52: Professor Jim Skea on Net Zero and the just transition
With COP27 weeks away, Matt and Becky are joined by Professor Jim Skea, Co-Chair of Working Group III of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change) to discuss the benefits, practicalities and obstacles in the way of a just transition.
Jim is also a Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College, and Chair of the Scotland’s Just Transition Commission.
Essential Reading:
https://www.gov.scot/groups/just-transition-commission/
Episode Transcript:
Matt: Hello and welcome to Local Zero, your audio home for the local energy revolution. You’re listening to your hosts, Becky and Matt.
[Music flourish]
Rebecca: With COP27 in Egypt fast approaching, we’re joined for this episode by someone who is central to global, UK and, indeed, the Scottish climate discussion, internationally renowned climate scientist, Jim Skea.
Matt: Jim is Co-chair of Working Group III for Mitigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC for short. He’s also Chair of Scotland’s Just Transition Commission and he’s with us shortly to talk about a just transition and climate justice.
[Music flourish]
Rebecca: Oh, Matt, it’s great to be back after being down with the dreaded Covid lurgy for so long and honestly, I couldn’t have come back for a more exciting episode. I mean how phenomenal is this that we get to talk to Professor Jim Skea weeks away from COP27?
Matt: Firstly, I’m glad you’re back. I can see that you’re still recovering but I know you want to be part of this so much that you have dialled in today [laughter], so kudos. I first met Jim about ten years ago when Jim was actually my boss for a number of years and a very good boss at that. We weren’t really doing stuff around just transitions, particularly in this space but since, Jim has gone on to do bigger and better things and has been working with the IPCC providing and synthesising a lot of that scientific information about how we can tackle climate change and mitigate climate change. More recently, certainly over the last few years, he’s been involved with the Just Transition Commission with the Scottish Government or at least commissioned by the Scottish Government. We’ll hear a lot more about this but, in effect, he’s trying to shape or inform how the Scottish Government shape and deliver a just transition, putting theory into practice. I know, Becky, you’ve done a fair bit of theorising around this space and I know you’re a very practical person but this is something quite close to your heart too.
Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely it is and, in fact, actually Matt, one of the things that I’m really pleased about and I’m really excited about when we talk to Jim is that he brings those two different dimensions together. Sometimes, for folk that are really focusing on the climate science side of things, the human dimension can, perhaps, fall by the wayside a bit. Similarly, for folk that are very focused on just transitions... obviously, climate and the shift to net zero is fundamental to that but I think sometimes, you can get so focused on the impacts on people and the human dimension of it that that can... so bringing these two pieces together, I think, is absolutely critical because we’re just never going to get to net zero unless we can do that. We’re very, very lucky today to have somebody who can talk to both sides of those pieces and really have that kind of backing in what we need to do fundamentally to meet net zero but also how we’re going to do that in a way that’s fair and equitable and that brings everyone in society along.
Matt: Absolutely.
[Music flourish]
When anybody asks me, ‘What is a just transition, Matt?’ There are lots of questions and we’ll hear more about them from Jim but there are two key questions when it comes to a net zero transition. Who pays and who benefits? There’s more to it than that but if we could boil it down to those two and Jim can provide a bit of insight into those, then I think we’ll all leave here a bit wiser.
Rebecca: Why not? I would actually just add to that. I think that who pays and who benefits is so important and, again, it’s not just about society or households. I know in the last episode, we were talking about fuel poverty issues but in just transition, we need to think about who pays and who benefits from an industry perspective and from a work perspective but I actually think there’s another really important dimension in all of that and it’s who gets a say? Who gets to be involved in the decision-making?
Matt: And how do they feed in and where in terms of where that benefit and cost is associated? So we’re already unpacking what a complex basket of questions and issues this is but Jim, hopefully, has some of the answers, so we ought to let him in.
[Music flourish]
Jim: I’m Jim Skea and I chair Scotland’s Just Transition Commission. For most of my life, I actually spent my time being Co-chair of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which looks after mitigation. My very theoretical day job is as a Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College.
