account. It, it, it's far more expensive to take a bus in most cities now than is to drive equivalent distance. And, and, and that's a nonsense if we want to provide incentives in, in the right direction.

Particularly when we know it’s, it’s poorer people who tend to use buses. So, I think the sticks policy we need to be quite careful. Obviously household energy is taxing that, it's particularly regressive. Less so cars, though, there's issues with poorer households in, in, in rural areas. Aviation, I think, is, you know, is the classic case of where we could use sticks, but, you know, it's the international framing makes that, makes that difficult.

There's a stunning number in the IPCC report, that 1 percent of the world's population are responsible for 50 percent of flying. Yeah, so it, this is, this is highly unequal as it is, in which case, which means you can use sticks to help improve equality. 

Matt: Fraser, you've been itching to come in. 

Fraser: It was more or less on that.

Matt: You've been very well behaved. 

Fraser: It was – I know, I know, I've been trying. It was more or less on that point, it's, it's, so my worry is that when we get into these conversations we think specifically, especially around behaviour change, we think specifically about a certain sort of segment of the population and not really about other parts of the population, specifically poorer communities, working class communities, those who have, who have struggled.

So when you talk about, you know, cycling in Oxford versus Leeds and stuff like that, completely get it. Um, I grew up in fairly abject poverty in the northeast of Scotland, where you don't really have, you know, you're not, you're not one of the people driving your kids to school in an armoured tank. You're not someone who's flying 10 times a year.

Maybe you can't afford a bike either, but you still have energy use, whether that's via public transport or whether that's, you know, you live in a draughty house stuck on a gas boiler. Or if you live rurally, you might be on oil. Is there a need for a different approach, or different messaging even, to try and reach those corners of the population who do have different needs and different experiences and different capacity?

Lorraine: I mean, I think absolutely, yeah, you kind of need to understand that. I mean, it does come back to my, one of the things I said earlier is that in order to engage people, you really need to understand what motivates people, but equally what their needs are. And so while talking about net zero and the climate might actually be motivating for some people, it's probably not going to be motivating for a lot of people.

And certainly people who are not even able to kind of feed their kids. Uh, so they're going to have more pressing needs. So this is why these sort of thinking about these other benefits is kind of helpful because if we can find solutions that reduce people's energy bills and make healthy food more affordable and all the other things that those, you know, poorer people within society desperately need, and at the same time help reduce emissions, then that's that's, you know, that's a kind of win-win solution. 

Where, what, what we've found recently, we've just been doing some work trying to understand public attitudes to various net zero policies. While we find that broadly speaking, the public are, uh, positive about a whole range of different policies to get to net zero, everything from sort of frequent flyer levies to, uh, phasing out gas boilers and various other things – things that would involve quite a lot of behaviour change by the way.

As soon as you start saying, “But there might be a cost associated with this”, support does drop. And of course, inevitably, particularly drop amongst people who have lower incomes. So we absolutely need to recognise that in order to have like a fair way of dealing with climate change, a just transition, then we need to be protecting those people that are already, you know, very vulnerable and feeling like the cost of living crisis and so on, uh, really acutely and, um, find ways to kind of you know, ensure that they're not worse off, and ideally kind of sort out some of their fuel poverty issues at the same time. 

Matt: I mean, Fraser's point is absolutely spot-on. I guess you've got to think about this, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and, and this public policy, this messaging for those who are, who are looking just to satisfy some more sort of basic needs and wants, versus those that have satisfied those and are kind of looking at reaching these kind of upper echelons of this, of needs, you know, maybe pushing more into wants and desirables.

And up at that top there, or in that middle, folk who have the means and the money to satisfy those basic needs and wants and, and, and have the freedom of choice. Those individuals who are quite happy with the status quo, they like a high carbon lifestyle and they'd be reticent to change. How do we bring them along and not just, avoid that backlash and that anger?

Because we have to bring everybody along. How do we crack that, that really difficult nut?

Lorraine: Well, I'd love to hear what Nick thinks about this, because I think this is the really difficult, this is the difficult thing. I mean, what we're basically talking about is this enormous inequality in carbon footprints, that basically the higher your income, the bigger your carbon footprint.

And so the richer people, as Peter Newell and others call it, they're the polluter elite, basically. So how do we actually get them to change? Those are the people whose behaviour we really need to change. So yeah, and Nick's talked about the fact that there are sort of maybe different policies that you can apply to things like flying, which is, you know, a really unequal sort of activity as it is.

