What are the social impacts of climate change in the UK?

In parallel to the JRF research programme on climate change and social justice, I have been involved in running a research council funded interdisciplinary cluster on 'energy and equity’ – a networking initiative involving the participation of academics and non-academics in meetings, workshops, conferences, summer schools, site visits and small pilot research projects.

The activity of the InCluESEV cluster over the last 3 years has shown that the relationship between climate mitigation and justice is truly multifaceted. It is at once global and local; international and intranational; about the here and now as well as about future generations; and about energy production and consumption. In this light some recent policy debate has become distinctly narrow, dominated by how the cost of energy for the fuel poor is being pushed up by subsidies/incentives for low carbon energy.

There is undoubtedly an important justice issue here. The consequences of decarbonising energy could and should be distributed more fairly, rather than simply allowing costs to be passed through to vulnerable energy customers. But there is far more to climate justice and to fuel poverty than this.

Dramatic price increases have hit the fuel poor primarily because of the working of energy markets and the way that the suppliers have been fixing their tariffs. Cold homes and everything that goes with getting into fuel debt are a consequence of decades of neglect of proper building and housing standards, the inequitable costs of prepayment meters and much more besides. So somehow now blaming fuel poverty problems on low carbon energy policy is deeply insufficient and can play uncomfortably into a climate sceptic agenda.

We should also be very aware of the wider equity debates that surround some of the low carbon energy technologies currently being pushed by policy and industry advocates. For example, nuclear power raises questions of justice for communities 'hosting' uranium mines, transport routes, power stations, reprocessing and waste sites, as well as for future generations. Carbon capture and storage similarly open ups a whole raft of procedural and substantive justice issues across its various elements - see the discussion paper we commissioned on this from Duncan McClaren available on our project web site.

This opens up questions about which forms of low carbon energy shift are more or less fair and to whom; going beyond, therefore, a focus on the energy price implications of becoming 'low carbon' in the aggregate. This is not easy territory. Competing or comparative justice claims quickly register e.g. between the interests of the 'future generations' potentially living with climate change, and the 'future generations' potentially living with nuclear waste. But such claims do need to be examined and debated alongside those of who pays for decarbonising energy in the short and medium term.

Policies to reduce UK carbon emissions risk having a highly regressive social impact. Raising the price of carbon and subsidising renewable energy, both raise energy prices. And this has a disproportionate impact on poorer households who tend to spend a greater proportion of their income on energy.

But there is plenty of scope to reduce the impact on poorer households – particularly compared to existing policy approaches.

Many current climate-related policies are unnecessarily expensive. For example, the government's plans for huge subsidised deployment of deep water offshore wind by 2020 costs about £300 per tonne of carbon dioxide saved – compared to the EU carbon trading system, which delivers carbon reductions at a current price of only about £10. The Feed-in Tariff subsidies for micro-generation are doubly regressive, since poor households pay to subsidise solar panels, available only to those with large south-facing roofs.

Carbon emissions reduction could be delivered much more cheaply if the main focus was on pricing carbon effectively, incentivising the cheapest carbon reduction measures, rather than subsidies for selected expensive technologies. For example, establishing a longer term, credible carbon cap under the EU carbon trading system is an important step.

In addition, such a policy focus on carbon pricing would generate an available revenue stream, whether derived from carbon tax receipts or from carbon permit auctions. (This contrasts with current subsidy policies which divert resources straight to unnecessarily expensive renewable generation.) Who should benefit from this carbon pricing revenue stream?

Well, it is customers who currently 'own' the beneficial value of carbon so, as the carbon price rises, they should benefit from the revenues. And this also provides an opportunity to address the socially regressive impact of rising energy prices.

One idea could be for carbon pricing revenues to subsidise a fixed amount of energy consumption per household, similar to a 'rising block tariff' (where the first X kWh are priced more cheaply than high energy usage). All households would continue to be exposed to the marginal carbon pricing signal, to incentivise demand reduction. But the subsidy - by constituting a greater average proportion of poorer households' income and energy bill – would make a contribution to addressing the additional fuel poverty caused by rising energy prices.