[Music flourish]
Matt: Welcome, Jim. Welcome back I should say. You were a guest almost a year ago to this day with COP26 and our live session, so it’s absolutely fantastic to have you back. Today, we’re hoping to get your insights around a just transition. Now, you’re very unique in the sense that you hold key positions on an international stage but also, from the Scottish perspective, on the domestic stage and you’re very much at that forefront. So just casting our minds back to COP26 and what went on there and what the key resolutions were... and we have COP27 in Egypt in a few weeks' time, which I’m assuming you’ll be part of, I just wanted to get a sense of how important the issue of climate justice but also, folded into that, energy justice will be. What are the key issues or sticking points that are going to have to be taken forward from COP26 and ironed out or at least revisited at COP27?
Jim: It’s worthwhile saying that I’m not a dedicated COP watcher, although I have been to every COP since the one in Paris back in 2015. It’s amazing when you get there how much you get lost in your own processes and conversations but it’s worthwhile saying that not every COP is equal. Some COPs are more landmarks than others and Glasgow was a big one. It’s quite clear that it was the biggest since the Paris COP that came up with the Paris Agreement. The Glasgow pact that was agreed upon was a very significant milestone. What will be happening in Sharm El-Sheikh at COP27 in two or three weeks’ time is going to be, I think, much more kind of incremental progress as we move forward. So just to say, on the climate justice issue, the big thing that will dominate conversations is the question of loss and damage for developing countries internationally. That’s probably the biggest climate justice issue with a big international dimension but it’s worthwhile saying that just transition is a really hot topic at the moment. There is a formal process within the convention, the so-called Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impacts of the Implementation Response Measures to give its nice, short, catchy name for the process.
Matt: Surely, that has an acronym, Jim. Surely. If it doesn’t, please invent one.
Jim: KCE, Katowice Committee of Experts. That’s the one.
Matt: Great, okay.
Jim: But it’s worthwhile saying there’s an awful lot happening offline in all the background discussions that go on at COP. The International Labour Organisation, in collaboration with the European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, actually has an entire pavilion devoted to just transition at COP27. So the concept really comes of age but as it’s come of age, it’s kind of revealing that it can mean many different things in many different contexts. Local specificity really, really matters.
Matt: I think, Jim, it’s worth reminding our listeners that we actually had Renée van Diemen on the pod - it was before COP26, so it was a good year and a half ago - to explain what the IPCC does but just a word on what it does and the importance of its forthcoming Synthesis Report which, as I understand, is the culmination of this current round, basically.
Jim: Yeah, so IPCC, as we describe it, is the UN body for assessing the science of climate change and possible responses. We produce reports, roughly, on a seven-year cycle probably realistically in which there are three working group reports: one on the physical science of climate change; impacts, adaption and vulnerability; and the third report is on mitigation which is about reducing emissions or increasingly actually, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well. Like Lord of the Rings, one ring to bind them all, the Synthesis Report comes along to try and draw on all of these underlying working group reports to produce a single report that sums up the state of knowledge. That is being worked on at the moment and we expect it to be produced about the middle of March next year but too late for COP27 which is unfortunate. The thing about the Synthesis Report is it can’t introduce new material. It can only be based on material in the underlying working group reports.
Matt: So the last Synthesis Report would have been in 2014?
Jim: 2014.
Matt: Wow! So these things don’t come along very often.
Jim: No they don’t and it’s taken so long. It’s a mixture of Covid and other delays in the Synthesis Report. We’re probably about a year behind schedule from where it was originally intended to be.
Matt: I think you can kind of bring your IPCC hat on and off here but how have you seen the concept of a just transition differ depending on the context? I mean when you say those two words in a Southeast Asian or a North American context versus a Western European context, do you get a different discussion or response?
Jim: Well, let’s look at it more from the perspective of different issues because just transition goes back to environmental justice in the US which has a long history. A just transition was originally applied to the challenge of exiting from the coal industry basically in a fair way and that’s why the UNFCCC body is called the Katowice Committee of Experts because it was at the Katowice COP that the Poles, who were facing the rundown of the coal industry in their area of Upper Silesia, really pressed the concept back in whichever year it was. I think it was 2017. So that’s where it started and I think lots of other people have begun to realise the wider dimensions as well. Obviously, in Scotland, the extension to the oil and gas industry is relevant as well. I think the other big area, which we may get on to, is the question of what happens in land use and fair transitions there which is really an extremely difficult area because it collides with issues of land tenure which vary according to your different national context. I think land use and the energy supply are probably the big ones but, of course, in Scotland, we’ve also applied it to the demand side as well to cover issues like fuel poverty. We’re starting to get into the issues like how people on lower incomes afford an electric vehicle because they cost much more upfront. These kinds of issues start to come in.
