57: 2022 Wrapped

Joining the usual team for a look back at 2022 in energy (with festive drinks and mince pies in hand) are Strathclyde University's Dr Jen Roberts and Manish Joshi. Together, they unpack an eventful (!) year, discuss key learning points from the energy crisis, and look for reasons to be cheerful. There is also the long-awaited return of Future or Fiction.

Episode Transcript:

[Music flourish]

Matt:  Hello and welcome to Local Zero. Fraser and I are here at Strathclyde University together for a special Christmas episode and we are delighted to say that Becky joins us remotely but still she’s here with a festive drink in hand of... I think tea, actually, but there you go [laughter].

Rebecca:  Oh no, I’ve upgraded, Matt. I’ve upgraded my tea to a glass of bubbly [laughter].

Matt:  Oh lovely.

Rebecca:  But yes, it’s hard to know where we’re going to start with 2022. It’s been an absolutely crazy year for all of us, for the world in general and, of course, for the energy industry.

Fraser:  Yeah, and we’re delighted – delighted might be a bit strong – we’re not completely disappointed to be joined for this end-of-year celebration [laughter] by Manish Joshi, CEO of Strathclyde’s Student Union and Jen Roberts, Strathclyde academic extraordinaire and long-time friend of the pod, both a key part of Local Zero 2022.

Matt:  As we did last year, this is a really good chance for us to take stock and discuss the key takeaways from this year and we can then look ahead to 2023 with, hopefully, a fistful of optimism.

[Music flourish]

So welcome everybody, guests. It is an absolute pleasure to have you here. We’re recording at Strathclyde Union’s brand spanking new building and we are in the recording booth which is a real nice touch because I think, it’s fair to say, this is the first time we’ve actually done this in a booth. So thank you, Manish, for hosting us.

Manish:  No problem. A pleasure to have you all.

Matt:  It’s good to be here with you all because I think it’s fair to say that 2022 wasn’t a boring year [laughter]. Was anybody bored at any point? [Laughter]

Fraser:  I would give anything to just be bored and just sitting on a chair and staring into the middle distance with nothing to think about.

Matt:  Yeah, it certainly wasn’t boring. I think it’s fair to say it was a formative year for everything energy and everything climate. We had a COP. We had an energy crisis. We had an invasion of a European nation. We have had record energy prices. We’ve had record fuel poverty. We’ve also had record good news in terms of EV uptake, people engaging with demand side response or the Octopus Saving Sessions. So there’s plenty of good and plenty of bad news. I don’t know – whether I can spin around here and ask anybody if they want to kick off with what they thought was the most memorable moment of 2022 for energy, climate and all things green.

Fraser:  I think it’s been almost entirely, for me, the energy crisis, the energy prices and the state of bills in the UK. That, for me, has been the biggest game in town. There have been lots of other things happening but the culmination for energy has absolutely been in this space. We now have a situation where... we don’t want to start off on a terrible note because...

Matt:  Because we’ll lose listeners [laughter].

Fraser:  ...there’s optimism on the way at the end of this but we are in a situation now where it feels like we’ve completely run out of control of energy which is frustrating because we know we can make different choices and different decisions to make energy work really, really well for people and planet alike. But in terms of the big news this year, I think that the energy crisis absolutely has dominated in good ways and in bad ways; in bad, of course, record levels of fuel poverty and the devastation that has wrought on people, socially, economically as well as everything else but also in terms of now we’re maybe considering what the energy system does and is for more than ever before. I think you hit the nail on the head, Matt. It absolutely is a formative moment for energy in this country.

Rebecca:  I feel like we’ve just been pushed to extremes this year and I think, Fraser, you started off talking about the energy crisis which is one example of where we really are seeing things pushed to extremes in terms of the bills and the highs. Flipping that on its head, for people that simply can’t afford to heat their homes now, there are really severe lows around what their homes are actually going to be like to live in. If we just cast our minds back six months ago, we saw record-breaking high temperatures. From a climate perspective and from an energy perspective, we really have had quite a lot of extremes this year in terms of what people have had to face.

Matt:  Now we’ve two esteemed guests in here who are very much on this subject matter. Jen and Manish, lovely to see you and thank you for coming. If you were to reflect on 2022, and we’re rather putting you on the spot here because we only just went up to the bar a moment ago to get some complimentary drinks from the union... [laughter]...

Manish:  Sshhh....

Matt:  I’m not allowed to say that. What’s it all about? [Laughter] Well, today we’re looking at 2022. I am putting you on the spot. This isn’t prepped. If you reflect, what have been the biggest moments for you in terms of energy sustainability and climate? Is there anything that really stands out?

Jen:  For me, I think what really stands out is the emerging narrative, I guess, of what has the government been doing. We’ve just talked about these extremes from extreme highs to extreme lows. We’ve had decades of experts advising policy and advising government to do more around retrofit, insulation and around actually building homes that are fit for purpose. We’ve had decades of that and in the last few years, we’ve seen rumblings around Insulate Britain and around people taking action and saying, ‘This really isn’t good enough.’ What we’ve seen this year is people saying, ‘Do you know what? They’re just casting their decisions around not building certain forms of energy or not taking initiatives to insulate homes.’ I just think, ‘Look what you’ve left us with. Look what you’ve done.’ It’s just really exposed the really poor decision-making that we’ve seen over the last decade.

Rebecca:  And lack of decision-making, Jen.

Jen:  Mmm, yeah, the absence of any decision-making. I can be optimistic as well. I am an optimist but I think the takeaway for me... because in that optimistic sense, we’re now seeing a wave of... if we have a wave of movement that’s like, ‘What has the government been doing?’ What you’ve got is an ask for action and the mandate for action. I think that spills over into appetite and desire for change and also an absolute necessity for change for people’s wellbeing really.

Matt:  Just on that point there, there’s been bad decision-making, poor decision-making or a lack of decision-making but also I’ve felt there’s just been too much decision-making. I was retrospectively looking back at the policymaking around energy bills and retrofit and there was a period of about six months between – how many prime ministers? I haven’t got enough fingers or toes.