Local authority action on climate change has always varied. The last government had at least placed targets and expectations on local authorities that guaranteed some level of action. In contrast, the current government’s localism agenda encourages local authorities to identify their own priorities, which makes action on climate change far less certain. Localism could free local authorities up to be more ambitious and innovative, or it could give them the freedom to do nothing.

Recent research by Green Alliance found that:

• 37 per cent of local authorities are deprioritising climate change or state that it was never a priority
• 35 per cent remain firm in their commitment to climate change and believe that action could even increase in the context of localism
• 28 per cent are narrowing their ambitions to focus on reducing emissions from their estate and ceasing work on wider environmental issues.

Taken together, the results suggest that climate change work has narrowed, is very weak or absent in 65 per cent of local authorities. Yet local authorities remain central to successfully tackling climate change. They play a vital role in engaging citizens with sustainable choices, and our ability to meet national carbon and renewables targets relies on local areas doing their bit. So localism has made climate change a delicate challenge for the government, as well as an urgent one, as they find national ambitions on climate change rubbing awkwardly against their desire to give local areas greater freedom.

We discuss the implications of this in our new report, Is localism delivering for climate change?. The trend for doing less is a deeply worrying one, and it heightens concern that those facing poverty or disadvantage could be disproportionately affected by climate change.

Losses and gains for social justice

Our research found that work on climate change adaptation, support for community environmental initiatives and retrofitting poorly insulated homes were frequently the kinds of programmes that have been abandoned. Such endeavours are central to ensuring a community's resilience in the face of climate change and understanding where the impacts will fall in order to ensure that the poor and vulnerable are not disproportionally affected. The social justice angle is therefore an important one to highlight when arguing that all local authorities must continue to be responsible for tackling the shared challenge of climate change.

On the positive side, localism offers new opportunities to connect climate change and social justice. The new health and wellbeing boards could integrate an awareness of climate change and its links to health. This will build recognition that those in poorer health will suffer more from climate change, but there are also positive links to exploit. For example, promoting walking, community green space maintenance or food growing could deliver better health and positive environmental outcomes.

Localism has also introduced neighbourhood planning and the opportunity for all communities to set out a vision for their local area. Green Alliance hopes to see these plans incorporate sustainability and they also offer opportunities for social justice. Local people themselves will be more aware of pockets of deprivation and their causes than local policy makers, and better placed to identify what would help build a community that reduces isolation and inequality. It is still unclear whether neighbourhood plans will have any real power, but the exercise alone will be a valuable opportunity for communities to come together and explore the connections between all the issues that matter to them.

Overall, localism cannot mean that tackling climate change becomes optional. Exploring the risks and opportunities for climate change and social justice in detail would be of value. And it would add strength to Green Alliance’s broader effort to develop an approach that works with the grain of localism while still ensuring that every local authority does their bit.

Green Alliance is an influential, independent think tank working to bring environmental priorities into the political mainstream.

I've been a professional environmentalist for 20 years and had concerns about environmental damage for much longer. I vividly remember in the 1980s the pictures of forests across Europe dying as a result of acid rain and the campaigns against it. Now I see pictures from around the world of our climate changing for the worse, be it catastrophic floods in Pakistan to changing ecosystems in the UK. I spend much of my time reading scientific papers that report on the threats to our well-being from continued environmental damage, especially climate change. It's within this context that I react with horror when I see orchestrated attacks against green energy measures in the media.

The science of climate change is clear despite the hollering of a small number of interest groups. If we don’t reduce our carbon emissions rapidly then we will all face more extreme weather events. Floods like those seen in Cockermouth and Hull will become more commonplace. Crop yields could be reduced at the same time as the global population increases, pushing up food prices for all. As global temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees or more above preindustrial levels, the risk of crossing tipping points in the climate system increases. Crossing these tipping points could lead to sea levels increasing by many metres over coming centuries flooding agricultural land and many cities.