Rebecca: I’m really fascinated talking about just transition on the one hand and also talking about the broader climate issues that are brought up at COP and through the work that you’ve been doing over many, many years with the IPCC. I think that when I look at what’s happening in Scotland, I find it very exciting in a lot of ways that the Scottish Government is bringing together their energy strategy and their just transition planning and they’re really aligning these two concepts but do you see that happening elsewhere? Do you see there being a challenge in the way that we’re talking about these concepts? Are they aligned enough or can they sometimes appear to be at odds with each other or there’s tension with each other? Are we seeing cross-learnings? Are we taking learnings, for example, with what’s happening with the work coming out of the IPCC and thinking about then how we can be delivering that in a way that enhances the just transition or are we learning insights that seem to conflict with the underlying goals of a just transition?
Jim: Yeah, I mean these are the kinds of conversations that take place because some more on the environmental side will say by just transition, they mean just get on with the transition and don’t pay attention to the kind of social aspects so much which gets a lot of pushback, especially from the trade union movement which is more focusing on the social and economic issues. In terms of lesson learning, I think we still have a long way to go and it’s just the fact that at this COP, the concept has really raised up on the agenda. There are so many side events and meetings that are just transition-related. The International Labour Organisation pavilion, which they have separately, is having a whole set of sessions which tend to be knowledge hub sessions where just transition practitioners are setting out their wares, as it were, to open up panel discussions with a wider range of people. I think a lot more of these conversations need to take place. We have a 30-minute session on the Scottish Just Transition Commission at the ILO pavilion where we will be discussing how we’ve moved on from Phase 1 to Phase 2. It’s worthwhile saying that the Scottish example is still getting a lot of attention internationally because, as far as I know, we’re still the only body politic anywhere in the world that actually has a Just Transition Minister, for example, which was a real innovation.
Matt: That’s great to hear and that really positions Scotland on the international stage. It might just be worth pausing and just reflecting, for our listeners, on some of the key bodies that we’re talking about. I’d very much like to dig into the Just Transition Commission in the context of Scotland in a moment but if we can just reflect on the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and what that role is in relation to COP27 and framing those climate negotiations but also, Jim, if you could maybe speak to the extent to which the just transition and the concepts of climate justice are being dealt with by the IPCCC as part of their Synthesis work.
Jim: Right, okay. Just to say, for IPCC, in the current cycle which started in 2015, just transition had yet to take off as a concept. When we scoped out the Working Group III Report on mitigation, the phrase ‘just transition’ doesn’t appear anywhere in the approved scope of it. However, when the Synthesis Report was scoped out, which is the one that’s yet to be completed, it was scoped out at a later date. The idea of just transition was in there and it’s in the approved outline of the report and the only way that you could get just transition to flow into the Synthesis Report was via the Working Group III Report. So there is material in the Working Group III Report, in a couple of chapters, that refers quite strongly to the concept of just transition. I have to say that a lot of it is quite theoretical and abstract at the moment and that may pose challenges to our policymakers who are always looking for specificity and what they can do on a Monday morning at 9 o’clock. So some of the IPCC material may not help them to that extent but it is coming through. Just to say, in terms of IPCC reports in general, there’s a lot of interest in the IPCC reports. This is the first COP since the Working Group II and Working Group III Reports came out on impacts and mitigation. At the subsidiary bodies, without getting into too much of the jargon of negotiations, back in June, we presented the reports in full, both Working Group II and Working Group III. There are little aspects of the reports being communicated at COP itself but not as official side events, as it were. So it is happening and we have an IPCC pavilion and we are running a just transition event there, for example, where we are getting Ben Sovacool from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School to give a presentation on what the report says about just transition. We’re getting a set of wider commentaries on land use. We’ve got somebody from South Africa who will be talking about their just transition experience there. We will also get commentaries from unions and a body called the Institute for Human Rights & Business as well. These are the kinds of people we’ll get in there.