Jen:  It’s a record for the year as well.

Matt:  It was just stream after stream after stream and I was almost just punchdrunk from it.

Rebecca:  I feel like it’s when my kids are trying to do something and they’re really trying to look busy so I don’t actually ask them to do anything [laughter] but they’re not really doing anything [laughter].

Manish:  But that’s all we’ve had though this year in some ways and I think it builds on your point, Becky and Jen, in terms of there’s just been a lack of leadership. There’s a lack of a strategy. We oscillate between having onshore wind and having offshore wind and what we’re doing around renewables. There’s this kind of tension within the nuclear industry there. I think people have got more educated than they’ve ever been on what energy means for them in a personal context but they don’t know what’s happening six months down the line. Everything has been kicked down the road. There’s no long-term strategy in place. We are paying the consequences of a lack of investment. Money was cheap five or ten years ago. Money has just got expensive and so for countries to borrow and invest in infrastructure projects has now got more expensive. We’ve also got the fact that if we had insulated people’s homes and we had actually taken proactive measures in the last decade, people would be in a much better position than they are right now. I think we’re having to deal with the consequences of that. We’ve opened the Student Union up as a warm bank. We’re coming through a period of food banks, clothing banks and warm banks. Society has to somehow take a moment to say, ‘How are we going to tackle the structural inequalities and the issues as opposed to trying to put sticking plasters on them?’ There’s just been a lack of clarity, I think, for people. I think a lot of people are now literally living in fear and almost paralysis.

Matt:  For me, a big takeaway is that you kind of look back over the years, as a scientist – albeit a social scientist...

Manish:  Still a scientist, Matt. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Matt:  I’ve always liked you, Manish [laughter]. It’s been a bit like a controlled experiment in the sense of we’ve had the years before where we had energy bills around this mark and then you’re like, ‘Right, what happens if we treble energy bills? Ah, that’s what government will do or at least this government.’ They turn the money hose to sort this or that and you then wonder what that means for the future. You talk about the strategy, quite rightly, but once you press a policy button, it’s quite difficult to not press that again in the future. I think we saw that Covid actually. You do wonder whether some of the energy crisis response and that willingness to throw money at the problem... and we can talk about whether they threw the right amount in the right way but you have to say that money was spent very quickly. Would that have happened on the back of Covid-19 in such a swift fashion without strategy? It was knee jerk but, in fairness, they had to move quickly but didn’t move quickly enough in my view.

Fraser:  I would agree with that and I think it’s fair. I think the situation that people find themselves in now is as largescale, it is as deep and it is as stressful and strenuous. For a lot of people, this is deadly as well. This is a crisis. Let’s not beat around the bush. This isn’t an extra pair of socks for the winter. This is deep, entrenched destitution and a spiral of not being able to afford your bills, your rent, your mortgage or whatever it might be as well as your energy bills. It’s much bigger than that. What I will say on the other side of this, and Jen mentioned it briefly and Manish mentioned it briefly, is we’re now at that moment in time where understanding of energy has never been greater among the public by necessity. People have had to figure this out. The wider consciousness is now fully attuned to what the energy system is, what it does and where things seem to be going wrong now. I think what we have is a real widespread mass appetite for radical action and radical change. We don’t want to spin this into just a positive and we have to take that with the context of all the terrible things that are happening as a result of this crisis but that moment, that wider consciousness and that demand actually is a big opportunity to do something bigger and something bolder than we’ve ever done in energy before. I think that’s something that we have to keep in mind and keep our foot on the gas for.

Rebecca:  We do and I think you’re spot on, Fraser, that people are more engaged, more aware and they want to see change. I think what we really need to start to see happening now is better models around finance, business models and implementation because the want is there but regardless of that want, most people can’t actually afford to make the changes. They might not have the agency. They might not own their home. They might not be the decision-makers in their home. Golly, this stuff is hard. I’m going through a phase at the moment of moving into a new home and gutting the ground floor. I had no idea about half the things that the builders asked me and the amount of research I’ve had to do just to try and understand and make decisions and I work in this space. I feel like you’re right that we’re starting to see that engagement and the knowledge but we need to find a way to actually support people to create these changes where they don’t necessarily have the time, the capacity or the resources to do it on a home-by-home basis.

Matt:  Because it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that those that do have the time and the capital to engage in this transition are starting to really reap the benefits of doing so. I’ll give you a classic example. There’s the demand side response and stuff that we’ve seen from the Saving Sessions for those who have been with Octopus. It’s not just Octopus but other suppliers as it stands. Those who had already made the move to electrification, heat pumps or maybe they’ve got an EV... their hot water and their cooking is all electrified and if they turn down or turn off for an hour or two, they’ve made some big savings. You ask somebody who is unable to afford to electrify and somebody who is already consuming the bare minimum because they can’t afford it and you start to see this gap starting to really emerge between the haves and the have-nots in the net-zero transition.

Fraser:  Absolutely.

Manish:  Yeah, inequality is really at the heart of a lot of this. When you’ve got those early adopters and you’ve got people who have locked in prices, on RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) and all kinds of stuff years ago and it’s the people who have got the means to do it. Even if you take those of us sitting in this room and who has an electric vehicle and who can afford to go and buy a new electric vehicle versus a secondhand electric vehicle... and that knowledge point that Becky talks about. My wife is an architect and there are all kinds of stuff that’s going on in terms of building materials and things like that but where is that capacity building piece and that education piece and resourcing people to actually make good, well-informed decisions when they do have pocket money to spend and when you’ve maybe got time to do some renovation on your house so that you know you’re making the right decisions. I think we’re lacking in all of that information just now. There’s stuff starting to trickle through I think but there’s almost so much information that people don’t quite know where to go to find. There are still a lot of cowboys out there, unfortunately. With heat pumps, I was looking at doing some work recently and you’ve guys who come out and they’ll just chuck in a couple of heat pumps for you but you know it’s not the right thing because your property is really leaky and drafty and it’s actually never going to work. It’s making sure that we’ve got good quality standards in this space as it develops.