So you could put in place, say, frequent flyer levies – that might be one way to do it. You'd also probably want to kind of improve the alternatives in terms of land-based transport, so that when you're displacing people from aeroplanes, they are taking lower-carbon modes and enabling people to do that by cheaper rail travel.

I think in Germany at the moment, aren't they debating having like some sort of fixed, like eight or nine-euro ticket that will enable you to go anywhere on public transport in the country or something. So they're really taking it seriously and actually, you know, making public transport very low-cost and affordable for people.

So you've got to put in place some pretty significant kind of measures like that to, to encourage people to change. But yeah, I think it is going to be difficult. We're going to have to have really difficult conversations with, uh, people about, you know, the need, the need for particularly the rich to change their behaviour.

Matt: Yeah. So Nick, Lorraine's laid down the gauntlet there. 

Nick: Yeah. I mean, thank, thank you Lorraine for the easy question. Yeah. I mean, clearly it's hard. We, we can, there will be no silver bullet. We are going to need to use regulation. We're going to need to use incentives. We're going to need to use advice and engagement.

Just on that, that last point, uh, I mean, Lorraine's done more work on, on citizens’ assemblies that than I have, but I think we shouldn't just think about equality in, in a, in a distributional sense. Um, we need to involve people in the decision-making process, maybe particularly in the detailed decision-making process.

Somebody mentioned low-traffic neighbourhoods, which was probably the issue number one in local elections where I live a couple of weeks ago. And often very detailed things like, well, where exactly are the bollards going to be? And actually people are far better able to make those decisions in their own neighbourhood than they are for the, for the county as a whole.

So engagement, quite detail level really does matter. I agree that, I mean, the, the, the polluter elite, which, you know, probably includes a lot of people we know, um, is, is a difficult one. I think you need to think of it socially and technically, socio-technically in our jargon, which, which are going to be the the, the forms of pollution that really matter and are difficult to decarbonise it, aviation is, is clearly one of those.

And we traditionally think that, you know, new technologies will come in. They'll be expensive. It's going to be the rich who get, get them first. And, and yeah, that, that is clearly the tendency with EVs, with household solar, et cetera. Doesn't have to be like that for everything. Government could take a brave decision that it was going to drive the heat pump transformation, for example, through social housing to start with, that's 20 percent of the stock. That would be a big slice.

If we got the pricing right, it would help reduce fuel bills for that section of the community, um, and it would help bring down prices of, of, of heat pumps for everybody else. So, there are certainly areas where we could look, uh, for less advantaged people to be given the early benefits. 

Lorraine: And then even with the usual scenario where the rich are maybe adopting these, these technologies earlier, at least then they help bring the prices down so that they do eventually become affordable for everybody.

So yeah, I mean, but, but I definitely think, I mean, given the cost of living crisis, it's just scandalous that nothing is happening around kind of demand, you know, energy use within homes, you know, retrofitting or heat pumps, whatever. Like we absolutely need to crack that. 

Nick: Just on that point, we do need to be careful not to give the impression that we can do huge improvements in the whole housing stock before next winter.

We can’t. We, we, we can and should do more than we have been doing, but, um, there will be some issues that are going to have to be addressed, uh, as to do with people's income and, uh, that are being about inequality and not about carbon. 

Matt: The, the, the point Lorraine made there in terms of, you know, adoption from maybe the well-off parts of society being able to reduce costs is absolutely spot-on. I guess there's a there's a broader discussion there about the extent to which the better-off should be subsidising, you know, directly through taxation and all the rest, adoption of these technologies, behaviours, for those who are less able to afford.

The argument being that climate at two, three degrees above, um, you know, pre-industrial levels it ain't no good whether you're rich or poor. And this bleeds into the just transition piece – Fraser was pointing at this. How do we square that off? That, that doesn't look, for large portions of the UK electorate who maybe don't necessarily buy into the existential crisis of climate change in the coming years, particularly palatable, because it's essentially higher tax, or, in the most basic sense. So how do we sell this at the, at the polls? 

Lorraine: Yeah, it's a tricky one actually, because like, um, so Nick mentioned about sort of things like citizens’ assemblies and I was involved, I think Nick was as well, in the, um, Climate Assembly UK.

You know, we gathered together over a hundred members of the public to talk about how do we get to net zero and they debated all these different options. And fairness was such an important principle that they emphasise over and over again. “We've got, yes, we've definitely, we agree we've got to get to net zero.