Matt: We’re talking about Jim’s IPCC work at the international level and then there’s the very domestic work at the Scottish level. Becky, you’ve been working on this. It’s just how we resolve these too. What can we learn from them?
Rebecca: Also, just reflecting back on what you said at the start of the conversation, Jim, with one of the biggest climate justice issues being around finance mechanisms internationally around loss and damage. That’s a very international issue which is quite different from some of the potentially more national issues and maybe local issues that Scotland is facing. So yeah, how do we bring all of that together? It feels very complex and challenging.
Jim: You’re dead right on that. I really support the premise behind your question, as you would say on the Today programme. The thing is with the IPCC, I feel sometimes it’s a bit head-in-the-clouds, if you know what I mean, but Scottish Just Transition Commission does keep your feet very firmly on the ground. I love it because of the complementary nature of the activities. So when you’re doing the IPCC stuff and arguing about the placement of a comma with countries and all the rest of it, the Just Transition Commission reminds you that it’s about people and real things on the ground. Equally, when you’re doing the Scottish kind of activities, you’re also reminded that things you do in one part of the world have implications somewhere else and they’re seen in a certain way. So I find these activities to be very, very complementary. You can make connections between them because the IPCC comes with big messages about decarbonising energy supply, electrification of demand, the increasing importance of nature-based solutions and land-use change and you do the Just Transition Commission and you see what it is like to actually do these things on the ground and all the practicalities of making that happen.
Rebecca: Do you worry that we could end up in a situation where we’re looking, for example, at delivering that just transition and delivering a net zero transition in Scotland where we end up taking action that will inadvertently create these challenges overseas? One of the, perhaps, more obvious examples is when we talk about electrification and the increased need for storage and then we look at where those minerals are resourced from. Are we at risk of just repeating our past mistakes but with different resources?
Jim: Of course, that’s an interesting question. If you start looking for problems, you will definitely find them. If you find that old energy is unacceptable and new energy is unacceptable as well, you’re really in quite a lot of trouble. Just to say, I was at a conference which had a much more international flavour last week. Mostly, just transition has been about transitions out, for example, of fossil fuels but the worry there that was being raised was the challenges of transitions in and the question of extracting minerals, etcetera, in different parts of the world with the worry that the companies who are extracting these minerals now don’t necessarily have the experience that fossil fuel companies have been building up over a period of decades in working with local communities. So there are a huge set of challenges there that basically involve building good labour practices back along the supply chains and there’s also a bigger issue for some of these countries. Taking minerals out of a country and then just sending the raw material out is not necessarily leaving a lot behind, so there are some big questions about whether the countries that are producing the minerals can actually diversify and move down the value chain and instead of exporting cobalt, they’re exporting batteries that they’ve assembled themselves, for example, so that more of the skilled labour resides in the country. You need to think about these issues but frankly, unless we get on with new energy, the world will warm up and if the world warms up, then there you will get some of the biggest climate injustice. Nobody says it’s easy but we need to deal with these challenges.
[Music flourish]
Rebecca: But moving from those challenges to the solutions, and you brought up a couple of really great examples around the good labour practices along the supply chains and diversification, how do we make sure that those are put in place? Is that something that needs to be discussed, raised and agreed on at COP and at that international level or is this something that, very much, needs to be dealt with on a country-by-country basis?
Jim: When you’re looking at transnational impacts, you can’t do it entirely on a country-by-country basis which is why bodies like the International Labour Organisation or the International Trade Union Congress are actually going to take a big interest in these issues. It’s worthwhile saying, I think, that in terms of new energy, so electrification and renewable energy, the capacity to control in a country like Scotland is much weaker than it would be for your conventional fossil energy. We’ve got BP, Shell and companies that are headquartered there. We don’t necessarily have companies that are extracting these minerals. For example, China controls a lot of these supply chains at the moment. I think it is a much more difficult issue; whereas, I think actually there’s less agency in a country like Scotland compared with the fossil fuel agenda.
