How to get everyone to care about a green economy Angela Francis
Transcriber:
I remember climbing to the top
of our airing cupboard at home –
I must’ve been six or seven –
I’m trying to flick my wrists
in the right way
to make the spider web shoot out.
I thought I had some super powers,
I just had to work out what they were.
It was a disappointing afternoon.
(Laughter)
In the end, it didn’t come with a suit,
but I found there aren’t many people
like me in the environment sector
and being a Black economist
who grew up in Derby
is my superpower in the fight
for the environment.
And we’re facing huge challenges,
but they are not insurmountable.
People have been working on climate change
and nature restoration for years
and they know what we need to do,
and they know the sooner we act,
the easier it will be.
And we’re not talking
about a few green sectors.
We’re talking about changing
the whole economy,
using investment and policy
to reward people and businesses
for the decisions they take
that lower carbon
and restore nature rather than degrade it.
The problem is politicians aren’t acting
at the speed or scale we need them to
because they think the public
want them to do something else first.
Brexit, building more houses,
the economy, Brexit,
health sector, Brexit.
(Laughter)
How do we put the environment
at the top of that list?
My answer is … we don’t.
We look at this the other
way around instead.
We show how moving to a green economy
delivers on the things
that people are already worried about.
It improves their lives,
whether they care
about the environment or not.
We’re at the point we need to have
a very different conversation with people
because we need to make the case
to rapidly move to a green economy,
at a time people are facing
real economic challenges,
and we can’t ask them
to put that to one side.
And we need to make the case
to rapidly move to a green economy
at a time of rising populism,
which says leaving the EU
or stopping immigration
will solve all our problems.
It won’t,
but we have to give people
real solutions instead.
So what does my perspective tell us?
I grew up in Derby,
an industrial city
right in the middle of the country
at the foot of the peak district,
some of the most beautiful
countryside in the UK.
And I started my career
in regional economics,
and I know the UK has got
the biggest differences
in regional economic performance
of any economy in the advanced world.
Wealth is concentrated in London
and we spend our time –
concerning the economy,
that’s the only region that matters.
And that really frustrates people,
and it’s really bad economics.
For too long, we’ve ignored
agriculture and manufacturing,
two of the most important
sectors for the environment,
that need to pioneer new ways
of producing goods and food sustainably.
Being an economist,
I know that UK productivity has stalled
and the average weekly wage
has not recovered
since the financial crisis.
That’s a decade of lower pay.
And that really hurts.
We need to invest in our economy,
so businesses are competing,
not on the basis of low wages,
but on high-design, engineering,
smart use of resources,
all the things we need
to succeed in a green economy.
And being mixed race,
I know the dangers of populism.
I feel them personally.
I see people being divided
and told that some group or other
is to blame for all their problems.
And I know that’s not going
to improve anybody’s lives,
but the environment sector
isn’t reaching those people
and we have to fix that.
You might be asking,
why do we need to change
the conversation now,
when interest in the environment
has never been higher?
Aren’t we already winning?
Yes, in some ways we are.
But we have all the people
who are motivated
by the plight of the polar bear
and the loss of the rain forest.
We have all the people
who can change their whole life around
and make every decision
based on how they lower
their carbon footprint.
You might be one of those people,
that is amazing, you are a trailblazer.
But that is not a route
that everyone can follow.
And it is not enough to rely
on what individuals can do by themselves.
Now, we also need the backing
of people who’ve got
other things on their mind:
bills to pay,
a busy and polluted route
to school for the kids,
crap job, no prospects,
living in a town where more businesses
are closing than opening.
They need to know the green economy
is going to work for them.
They do not need another
thing to worry about.
They do not need
to be made to feel guilty.
And they do not need to be asked
to sacrifice something they don’t have.
It’s like the gilets jaunes protesters
were saying in France
about fuel prices and the cost of living:
“You want us to worry
about the end of the world
when we’re worried
about the end of the week.”
If we’re not listening to those people,
you can be sure that the populists are.
In my experience,
if you want to achieve change
and persuade people,
you have to talk to them
about things that they care about,
not the things you care about.
And if you ask people,
what are the biggest
issues facing the country?
They say Brexit, that’s said
by most people by far,
and then they say health,
and then the environment comes
level pegging with crime and the economy.
Rather than constantly trying to put
environment at the top of the list,
we need to show how delivering
a green economy
will improve our health and our well-being
and our quality of life,
how it will deliver better jobs,
a better economy,
more opportunities.
I’d even go as far as to say
how it deals with the underlying
consequences of Brexit.