Matt:  Just on the engagement point because we have a leading expert on engagement in the room with Jen. Jen, do you think we’re engaging the public at the moment around net zero? I mean this year, you could argue that energy prices and energy, in general, have moved into the national conversation in a way they hadn’t previously. If we were sat here this time last year, I would argue we are streets ahead in terms of it now being something that you see on the news, breakfast TV, in the papers and on social media but are we actually engaging or is it just happening and people are looking at it...

Jen:  And is this good practice engagement?

Matt:  ...like a bonfire? [Laughter]

Jen:  It’s really putting people into incredibly difficult positions. Is it engagement or is it survival? Really, is it good engagement? It’s a really good question because being engaged is only one part of the issue. That’s only one part of actually being able to take action. You can engage people but without actually allowing them or enabling them to take any action or to do anything... I mean even just the fact that we’re framing it around an individual taking action, that’s not fair. It’s not about taking action. It’s just that the choices that are available and sensible are the sustainable ones. I can reflect on my own experience as well. I’ve been sort of foraging around in some of the technical aspects of heating our home and things like that but I don’t massively enjoy it. I’m privileged that I can do that but I don’t enjoy it. It actually comes out of a form of necessity to calm myself down about the climate crisis because I just think, ‘Okay, what can I do about it?’ We’ve made some inroads and progress but actually, it shouldn’t really be me doing that. Another big milestone for me this year was going car-free and as a mountain lover and adventure person, I got rid of the car in April. I did some maths in preparation for this episode [laughter]...

Matt:  Great!

Jen:  ...because everyone asked me about the finances of this. What are the financial implications of being car-free? Overall, I guess the headline news is that I’ve had multiple adventures to the countryside, taken multiple trains with bikes on and sat around at train stations but the trains don’t turn up because of all the issues with the railways. I’ve had really great adventures over the last year and ultimately, I have more money in my pocket because the car, in the end, cost more when you take it all in but it’s not much more. The only reason why it’s not much more is that I would take the train for long journeys anyway which is really expensive. So actually, you can try and take these actions because you’re engaged on an issue but I’m still spending £1,300 on trains in a year to do the things that I love...

Rebecca:  Wow!

Jen:  ...and that’s huge. It’s absolutely huge. I’m using a personal example to talk about what we really mean by engagement and engagement is very different from empowerment. People might be engaged on this issue more now than ever because of the gas crisis and the climate crisis but the trick is to turn that into empowerment.

Matt:  There’s something insidious underneath all of this, I think. When the energy crisis struck, I noticed a lot of people went directly into thinking, ‘What should I do about it?’ rather than ‘What should we do about it?’ Sorry, it was, ‘What should I do about it or what should they do about it?’ but not necessarily, ‘What should we do about it?’ It’s started to make me very worried about net zero in general; that there was this idea that there’s little me and then there’s that big thing, the state and industry, and there is a real big gap about something in between. We’ve seen this with organisations, and I would include the Students’ Union in this, like the many community organisations that we’re involved with. I completely take your point, Jen, that you can’t do it on your own but it’s a coping mechanism. It’s also partly because the toolkit and the repertoire that we have at our disposal is either ‘I can do’ or ‘that will be done to me.’

Fraser:  This is why we need to think more broadly as well. I’ve been asked this question probably a thousand times about individual action. That’s the thing; we’re much the same. Everyone in this room, I’m sure, has tried to do something about it. Whenever I’ve been asked this question, the important thing I think is to remember that, and Monbiot has said it umpteen times, we’re thinking less as consumers and more as citizens; so thinking about building social relationships and building the sort of coalition that you need to hold leadership to account and act in the way that they need to. Coalition building and working across the different industries and sectors with citizens and government together working on solutions is critical but if you’re thinking about what you can do individually about stuff, for me, the best bang for your buck that anyone can get involved with is to have those conversations in their communities and build those networks as far as possible which helps with community resilience. In my experience, it helps at least a little bit more with that empowerment side to build something capable of holding the people with the levers of power to account and to lead in the way that we ultimately need them to lead. Becky, when you rightly say that only so many people can make these choices and not everyone can make these choices, that’s where you need that leadership. What we haven’t had this year, in the slightest, is leadership on this to not just make the choice obvious for people who can afford it but to lead for people who can’t afford it to help support them in that transition as well. That’s the way that it ultimately, I would argue, needs to be done and I think the social side of it when thinking ‘What can I do?’ and ‘What can we do?’ is just as crucial as chucking up a solar panel, buying an EV or anything else that you might have the capacity to do in your life.

Rebecca:  This idea of collective action is so important and acting within our communities. I think that you’re right. There’s a role for individuals, I guess, in that consumerism role because we are still consumers and we have the power of choice. We are citizens and there is an opportunity there. I always think back, Fraser, to some of the work that you did in your PhD which will soon become a PhD right? Are you going to say it on Local Zero and then it will be true? [Laughter]

Fraser:  I am never committing to that publically [laughter]. It will be done when it’s done. It will be a nice surprise for me as well as everyone else [laughter].

Rebecca:  But I think back to some of the work that you did looking at the uptake of PV solar at the individual household level and then at the community level and that community scale sort of unlocking and empowering people who might not be otherwise empowered on that individual level. It also gave people something to kind of gravitate to and come together around. For me, I find that that is a challenge that I experience. I know how to act as an individual and I know how to act as an individual citizen but I’m still acting individually even though in that kind of citizen perspective. What I find much harder is to find the things that can stimulate action within the community around the right space. That, for me, is where there’s a huge amount of opportunity that we’re probably not tapping into at the moment.