Matt: Jim, I’m just maybe wanting to bring things back now to the domestic level. I’ve been living in Scotland now for six years and the more discerning listeners will note your Scottish accent and the fact that you’re a proud Dundonian. Our fellow host, Fraser, is not far from your neck of the woods. That is where you hail from, right?
Jim: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: Yeah, I’m glad I got that right.
Jim: Yeah, you could have made a mistake there [laughter].
Matt: You’ve got to be very careful [laughter]. The reason I say that is you’re taking on the Chair of the Just Transition Commission for Scotland but also, you are a Scot, you’ve grown up in Scotland and you know Scotland intimately. So just kind of reflecting on the challenges of Scotland’s energy transition, your piece bleeds right across not just energy but it’s cross-cutting: it’s economic; it’s social; it’s political. What do you see are the biggest challenges facing this just transition? I may note this isn’t the first energy transition that Scotland has gone through [laughter] in the 21st century. Anyway, reflections on that, please.
Jim: Yeah, okay. First of all, I’d say talk about opportunity rather than challenge but I think one of the most obvious things to get on with is improving the quality of the housing stock, insulation and bringing the fabric of buildings up to scratch. That is a win/win in terms of reducing emissions, reducing consumer costs and building up jobs in the new economy. There are challenges associated with it. It’s the biggest opportunity but it’s not necessarily the biggest challenge. I think the two challenges that jump out for me are exiting the oil and gas industry, the implications of that and moving over. Quite frankly, with the situation in Ukraine and what’s happened with energy prices and the temptation to go out and explore for more oil and gas, there’s a really quite fundamental political challenge there about where you go coupled with the issue that oil and gas licensing are at the UK level and not the Scottish level. So there may be an influence but it doesn’t have decisive power. The second big one, I think, is what’s opening up on land use and the more agricultural and nature-based solutions. It really interacts with questions of land tenure in Scotland as well and the high concentration of land ownership and the amount of tenant farming and crofting that’s going on. Basically, it really does pose some challenges to implementing the kind of techniques that you might want to put in place. The Just Transition Commission has just spent two days on Lewis and Harris talking about issues particular to the Western Isles and the land use issue has jumped out in a big way as we’re learning about the nature of crofting tenancies and the kind of restrictive covenants on them. There are all these kinds of issues are a really big challenge to deal with. In some ways, you almost can’t deal with the climate one until you’ve also picked up some of the land reform issues first to move things forward. It is a great big challenge.
Matt: We’ve covered some of this on previous pods and we’ll, no doubt, maybe dig into this in a moment and on the kind of green-led issues but the natural capital voluntary carbon offsetting, as we speak... just yesterday, I think the Climate Change Committee released their report on this issue, so it’s very, very live. May I add one more in, Jim, if you don’t mind and just get your reflections on this? I think the Scottish Government face not a unique challenge but certainly more unique than some other countries where, as a devolved administration, there are only so many devolved powers that they have. Land would be a devolved power but much of the energy supply chain sits under some more reserve powers for Westminster to make those decisions. So from a Just Transition Commission perspective, how challenging do you find it that you’re having to operate within the scope of limited, although important, powers?
Jim: Well, I think we delicately describe it as the current constitutional settlement to try and keep everybody happy on it. We have to recognise it and we will come and say that the Scottish Government could use all its persuasive powers and that’s kind of all that we can say at the minute. We can’t get involved in Indy Ref II discussions and all these kinds of issues. That’s completely beyond us but we can emphasise where the Scottish Government has agency, what they can do and where they should be exercising persuasive powers to the extent possible to influence UK policy. That’s realistically what you can do.
Matt: That’s an important point but to the extent where Scotland may be able to take a steer on making policy decisions that support a just transition but find that they end up meeting a brick wall down the line because there are reserve powers... I just wonder to what extent a just transition, in the fullness of time, actually may demand either additional powers or greater alignment between devolved administrations and Westminster because otherwise, you’re pushing with one hand and potentially pulling with the other.