How does environmental policy do all that?
We keep being told that it’s going to cost
too much to save the planet.
That’s not true.
The best source on this
is the global commission
for climate and the economy.
That’s economists,
former heads of states
and finance ministers.
And they looked at all the costs
and benefits of acting
compared to not acting.
And they worked out
the investments we need
to keep the planet within one and a half
degrees temperature rise
actually improve the economy.
And that was true globally,
and it’s true for the global South
that really suffer if we don’t act.
And those calculations
were based on the most prudent estimates
of the cost and benefits,
not counting all the innovation benefits
and the cost savings
we’re likely to realize on the way.
And it’s the same story in the UK.
The investments we need to make
to move to a net zero economy
will pay for themselves in jobs,
opportunities, health and well-being.
And that’s just the climate action.
It’s increasingly clear
we need to deal with climate
and nature risk together.
Species loss, habitat loss, climate change
are all driven by the same broken patterns
of consumption and production.
If we get this right,
dealing with climate change
will help us preserve nature,
and investing in nature will help us
mitigate and adapt to climate change.
The natural capital committee in the UK
calculated that every one pound we spend
on our forests, our wetlands,
our biodiversity,
gives us four to nine pounds back
in social and economic benefits.
And I’ve said all that, and it’s true,
but it means nothing to most people.
I get a bit closer.
If I start talking about the investments
we have to make in our houses,
our businesses, transport infrastructure,
in our countryside,
because those investments
have got direct benefits for people,
as well as the planet.
They mean less drafty houses,
a less stressful and congested
journey to work,
less flooding, cleaner air.
So is that going to convince
a gilets jaunes protester?
No.
It is not enough to say
there’s all this great stuff coming.
We have to show
how it’s going to reach people.
We can’t have schemes
for insulating your home
and installing a heat pump
and a solar panel,
which are only accessible to people
who own their own home.
In the UK,
renters have got 10 percent
less disposable income
than people with a mortgage.
And they’re the ones
who need government policy
to make sure their landlord
insulates their home.
We can’t just talk about 210,000 jobs
which have been created,
and low-carbon and renewable industries.
We also have to talk
about how so-called dirty industries,
construction and manufacturing,
how they will generate
better quality, highly skilled jobs
if they’re investing in water,
energy, material efficiency,
in products that last longer
and produce less waste.
We haven’t even done the basics yet.
We haven’t even stopped
supporting fossil fuels.
The UK has got the biggest
fossil fuel subsidies
of any country in the EU.
Most of those are tax breaks
to oil and gas companies,
which we should just stop.
But some of it is more complicated.
No politician is going to stop
winter fuel payments to an old person
who’s worried about paying
their heating bill,
unless they first put in place
a retrofitting scheme
so that person has a warm,
and comfortable home instead.
No politician is going to raise fuel levy
and we know that’s true
because it hasn’t risen since 2011.
No politician is going to do that
and really change the incentives
for owning a petrol and diesel car,
unless they first put in place
good quality, affordable public transport,
a scrappage scheme
so people can upgrade
to an electric vehicle,
and charging infrastructure,
especially in rural areas,
so people aren’t cut off
from the shops and work and college.
And until that happens,
the electric vehicle market
doesn’t take off
and we don’t get the benefits of cleaner,
less congested, more livable cities.
The environment sector
has to show it’s on the side of people
who need these solutions.
We have the technical side.
Now we need the social and economic
policies to make this work for people.
And this isn’t just
a moral preference for fairness.
This is also about effective policy.
Everywhere in the world
is facing these same challenges.
And businesses want
to invest in the solutions
in the places where government
is really thinking
about how to create
the conditions for change
and how to build
a widespread public support.
The people-side of this
is not somebody else’s job.
This is our job as environmentalist too.
The environment sector has to be
right in the middle of a conversation
about what kind of country we want to be
and how our policies
will really improve people’s lives.
The fairness of the green transition
is not a “nice to have.”
It is a thing that will make
the transition happen or not.
We will get stuck in protests
if we don’t make this work for people.
If you’re serious about moving
to the green economy, like I am,
you have to be serious
about getting the benefits
to the people who need them first.
There is no way of delivering
a change this big without doing that.
So my superpower might not be
to do whatever a spider can.
But I can talk about the policies
we need to green our economy
in a way a factory worker in Derby
and a farmer in Cumbria can get behind.
My superpower
is not trying to add to the list of things
that people care about,
but showing how the plan
for a green economy
is a plan to improve lives right now.
Thank you.
(Applause)