Manish:  Yeah, community action for me is the heart of the solution for a lot of these things. I think we’ve got a massive opportunity because people have had enough. The amount of industrial action we are seeing right now, I’ve never seen in my lifetime. I think we’re at a tipping point, potentially. If we can build some of that solidarity amongst communities... and it has to go beyond communities. Actually, I was part of a conversation this week where a nurse was moaning about teachers and I said, ‘You need to stop because that’s what they want you to do. They want you to turn on each other.’ Actually, it’s about trying to get to a point where we can come together but we also need to try and build that common cause and I think that’s something that is missing. People are fighting their own battle within their own sphere of influence but actually, how could we join it up and how could we make some tangible changes for people in communities? Matt, you’re involved with South Seeds and I think they do some amazing things and it’s that opportunity to maybe join that up with some other things like community meals; so getting people around a table eating together, sharing ideas and looking at some of the bigger things. Today, we brought a whole group of students in to give them a meal and send them off but you’re hoping that’s going to spark some ideas and some connections. I think we’ve got to figure out ways that we can do more of that. Whilst I’m optimistic, I also recognise that people are pretty downtrodden. We’ve come off three years of a pandemic, there’s ongoing anxiety constantly around the climate crisis and inequalities at record levels. People are feeling vulnerable and so how do we strengthen them and give them a bit of an opportunity to go on to that next stage of the journey? That, for me, is a big question I’m taking into 2023.

Rebecca:  Manish, do you find that the students that engage with this are students that might not otherwise be engaging in this space? Do you find that by doing these actions that are happening at that collective level they are spreading the energy joy?

Manish:  I’m not entirely sure if I’m being totally honest. We’re trying to hold space for people, facilitate space and create spaces for people. What they then go on to do with those spaces depends. Probably the most engagement we’ve seen from the student body this year has been around gender-based violence which I know isn’t directly related to what we’re talking about but, at the same time, it is an inequality issue. It is an issue that affects women. That’s probably been the area we’ve seen the most activism from the student body. There’s definitely that low drum beat level in terms of climate and sustainability but I wouldn’t say it’s as visceral as what we’ve seen around something like 16 Days of Action and things like that.

[Music flourish]

Jen:  I was just going to come in about creating spaces and engaging with communities. I was thinking off the back of the energy crisis that we’ve seen, we’ve seen real growth and a spark in things like the community-led retrofit communities across the UK and across Scotland. We’ve got this kind of interplay of the bottom-up approaches which we know are most effective. They bring a number of co-benefits as well with that but you need to resource and enable those. Even creating spaces for conversations requires those spaces to be there and to be enabled. If there’s a positive to take away as well, it’s that we’ve actually started to see that coalescing action and with that, you’ve got community groups learning from each other; not just within that particular community but across communities too and that’s really critical. It’s really critical for holding people, developers and agencies to account as well. I think that’s where there’s a real role for that connecting up communities, as I say, to hold people to account and to say what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. If I may, I think we might see this going forward a bit as well. We’re talking at a very local level here about homes and houses or the places where we study and so on but we’ve seen a bit of a shift with some of the industrial decarbonisation and the big infrastructure developments. They’re really looking at the people, the places and planning and the kind of sharp pointy end of these developments. For me, there’s been quite a growth in emphasis and importance on people and place. What does this mean for communities? How do we ensure that these transitions are fair and just? How do we take people with us? We don’t have the answers at the moment but there are decades of learning that we can draw on from that. Ultimately, working with the communities has to be at the forefront of that.

Matt:  I’ve written so much down [laughter] on various points and so I just want to come back on a couple. This notion of having a shared problem tackled with coordinated action to deliver a shared solution is something that I think runs under all of this. I think many of us are probably – not all of us – waking up to the fact that these are shared problems. Climate change and the cost of living crisis are not just affecting me, it’s affecting you. I think there’s less awareness to tackle that shared problem. You need coordinated action and that can then yield a shared solution or shared benefit. Linking these up, in my view, I think should be a priority going into 2023 and beyond and a big part of that journey is connecting communities and putting in place these partnerships between local actors; not just like the Students’ Union where we are now but also with Glasgow City Council and the university and have these actors together. Underneath all of that is this engagement and one of the things that keeps coming back to me is that whenever you hear one of the responses... we’re seeing this reflected actually in Covid and a lot of the money that was wasted on PPE and a lot of the response around this was, ‘Well, we had to make decisions quickly.’ My point is can we do engagement during a crisis? How do you do engagement during a crisis? We’re in multi-faceted crises and, in my view, that means you shouldn’t just not engage with people. You should be asking communities what they want but how do you do it? There is a wider question about whether it’s a crisis of our own making. I shall leave that but engagement during a crisis, what does that look like? We’re kind of in this self-perpetuating period of crisis [laughter], so what do we do?

Manish:  I think you’ve got to have a two-way dialogue there. I think it’s about giving as well as taking because sometimes when you ask people to engage, they think, ‘Right, they want my time. They want my resource. They want what insight I can give them.’ I think when we’re doing that, how can we also be making sure we’re giving something back to people, whether that is helping with capacity building or providing some resource, whether it’s small pockets of financial resource or whatever it is to help stimulate ideas or to try and move things forward? I think it has to be a two-way thing. I don’t think it should just be about saying, ‘Come to us and we’ll take, take, take.’ We do that a lot with students, don’t we? We survey them constantly throughout the year and we ask for their opinions but what do we actually give them back? We try to do it at times and say, ‘Here’s a free meal,’ or ‘Here’s a space for you.’ Today, we handed out loads of goody bags to young people from backgrounds who may not get something over the Christmas period. It’s that sense of building that relationship and making sure it’s a two-way thing and not just all about taking from people.