Jim: You do know that co-chairs of IPCC are not supposed to comment on the policies of individual countries, so you’re taking me into very tricky territory there, Matt [laughter]. I can still do a response on it. I mean very obviously, Scottish Government can do so much and we will point that out because there is always the temptation, if I can put it that way, for Scottish ministers to say, ‘We’ve reached a brick wall. It’s not our fault. We’ll blame all these guys down in London for it.’ So we need to pick out where Scottish Government genuinely has agency and it’s quite a lot. If you’re looking at land and sea issues, the UK Government basically controls the sea area through the Crown Estate but the land and land tenure is up to Scotland. These are Scottish acts that can change it. We’ve had land reform acts. It can be done but there are some very tricky political issues to be negotiated within Scotland around land reform. The other very obvious point, for example, is that although energy supply policy is a reserve power for Westminster, the planning system is Scottish and you can say no to a lot of things through the planning system, e.g. fracking, nuclear power and all of these kinds of things.
Matt: Just to clarify, I’m not trying to squeeze a juicy tidbit around independence here [laughter]. I am more speaking to the importance of that alignment between nations that we were talking about before because, in microcosm, we have the UK as an umbrella government within which these devolved administrations sit and this is why I think these international fora are so important to discuss what a way forward is for coalitions of nations.
Jim: Yeah, but I can’t think of a single country with devolution or a kind of federal structure where there is not a tension between individual states and the federal things, whether it’s the US, Germany or wherever you want to go that that’s endemic.
Matt: Maybe there are lessons that can be learnt from Scotland and the UK on that basis but there I shall leave it [laughter].
Rebecca: Without getting back to Scotland and the UK, I think this concept of alignment is really, really fascinating. We started this conversation off by talking about the importance of local and locally specific or contextually specific solutions. To me, that also really points to the role not just of, say, local authorities and local government or even one level down, I guess, below what we’ve just been talking about but also, in a lot of ways, the roles of other organisations. One thing that I was really struck by at COP26 last year was the way that cities, large institutions and players from industry really were getting involved. I know that, at the heart of it, the COPs have been around these international climate negotiations at that very political and national government level but as we start to talk about the implementation of the solutions rather than necessarily these agreements, to me, there seems to be something very important here around that alignment across scales, whether you’re talking about local government through to national and international but also across different players in the sector, whether it’s industry, community organisations, financial institutions and so on. As we shift away from thinking about the biggest challenges that we might have to start thinking about how we deliver on some of those opportunities, do you see a shift in the focus and the framing of the discussions there? I know you’ve been moving from that initial phase of work on the Just Transition Commission to a more secondary phase more focused on the delivery rather than its defining and its framing. Do you see different opportunities there around who can be engaged and how?
Jim: Just to say, I think with the implementation side, I don’t think I would quite trust the negotiators (and this is getting into some deep territory) to get into some of the detail of implementation because the people who go to negotiate at the COPs can actually be a little bit distant from the policymakers back home who are actually charged with delivering stuff on the ground. Now the characteristic of a COP, of course, there’s a negotiating core and what happens in the centre of the Blue Zone, as it were, but increasingly, the characteristic of COPs is a mixture between an international negotiation, an international congress with all the civil society and a trade fair where all the companies are getting together to discuss these issues. In a way, the value of the COPs, in terms of implementation, is on the wider side for different actors and from different communities to get together to exchange and share information. The very specific example that’s good is the example of cities and urban policymakers where we’ve had an IPCC special event and we got together with the C40 people to have an international workshop on cities. Actually, at COP27, there will be launched a so-called Summary for Urban Policymakers of the IPCC reports. We have to be careful as it’s not been approved by governments, so it’s not an IPCC product but it’s a derivative product that somebody else is producing based on the IPCC reports targeted at a very specific audience. I think cities are a very good example of where you’ve seen a lot of action actually happening that is beyond the negotiators to do this. Implementation needs to happen at a national, regional and local level but it is useful for people to get together to share experiences and get a sense of what works and what can be taken forward.
Rebecca: In the work that you’ve been doing, both with the IPCC and this framing or this translation to think about what this might mean for the cities and taking that forward but also the work going alongside side that with the Just Transition Commission, what have been some of the key highlights or learnings around the opportunities now for delivering this just transition to net zero?