We've got to find some effective solutions, but we've got to find some fair solutions that, so that we're not leaving behind, you know, people on lower incomes and they're not being kind of unfairly taxed or whatever. We're not leaving behind people that work in high-emission industries like livestock farming, for example, that we need to kind of think about all of these, these people, and we need to make sure that the solutions we find are fair”.

So fairness was really important to people, but what was very interesting, in one of the topics that we talked about, which was around sort of the what we buy elements of the transition, was that we did put to them some quite radical solutions about, uh, say changing income tax so that you just massively, like, pay more tax when you were like in, uh, having higher salaries, or you, you would even reduce the amount of working hours in the week.

So people were working like four-day weeks or something. So that, and the incomes would be reduced through that as well. So with these different solutions, what we were trying to get at was basically people having, particularly the rich, having much lower incomes and you sort of flattened out income. So you did sort of raise people on the lowest incomes as well, but you didn't have these massive sections of society with huge salaries, um, polluting masses.

But they, they didn't love that as a solution. Even though you could argue distributionally, it would be, like, really fair. But, uh, I think they thought, there was sort of an element where they maybe felt they might be worse off, uh, quite a lot of them. Um, and so they sort of felt, “Well, actually I, I do quite aspire to have a high-carbon lifestyle and that would sort of, um, scupper that”.

But also I think politically they thought it would be completely, uh, unrealistic. And they just couldn't imagine that sort of radical future ever happening. So that for a number of reasons, they weren't, they didn't love that as a, as a, as a way of dealing with things. Yeah. I think there are some interesting, you know, proposals around personal carbon quotas and all these sorts of things, but you do always come up with sort of some pretty significant concerns that the public have about that, that sort of thing.

Nick: Yeah. I think the cost is, is quite an interesting one, particularly housing. It's, it's clearly one of the major barriers to yeah, what we call deep retrofit, i.e., you know, decarbonized seating system plus, but better insulation, which I think we all know is necessary. We also know it costs £10,000 per house upwards, let's say, say that as a, as a, as a generalisation.

That sounds like a huge amount to most people, but of course, it's a very small fraction of the value of the house that they live in, whether they own it or somebody else owns it. So, how you think, you know, and maybe that's the route, maybe we get the finance through some sort of mortgage on, on, on the property.

It just seems when you think about it from a fundamental point of view, we are talking about a relatively small amount of the capital that is owned, even in the building stock, not, not, not, you know, even more so the wider economy that we need to devote to these problems. The idea that the money isn't there to do it is clearly not right.

It's how we get the money, where we get the money from, and to pick up Lorraine's point, how we persuade people that that's the best way to do it, that, that's the challenge, I think. 

Becky: And, I mean, just a, a kind of small anecdote, and it's not about, I guess, the underlying costs but framing things around the financial side of elements.

And I've talked on the pod before about the, um, Octopus demand response trial that I've been involved in. And the whole purpose of this trial, which was to try and get people that are part of the Octopus tariff to turn down their energy use at times when the grid is dirtiest, right? There was like a public driver, a “good for everyone" driver, if you like. And I went into that trial so excited about contributing. And even when I failed on my first go, I wanted to try again the second time, right? I failed, but I was still very motivated around this kind of concept of doing something that would deliver public good.

And then the second time round, I succeeded and I reduced, we reduced our energy consumption by about 80%. And to this day, I have no idea how we did that during that window. So not a clue, but we managed to. Um, and then I got the email that told me that I was successful and like what that corresponded to in terms of the financial savings.

And it completely demotivated me from participating in future because it, I dunno, like the financial flip suddenly made me think about I don't know, my, my own contributions, like what it was worth to me as opposed to what it was worth to other people. And so sometimes I feel like we talk about this fair and just future and then we come back to the, and what does that mean for you in terms of like your finances and your, and it changed, I experienced a change in mindset, which shocked me.

So I was kind of watching this happening, you know, out of body experience, watching it, watching it going on. 

Lorraine: That's really interesting. You know, so there is evidence actually that the more you sort of talk about the, the benefits to the self for doing these sorts of things, the more you actually erode that kind of more intrinsic motivation to do the right thing.

So, so maybe that is exactly what you experienced there because, but there's this tension here because we also know that actually for a lot of people, the financial savings are going to be really powerful motivators. So we kind of often say, talk about some of those really like, uh, big personal benefits because then you will engage people, but there is a risk that for those people that are doing it for other reasons, you kind of erode that. Take it away. 