Jen:  Totally and it’s about what’s that engagement for. What are you engaging for? Because if that engagement doesn’t have a purpose, then why are you engaging? [Laughter] There’s so much stuff going on and we’re in crisis mode. How do you engage on the stuff that isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds? Should we be? Actually, is there a way that we can engage or align the engagement to really deliver on the stuff that really matters to people? There is a linkage, as you said. There are connections between all these issues and if we know that some of the actions, solutions or ways forward can deliver on reducing some of these other immediate needs, then that’s where we need to be. It needs to not be engaging in something that is not at the forefront of people’s minds. It needs to be engagement that is allowing people to work out what the things are that are at the forefront of their minds and how we can deliver on that as a collective and as a whole. I’m not trying to be all motherhood and apple pie here [laughter].

Matt:  No, but it’s a good point. How do you connect these crises together? People can only often have one crisis at the forefront of their minds at once. We’ve seen this and a lot of people have just said, ‘Well, Covid has been and gone (obviously it hasn’t) and it’s the cost of living crisis now. That’s the priority.’ I don’t know. Hopefully, somebody has got the answer because I agree that they’re all connected in one form or another.

Fraser:  I actually do have the answer.

Matt:  Great. Okay, brilliant [laughter].

Fraser:  No, I think Jen’s point is absolutely critical and it combines what Manish has said as well. I think we’ve got a really bad habit of engaging on our own terms. I say ‘our own’ but anyone who does policy engagement and doing it on your own terms rather than going to people where they are and thinking about what they care about. There are two points that I would add to this. The first one is this idea that justice, a just transition or doing this fairly somehow has to take longer than just getting it done as quickly as humanely possible. Jen mentioned before that we’ve got decades of research to build this on and practitioners who have been doing this for a long, long time. It doesn’t necessarily have to take much longer but even if it did, point number two is that if we don’t engage people and, again, go to people where they are, deal with the issues as they see them and bring them along, then you risk it being a patchwork and you end up in the same situation in one, two, five, ten or twenty years down the line. You do it right one time meaningfully... not one time but on an ongoing basis... if you do it bringing everyone meaningfully along around the table, then I think we have a much better fist at doing this sustainably for a longer-term solution that genuinely works for people I would argue.

Rebecca:  I want to tap into that idea of the longer-term solution because I think that if you’re looking for this transition, it is going to require a technology shift in some capacity or another. It’s not all about the technology but we are fundamentally talking about getting off of gas which means clean heating and that means clean transport and so on. If we want that to stick, we need to find solutions that are actually better for people; not just the same and not just maybe a teeny bit cheaper but actually work better, that are appreciated and that people really value. I want to bring up a personal experience of where I think that this is completely falling to pieces and that is with EVs. 

Fraser:  Boo! [Laughter]

Rebecca:  The reason that I’m in London is that I have just driven up to Oxford, which is where my brother lives, and I’ve got rid of the EV. We were lucky enough to have an EV which we had as a lease vehicle. I love the car and I can’t fault the car. When I was living in a place where I could have a charge point in front of the house, I could do my charging 99% of the time at home, it was the most wonderful car. I’ve moved and I no longer have a charge point at home. First of all, it’s expensive to charge your car at public charging stations. It feels like it’s almost the same as petrol, honestly. It’s expensive. Almost all of the chargers that I go to, I would say more than 50% of the time are broken. My husband drove around for over an hour one night a few weeks ago to find a charger and when he eventually got to one, he had 3% charge left on the vehicle. Range anxiety is real...

Matt:  Thrillseeker [laughter].

Rebecca:  ...in places.

Manish:  That’s adventuring of a different kind [laughter].

Rebecca:  So we’ve just got rid of it. Here’s the thing. It’s nothing to do with the cars. It is completely to do with the infrastructure that the government have just left to the market to deliver. Every single driver that I’ve spoken to at a public charge point has said they wish they’d never got an EV and wants to switch back to a petrol car. I think that this is a disaster because what we’re doing is we are building an EV infrastructure that is only fit for the people that live in homes where they do short journeys and have a garage. Do you know what? They’re the people we want to get into public and active transport and not the EVs. We’re not designing a solution that is equitable and that is going to work for people in rural areas. It’s unbelievable and yet we expect to see this shift happening but the solution is not better and it could be better. We really need to see government stepping in; not necessarily delivering it but, my god, do you know how many Tesla charge points I go past that have no cars there and that I can’t use because I don’t have a Tesla? I could keep going on with the rant but I’ll stop for a minute.

Matt:  They did cut 5p off fuel duty, so... [laughter] that ought to do it [laughter].

[Music flourish]

I think it’s a really interesting point. This is something which is a huge success story in terms of what’s happened with EV uptake but this notion of transition is derailing. What do we think about that? Jen, you’ve sacked the car off altogether. Well done you [laughter].

Jen:  Yeah, but I mean this is entirely in line with what we’ve seen... Manish, earlier you mentioned heat pump insulations and heat pump engineers. In that case, it’s about having the skills in place and a diverse pipeline of people with those skills to be able to implement these things properly so that you’ve not actually got driving inequity and not leaving people in the lurch with a heating system that doesn’t work and is always constantly breaking. First of all, we need to give people a choice because, at the moment, there’s just not a choice for many people and second of all, if we don’t make those choices appealing and we don’t have that skills pipeline in place which, by the way, we did foresee but action wasn’t taken with EV charging structures... to some extent, with stuff like that, it’s so frustrating but we just need to fix it. It seems quite easy to say, ‘We can fix that.’ [Laughter] It’s very, very annoying but it seems really fixable.

Manish:  It feels fixable. It feels like Becky has put the EV in Room 101 [laughter] and I feel like I want to try and save it from Room 101 because it feels like the car doesn’t seem to be the problem. It’s the infrastructure around it. You talked about rural situations but I can walk around Glasgow and look at tenement flats and there are about maybe eight vehicles for that one property and there’s certainly not enough space to charge all of them. I think it’s both a town and country challenge in terms of how we build the infrastructure. I think the main thing, especially for those of us who live in cities, is how we encourage people to get involved and active on public transport. That is the key. I have a big van and I have a lot of children. Sorry, climate [laughter] but we only use the vehicle if we have to go on a reasonable trip out of town. Everything we try and do is either within walking distance or cycling distance on the whole but I don’t feel we’ve got the infrastructure there to really support people. It’s about fixing that bit for me.