Jim: In the IPCC, I’m a scientist and when I do the Just Transition Commission, I’m not a scientist but I’m chairing a bunch of stakeholders and it’s a very, very different world. I think we do need to have much more dialogue between these different communities. One of the things that we did that was a novelty for IPCC in this cycle is while we were producing reports, we actually discussed drafts of reports systematically with the environmental NGOs, through Climate Action Network International, and we convened webinars with them to have an exchange of views between the scientists and the practitioners there. We also had sessions with the so-called BINGOs, the business and industry NGOs as well. We have to be completely balanced and so we speak to the environmental movement and the business side as well. These were extraordinarily useful because I think it really brought home to the scientists involved in IPCC that this actually has a practical outcome somewhere further down the line but it also helped the stakeholders to realise where these scientific messages were coming from and we could take a little bit of time to explain in more depth why emission pathways followed the path they did, why there are particular measures needed and the fact that carbon dioxide removal is actually essential and if you’re going to get to net zero, you can’t do without it. There has been wishful thinking in the past to say that renewables and efficiency can do everything but they can’t.
Matt: There’s something interesting here, Jim, in what you’re saying. You’ve got the Just Transition Commission on that kind of land side which, I guess, is a similar model, if you will, as the Scottish Land Commission which is a separate body but, again, operates in that sphere of objective advice, is evidence-based and bringing together a combination of scientists and practitioners.
Jim: Can I quarrel with you on that one?
Matt: Please do, yeah.
Jim: The Just Transition Commission, as a scientific and analytically-based body, it’s not really. That’s why I said I’m a scientist in IPCC but the Just Transition Commission is a stakeholder-led body. The Just Transition Commission isn’t going to go against analysis and evidence but that’s not the core of it. It’s bringing different stakeholder views together.
Matt: Okay, I don’t disagree with that. My point is that on both bodies there are scientists, who may not be wearing their scientist hat but, from a research base, they’re dealing with evidence and that’s brought to bear in the set of recommendations if you look at the two reports. So the Just Transition Commission is offering a set of guidelines, recommendations and insights into how to deliver a just transition. Now Becky’s question there is about how we do a just transition. How do we take these ideas and recommendations and deliver them? I know Scottish Government is very busy in this space and it’s bringing together its energy strategy and just transition plan associated with the climate change plan. What’s the bridge between the two there? With the work that you’re doing through the Just Transition Commission with colleagues, how does that filter into actual policy and on-the-ground change or how do you hope it will inform that?
Jim: Well, the very fact that we have just transition plans at all is the result of the Just Transition Commission recommending them. It has actually brought something about and our other recommendations were around engagement and consultation which is going on at the moment and a lot of attention to the economic implication like who pays and who benefits from the kinds of changes. When the new Just Transition Commission was set up, because the second phase is quite different from the first phase, we now have a duty to advise the minister and Scottish Government and we have a duty to scrutinise it. We will be feeding in advice on the structure of these just transition plans upfront but then we will also have a duty to scrutinise the implementation of these plans and call attention to whether they’re working and whether targets are being met, etcetera. Another thing that we’re working on is monitoring and evaluation and trying to think about indicators. What means success when you’ve actually done a just transition? Now we need to be a bit consultative about this because the Scottish Government I think has run one workshop on that and I think there’s another one next week coming up as well which we will be attending. Monitoring and evaluation sound really boring and...
Matt: No, no. Well, you can see Beck and I and we’re like, ‘Oh, metrics and indicators, yes, please!’ [Laughter]
Jim: Yeah, but it’s critical, it’s critical!
Rebecca: I was at that first workshop and it was very interesting. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I think what Scotland is doing, in some ways, is quite groundbreaking. You said that there’s a lot more focus on just transition at COP this year. Why do you think it’s becoming more of a hot topic? What is it that’s really making people sit up and take notice of that?
Jim: I think it’s the fact that until you got to the Paris Agreement and the ambition of the targets, there was not a realisation that in order to meet science-based targets, you needed to do things that were no longer incremental, as it were. Mitigation policy is not like spreading the butter on top of your toast. It’s a fundamental change and it carries big social and economic consequences. I think people are just kind of waking up to that which is why just transition has come forward. There is a risk because, in some jurisdictions that have been struggling with climate policy, they tend to say, ‘Ah, just transition. That’s the answer,’ and it’s a kind of magic dust that you sprinkle on difficult climate policies to make it okay. It is not easy and that’s the point of bringing it forward.