Becky: Um, anyway, we have had, I mean, this has been an absolutely phenomenal chat and I know that we could probably carry on for, for much longer and maybe we'll have to get you back to, to follow up in some way, but we like to try and close out these episodes by bringing it back to the tangible, right?

So this is all about Local Zero – we like to think about what people can do quite practically in their everyday lives. You know, like, um, make Becky make the better choice or whatever it was we were saying before, like, how do we, how do we bring it back? So, you know, thinking about all of the things that we've talked about, if somebody that is listening or me even, um, wants to get involved, wants to try and create that shift, do you have any sort of top tips for them?

How can people get involved, um, today without waiting for this kind of bigger infrastructure change that we've been talking about? 

Lorraine: I, I always refer to Nick's, uh, research, actually the, the CREDS work, which has quantified all the different things that we can do, uh, in terms of reducing our carbon footprint and going car-free is by far the best thing.

Obviously that isn't a solution necessarily for everybody, particularly if you live in the countryside. You just might have to, uh, not do that. But, you know, try and save up for an electric vehicle – that would be the next best thing. Um, apart from transport, there's definitely changing your diet. So eat a bit less red meat and dairy, uh, think about energy use in the home.

Um, and, you know, we've talked about sort of insulation and other things – that's not always affordable, but definitely try to sort of reduce the amount you spend on energy if you can. But anybody – because I think a lot of what we've been talking about has been sort of things we can do in and around the home – but there are other roles that we have as individuals and, you know, all of us are, you know, have friends, family, neighbours, maybe we have, like, other parents at the school gate that we speak to, we maybe go to work and have colleagues. 

Any time you are having, in a situation with other people, you can just say something like, “So how is this going to help climate change?” Or, “Do you know the other day, I walked to work and it, you know, it was actually lovely”. Uh, or whatever, just, just talk, talking about climate change, talking about low-carbon in a really normal way to highlighting the benefits, highlighting the fact that it's actually possible to do some of these things, just getting that, that out there so that you sort of just change, start to change norms, just play your, your part in, in terms of kind of shifting, shifting norms is, is something that anybody can do.

Nick: Yeah, I agree with that. I think the, the, why it's a difficult question, Becky, is that it depends who you're talking to. I mean, it depends what their lifestyle is. So to give a sort of standard set of top tips for everybody really doesn't work very well, except for the points that Lorraine's made about our ability to act as, as people, as opposed to as consumers.

We all have that in some shape or form. I think for consumption, it's important to give people some steers, and I always say diet – what you eat – how you travel, how efficient your house is, and how much just general stuff you consume: those are the four baskets of people's consumption lives that, that make a difference.

And you tend to find that people know what they can do within those, you know, and it will be different for everybody. It might be that we don't try and get Becky to cycle. We get, we get her to go on the bus. It, it, it, it might be that I eat less cheese because I already don't eat meat, but you know, I mean, it's those sorts of things, that you've got to some extent to leave people to make their own choices within a liberal democracy, within a framework that helps people make better choices. Yeah, life without parmesan cheese will be, it's hard to imagine. Yeah, yeah.

Matt: Yeah, I like that point about dialling up and dialling down. You know, it doesn't need to be on and off, per se. We can, we can phase in and phase out. And once you start doing it does become a bit easier. Although parmesan to one side, of course. 

Nick: And just listening to you guys talking earlier. I mean, I drive a car less than both Becky and, and Matt, you were talking about, but that's because I haven't got small children. So, you know, and I am still fit enough to cycle and intend to remain that way. And so I don't need to use a car very much. We have to accept that people in different places at different, with different life stages are going to have different needs. There's no magic lifestyle solution. 

Becky: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much again. Thank you so much, Nick. Thank you so much, Lorraine. It's been a absolutely fascinating chat and we are definitely going to have to have you back on the pod at some point in the future.

Thanks everyone for listening. You've been listening to Local Zero. Um, if you haven't already, please go find and follow us @localzeropod on Twitter, to get involved with the discussions there. And if you can't constrain your thoughts and you want some to tell us something in more words than that, email us localzeropod@gmail.com

And if you're enjoying Local Zero, please, please, please leave us a review. This helps us climb the charts and drive the local energy revolution, getting the word out there to more and more people. Um, so that's it for now, until next time. thank you and goodbye. 

Matt: Bye-bye.

Lorraine: Bye.

Fraser: Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.