Matt:  The reason it’s been such a success story, in my view, has been that the car is the car. The car is a success because all these massive automobile manufacturers have gone at this hammer and tongue and have figured it out. It’s incredible what they’ve done. It is an easy like-for-like replacement. You sell your petrol car and you get a battery car. It’s not without problems and, Becky, you’ve outlined everything and hit the nail on the head but it’s a success. Now the question is do we need the car? What’s the alternative? This is where net zero gives us an option to reinvent normal because normal isn’t working for everybody. You only need to see that in terms of people who can’t afford a car and have to get the bus and the bus is expensive. I’m having to rely on it a lot more with the trains being down and it’s expensive and unreliable. Once it’s happening, fantastic but in terms of the whole host of other things we’ve talked about, like for like replacement maybe not quite right because normal isn’t working for people. Just ask the people who’ve had their heating off or gas capped because they can’t afford it. Is there an opportunity to revolutionise normal? Is that what net zero is here to do? What if we squander this opportunity? That is what I’m kind of worried about.

Jen:  I breathed in the first then [laughter]. I guess I was going to come back a bit and say the normal isn’t working. Normal drives us to unhealthy lifestyles and ways of living, so we need to not replicate normal. We need to do better and that’s what net zero allows. That’s that opportunity. It may not be a revolution and it may not feel like a revolution to many and many people don’t want that. They just want to get on with their normal lives but what normal means can be so much better. It can be a quiet revolution but it can certainly deliver on multiple good things for the future.

Manish:  I wonder about the framing as well. We talk about net zero and it’s become this buzzword I would say in the last five years to mean lots of different things to different people but I think for lots of ordinary people, it doesn’t really mean a lot. What we’ve seen this year, unfortunately, even in Scotland where, in the past, we’ve been able to fly the flag of what we’re doing, the Climate Change Committee has come out and told Scotland that we’re not on the right pathway and doing the things we need to do. Actually, I wonder sometimes if we need to change the framing a little bit and the narrative around how we talk about this to the wider public. For me, it’s a chance to revolutionise society as we know it but I think calling it net zero leaves it in the hands of policymakers, car manufacturers, Musk and various billionaires to actually tell us what we’re to do. Actually, this is a real chance to change the entire fabric of society and I’m not sure people are fully onboard with what that means and the opportunity that’s in that.

Jen:  It’s also a chance for net zero to do some funny balancing of the books with carbon.

Manish:  Absolutely.

Jen:  On a very large industrial scale, we don’t do very much as well.

Matt:  We’re kind of moving into more positive territory which is great because it’s near the New Year’s resolutions time and I’m making a few notes [laughter]. I’d like to ask the question about 2023 which is what are our hopes and fears? You can include 2024 or even 2025 [laughter]. I’ll give you a two-year horizon and maybe three. 

Fraser:  When is the next election?

Matt:  That’s what I was alluding to, Fraser. I couldn’t possibly comment. What are we hoping for? I think we’ve outlined some stuff that really needs to get done but what do you hope for in the context of that?

Fraser:  Are you looking at me?

Matt:  I am looking at you, Fraser. You’re normally full of it on this [laughter].

Fraser:  I don’t think I’m hoping for anything that hasn’t already been said. I think we are at this formative moment. On net zero and with the crisis just now and, again, not to try and put too positive a spin on things, I want to see serious radical action. I want to see us harness the momentum that is currently at large in the public and evidenced by the growing present concern around energy bills, the cost of living and the action that’s been taken around industrial action like the strikes. I want to see that harnessed fully to turn it into and seize the opportunity of the moment that we’re in. It feels like we’ve hit that watershed now. By hook or by crook, we’ve hit it. Maybe we don’t fully understand what net zero means but we understand that we have to be doing something about climate. If you look at any polls like Survation, Opinium, Ipsos or Mori, in any corner of any community in the country, there is majority support for action on net zero and for a low-carbon society in order to try and seize that opportunity if we’re willing to do it fairly and maximise all the benefits that are on offer. Those benefits are enormous if we can get it right. I would like to see us think on that scale about things and not tinkering around the edges of the energy market, renewables reform and all that kind of stuff. That’s important and that’s the nuts and bolts but it’s about thinking on that big scale because we have a once-in-a-generation, I would argue, opportunity to do something truly, truly massive for people and for the planet. My only wish for 2023 is that we don’t squander that and that we really, really push the button as far as possible.

Matt:  Here, hear!

Manish:  He really is full of it [laughter]. Absolutely.

Fraser:  Six mouthfuls of beer.

Manish:  No, listen, I would certainly vote for that.

Jen:  I also feel I could do with a little Fraser quote per day [laughter]. I would say that 2022 has been very challenging in terms of trying to keep positive. I just need a bit of Fraser positivity please [laughter].

Matt:  Just reflecting on what Fraser said, it feels like the stars could be aligning. There are multiple crises but your point about industrial action in reaction to the cost of living crisis and this awareness of issues relating to hydrocarbons, gas... if you ask the general public why energy prices are high, they’ll talk to you about geopolitical instability and gas. There’s something underneath everything. There’s this appetite for somebody to fix it and makes things better. I take your point, Manish. What does better look like? I don’t feel like I’ve been sold that vision yet by anybody in particular. I think it’s starting to come out from certain political parties.