Rebecca: Do you think that its profile has been raised in part because of the climate march that we saw at COP26 and the rise in youth voices? Do you think that’s been playing a role in this? When we look at the climate science and the work of the IPCC, as you said, you’re a scientist in that. It’s grounded in the science. The just transition movement, if we want to call it, seems to be coming from a very different place.
Jim: Yeah, and just to say, I’m not sure just transition is coming from the march bits. Most of the march bits are about broader climate justice and the impacts of climate change internationally but around 2018, it was like all the planets aligned around climate policy. You had Greta Thunberg and the marchers, you had the IPCC 1.5 Report, you saw corporate action beginning to spring up and really, everything aligned at the same time there to take it forward. I wouldn’t say that one factor was decisive; it was the combination of them I think that drove it forward. It was science and a bigger public movement.
Matt: Now, Jim, I think we’re fast running out of time and I just wanted to end on this question just to reflect on your work with the Just Transition Commission and the focus on Scotland. I don’t know how long this will go on for but it sounds like given the fact that you’ll be monitoring and evaluating, this could rumble on and... God speed but when all is said and done, what do you hope will be the legacy of the Just Transition Commission and crucially, looking to other countries, I think you said that globally, it’s the only organisation entity that is driving a just transition, from an analytical standpoint and providing recommendations? What can the world learn from what you’re doing through the Just Transition Commission?
Jim: First of all, the world appears to be quite impressed with the first commission and what it came up with. It came up with really quite clear recommendations, all of which the Scottish Government picked up and the fact that there’s a minister there and it’s built into the governance system is actually quite an important symbol. But I think what the world should be looking out for is the implementation phase which is obviously coming up and will run through this Scottish Parliament. Just to say, we are a bit different from the Land Commission because that’s a statutory body that was established under an act of the Scottish Parliament. That is different from the Just Transition Commission which is not statutory. We’re appointed by the government of the day and the government of the day appointed the first commission for two years and this commission is appointed for the length of this Scottish Parliament. We’ll effectively review the effectiveness of these institutional arrangements. If we get to 2024/25, without speculating about the timing of the next election which would define the length of the current Just Transition Commission, I think you’d look back and say, ‘Has this arrangement held the Scottish Government’s feet to the fire in terms of delivering the implementation of just transition principles and measures?’ That’s the thing we should be measured on which is why the monitoring and evaluation framework is critical.
[Music flourish]
Matt: Well, Jim, as a colleague and also as a resident of Scotland, I wish you all the best with this because it’s a very important topic. I just want to say a big thank you for your time today. We’ve really appreciated that and I’ve really enjoyed the chat.
Jim: If we do that again, Matt, I hope you’ll have picked up a Glasgow accent instead of that Yorkshire one.
Matt: I’m leaving that to my two weegies [laughter].
Jim: Oh right, okay [laughter].
[Music flourish]
Matt: So you’ve been listening to Local Zero. Thanks again to Professor Jim Skea for taking part in this episode and for schooling us all on just transitions, whether they are in our local neighbourhood or whether they’re happening globally. Becky, a tour de force as ever. Really enjoyed that.
Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Honestly, the conversation was so broad and so diverse. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot and I’m just going to have to sit down for about two weeks and process all of that which I’ve got just about enough time to do before COP kicks in [laughter].
Matt: Absolutely and before we have a load of other issues to deal with. I think all that it leaves us to say is please, please, please connect with us on Twitter @LocalZeroPod. We’ve had some really, really nice responses of late. Charles Wood from Energy UK had a really kind response saying, ‘Anyone not listening to Local Zero pod yet should really fix that. Important topics presented in an interesting and fun way. The podcast sweet spot.’ That’s the first time I think I’ve ever been described as a sweet spot, Becky, but I’ll take that [laughter].
Rebecca: I’ll take that too [laughter]. Absolutely brilliant. Thanks, Charles. Fantastic stuff.
Matt: Thank you, Charles. So please do connect with us. In the meantime, thank you for listening and look forward to seeing you again soon.
[Music flourish]
Transcribed by
PODTRANSCRIBE