Manish:  We rely a lot on our politicians, don’t we? But I think we’ve got to also build a coalition and a willingness on this one. It can’t just be up to politicians to sort out this problem because they are short-termist creatures by their very nature. They only look at a five-year horizon. My aspiration is for widescale, radical citizen action, whether that’s more citizens’ assemblies or people gathering together to break bread and just talk to each other. We need to break the isolation. I think community and connection for me are so vital in 2023 because I feel it’s something we have lost because of the pandemic but because of lots of other things in society. I think if we can do that and start to really reach beyond the usual suspects and start to talk to the people that wouldn’t normally engage in things, I think they’re ready for a cause. They’re ready to get behind something. I think that needs NGOs to get together and look at a large-scale campaign. We don’t have a key moment. We don’t have another big COP moment. I know there are COPs every year. The next one is in Dubai and so if we thought Sharm El-Sheikh was challenging, I think the one in the UAE will be pretty tough. There’s not that real moment or anything to galvanise people. We’ve just come out of a UN summit on biodiversity but we need to maybe create some moments in the next year in the run-up to 2024 in this country, at least, where we can start to really ensure that there is political change where they’ve got a mandate from the people to actually move into that space. I think we need to create more space for our political leaders to move into because right now, there’s probably a lot of triangulation going on. They’re just trying to win those Red Wall seats back. I think if we can get organised and get people out there... and it doesn’t always mean you have to be out on the streets. When I talk about radical action, that can be different things for different people.

Matt:  Yeah, quite right.

Manish:  I think it’s about making sure that people understand that there’s a plethora of activity there.

Matt:  Becky and Jen, what’s on your Christmas wishlist for Father Christmas? I keep being corrected by anybody who is Scottish that it’s Santa because nobody knows who Father Christmas is up here [laughter]. They look at me blankly.

Jen:  I massively agree with you, Fraser. We’re in this critical crunch point to not let this opportunity slide. I hate the use of the word ‘opportunity’ here but it really is one. Underpinning all of this crisis or overlying all of it is the climate crisis, climate change and what we’re seeing. In the same way as understanding what climate change actually looks and feels like, we need to understand what better looks and feels like. In many cases, the change we need to implement is a change that people want because it’s a better future anyway. It’s about really understanding and sharing what that better looks like. I’m trying to think of an actual proper Christmas present but I’ll go to Becky first.

Rebecca:  An electric bike [laughter].

Matt:  You’ve brought some mince pies, so you’ve made a good start.

Rebecca: They’re vegan, local, home-grown mince pies [laughter].

Matt:  I’m going to come to you, Becky, in a moment. I’ve just noted what a few of us have been saying and I think there are four key steps maybe for 2023. We need to connect the crises, coordinate the action, deliver a long-term solution and share the benefits. On that, we’re going to set up a new political party in the Student Union’s bar after this. Becky? [Laughter]

Rebecca:  I love that. I’ve got one to add to that because I think we’ve been talking a lot about political action when we think about national government but I think there is a huge, huge opportunity to do more locally. If you are trying to connect the dots, trying to bring together different organisations and trying to engage with communities and citizens, local is the place to do that. It’s the place to reach people. It’s the place to create those connections around stuff that people in that local area care about and that matters to them and fits in with their context, whether it’s social, geographical or based on the resources that they have available. Local authorities are hugely underfunded and they have so much that they could give if we could only support them a little bit better. That doesn’t just mean financial support. I also think there’s a different range of skills between some local authorities like their capacity and their ability to respond but if we only look at some of the work that’s been done... I think about the Propering From The Energy Revolution programme that our podcast is very gratefully funded through. Look at some of the projects that have been implemented. They have delivered so much in four years in their small areas. We need to be taking the learnings from that. We need to make sure we’re understanding and we’re not just doing stuff, trialling it and moving on. We need to be learning, translating that and doing better by iterating and improving it. Local is the place to do that and we need to be empowering local actors to actually start delivering. That’s on my wishlist for 2023.

Matt:  That’s your pitch. Okay, you’ve got my vote as well and so I’ve got a problem because I can’t vote for two people at once [laughter].

Jen:  So where will all of our Christmas presents go? To the local authorities [laughter].

Rebecca:  Doesn’t your husband work for the local authority?

Jen:  Yeah [laughter].

Matt:  They’re not allowed to take any gifts [laughter]. Okay, this is awkward. Well, listen, that brings us neatly to our little in-house entertainment, I think it’s fair to say. We haven’t done this for a little while, Fraser. Future or Fiction? is back.

Jen:  Oh, it’s so exciting!

Matt:  It is big. It’s a good way to end 2022.

Rebecca:  Drum roll please, Dave.

[Music flourish]

Matt:  Given you haven’t done this for so long, Fraser, you are probably going to have to outline it for some of our new listeners we’ve picked up along the way. What on earth is it and why is it good?

Fraser:  I’ll need to dredge it up from the back of my mind [laughter] what the introduction to this is.

Matt:  You’ll have to remind us what it is anyway [laughter].

Fraser:  Yeah, I think it seems fitting actually. You know George Michael is back at number one for Christmas and we’ve rolled out Future or Fiction? again. Future or Fiction? for the uninitiated, which I’m sure is everyone by now because we haven’t done it in about a year, is a game where I pitch a new invention or a new energy-related thing to our esteemed panellists and they have to decide if it’s the future, i.e. it’s real, or if I’ve invented it in some dark and horrible pocket at the back of my mind [laughter]. There’s a lot that goes on in there. So this festive Future or Fiction? – our invention is called the Naughty List. That is the Naughty List. We’ve all heard stories about how if children are naughty throughout the year, Santa will leave them a lump of coal in their stockings instead of toys or sweets but how about this? To support people struggling with their energy this winter, certain European governments are helping people living off-the-gas grid by sending them coal to heat their homes. Do we think it’s the future? Do we think it’s real or do we think it’s fiction?

Matt:  Oh, goodness.

Manish:  That was certain European governments?

Fraser:  Certain and not all.

Manish:  Certain, okay.

Jen:  Also I think I misinterpreted that. It’s people not living on the gas grid?

Fraser:  Not on the gas grid.

Jen:  It’s people living not on the gas grid. I was thinking, ‘People living off the gas grid?’ and thinking of methanophiles eating... [laughter]

Matt:  Whether it’s true or false... if it’s fiction, I can imagine this being cooked up by your friends and yourself [laughter] down at the pub and now you’re off the grid. What would you like for Christmas? A bag of coal [laughter].

Fraser:  Genuinely, please [laughter]. I actually read this in a leaked memo from the Conservative Party in their last round of focus groups [laughter]. What would win votes? [Laughter]

Matt:  Right, what do we think, team? 

Fraser:  Who wants to lead?

Matt:  Becky.

Rebecca:  Don’t look at me. I’m on video. That’s not fair [laughter].

Matt:  We’re looking at you to make sure you’re not googling at home [laughter].

Rebecca:  I can assure you I’m not googling but oh dear me... I really hope that this isn’t true because it would be absolutely savage. I’m living with my in-laws at the moment and they have a fireplace. In years gone past, they have used coal on the fireplace but this year, it’s actually too expensive and so they can’t buy any coal this year and so they’re burning wood. It’s very expensive. I can imagine it would be a much-appreciated gift for people that simply can’t afford to heat their homes. God, I really hope it’s not true though. I feel like I’ve been negative enough on this podcast already, so I’m going to try and be positive and optimistic and say that it’s fiction.

Matt:  Okay, so that’s one for fiction.

Manish:  I’m going to go with the world in which we live these days. It seems strange enough to be true. I think there are certain Eastern European countries where coal is still a big part of their energy mix and so it’s probably got quite a lot of it just to ship out to people who are living off-grid. So, unfortunately, I think it might be true.

Jen:  Is this an item of coal? A lump of coal or a bag of coal?

Fraser:  I don’t think it’s actual Santa overnight going and putting it into the stockings over the fireplace [laughter].

Jen:  Not coal in a stocking specifically? [Laughter]

Matt:  He’ll pop down the chimney and sprinkle just a handful of nuggets of coal [laughter].

Jen:  But it is an offering of coal to say Merry Christmas?

Fraser:  Yeah, you’re off-grid and you can’t afford it. Coal is expensive this time of the year in general and it’s to help people through.

Manish:  It’s probably quite good if you’re first-footing as well. If you do that in your European country of choice and take a lump of coal, you could see more pals that way I guess as well.

Fraser:  That’s it, yeah. Share your coal.

Jen:  I sometimes stay in bothies in the Scottish Highlands and if you take coal... goodness me, it keeps you warm. It really keeps you warm. I can also imagine it’s a very welcome gift. I’m a very optimistic person but I’ve struggled to remain optimistic talking about the year past [laughter] and the future, so I’m on Becky’s side. Do you know what? Just for my own mental health and wellbeing, I have to believe that this is not true and it’s fiction.

Fraser:  One more for fiction.

Matt:  That’s two.

Fraser:  Matt?

Matt:  I don’t have the casting vote, sadly, because if I go for fact, it’s two all. I think it is fact. I’m going to be a real pain in the arse here, Fraser, I’m afraid. I’m going to say that it is, by default, fact because they will be giving cash...

Fraser:  No, no, no. You’re trying to be smart about this and you’re trying to work around it.

Matt:   No, hear me out. What I’m saying is by extension, this is the logic. Some civil servants and ministers somewhere, even in the UK, have said, ‘If we give them cash in off-grid homes, they’re going to be able to heat their homes. They’re probably going to heat their homes with coal and we’re okay with that.’ I think if that logic is happening here, I think it’s probably happening in other European countries. You didn’t say whether they were European Union or not as well. Anyway, that’s a separate thing.

Rebecca:  Oh, Matt, you are overthinking this. Do you need some time to put a graph together? [Laughter]

Matt:  It’s been a long year.

Fraser:  Becky, I’m confident that I’ve got him. Whatever he says now, I’ve got him. He’s trying too hard [laughter].

Matt:  I’m going fact. It’s two all. It’s on a knife edge.

Fraser:  Anybody, last minute? Matt, famously, last minute, are you sure you don’t want to?

Matt:  No. I can’t think of any good puns about coal [laughter] so I’m alright. Just go ahead.

Fraser:  The answer is... fiction you’ll be very glad to know.

Manish:  That’s encouraging for you.

Fraser:  To my knowledge at least. I didn’t investigate every country’s energy policy but I couldn’t find any examples of it when I dreamt it up. I dare say the Conservative Party did consider it as part of their support for this winter but no, there are no current examples that we’re aware of on the pod of Santa delivering coal to support people.

Jen:  Gifts of Cumbrian coal [laughter].

Rebecca:  I do worry about what goes on in your mind sometimes, Fraser.

Fraser:  Oh, we all do.

Matt:  I liked that one a lot. Well done, Fraser. Brilliant. Well, I think that concludes our chat, so thank you to the guests. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Rebecca:  It has. Thank you to everyone. This has been amazing. I’m so sad that I couldn’t be in the studio with you but I’m absolutely thrilled that you’ve been able to beam me in live to join in today. Just to say you’ve been listening to Local Zero and if you haven’t already, make sure you do go and find us and follow us on social media. We are @LocalZeroPod on Twitter but I think we may be more involved in LinkedIn next year. So make sure you find us wherever you can find us.

Matt:  Or Mastodon.

Rebecca:  Yeah [laughter].

Matt:  I’ve invested a lot of time to try and do that migration already thanks to Mr Musk [laughter].

Rebecca:  Of course, if it all goes down the pan, you can always email us at LocalZeroPod@gmail.com. We love hearing from everyone. Please remember to also leave us a review and make sure you subscribe and then you’ll get all our wonderfully optimistic 2023 episodes delivered straight to your device. Please do leave us a review and give us five stars. It helps us spread the word and we’ll be forever grateful but until next time, have a Merry Christmas...

Matt:  Merry Christmas.

Rebecca:  ...a Happy New Year and goodbye for now.

Matt:  Bye-bye.

Fraser:  Bye, bye, bye, bye.

Jen:  Bye.

Manish:  Thanks folks.

[Music flourish]

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