Given this are higher energy bills a price worth paying in order to cut carbon emissions? I don't think so - I think it is entirely possible to keep energy bills under control for poorer households and make a shift to clean green energy.

Friends of the Earth has a long track record of campaigning on fuel poverty from the Home Energy Conservation Act in the 1990s to winning recent changes on energy efficiency in the private rented sector in the 2011 Energy Act. Cutting energy waste from the UK’s famously dilapidated housing stock has to make sense and the pedestrian rate of progress needs to be swiftly accelerated.

Fossil fuels are the bad guys...

But, perhaps surprisingly, investing in green energy could also lead to lower fuel bills in the future. Research by DECC has suggested that if the prices of fossil fuel are similar in 2020 than they have been in recent times then the Government's green policies will mean bills will be about the same as they would be if nothing was done (i.e. consumers won't lose out financially). If fossil fuel costs go up much then green measures will lead to cheaper bills in 2020 (consumers gain). Since all the smart money is on fossil fuels continuing to get more expensive as global demand increases it therefore makes sound sense to invest in renewables and energy efficiency. But what about people struggling to pay their bills this winter?

Almost one in four of us are now classed as 'fuel poor': millions struggle to afford to heat their home properly. Those who want to derail green action say cut costs now by cutting green measures. They suggests, without firm evidence, that cheap fossil fuels are just around the corner (but despite the hype shale gas isn't expected to lead to lower gas prices in the UK according to all the independent experts I've spoken to). They are using fuel poverty as a cover for their long-standing dislike of action on climate change.

Yes, of course Government has to make sure it helps people pay their bills this winter – but the answer is not, as some leading elements of the national media suggest, for us to scrap green spending, and to heck with the consequences down the line.

Instead there is a better recipe – speed-up energy efficiency measures targeting poorer households now, pay for more green measures through general taxation now (as with the Renewable Heat Incentive), change the tariff system to help reduce costs for the fuel poor and increase costs for richer, heavier users now (with measures to protect low income heavy energy users), and bring back higher winter fuel payments now and until the comprehensive energy efficiency programmes are completed.

In the 21st century we should be smart enough to be green and eradicate poverty. Those that advocate otherwise need to get wise to the consequences of not doing so.

A recent article in the Financial Times made grim reading for anyone hoping to see America show leadership in international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Referring to tar sands, shale gas and fracking, Edward Luce explained how the combination of new discoveries and new technologies are opening up major fossil fuel sources. Together these sources could enable the US to move towards energy self-sufficiency. Quite apart from the impact of these energy sources on carbon emissions, what Luce calls America's 'new age of plenty' could be disastrous for the already fragile political case for action on climate change.

In the face of rampant climate change scepticism, and the instinctive suspicion among Americans to the federal government signing international deals on their behalf, those making the case for US action on carbon reduction (including President Obama) have relied heavily on the security of supply argument. Americans are hostile to accepting their fair share of international obligations but much more open to the case that the US should reduce its dependence on unreliable or potentially hostile oil producing nations. Now, however, the exploitation of new forms of fossil fuel removes the security of supply argument leaving just an unpopular and under-developed case for action on climate change.

It is always attractive to pile up reinforcing arguments for a course of action. As a Government advisor I was used to being told – often on pretty tenuous grounds - that a scheme would not only bring social benefits but would in time save a huge amount of money by preventing some ill or other (a Treasury official once said to me 'we have a special file we use for most arguments about long term social savings; it is round and in the corner of the room'). It is assumed by a case's proponents that even if supplementary arguments are weak they can’t do any harm. Often this assumption is wrong.

Not only can a weak argument distract attention from the strong, if one part of the case is damaged it undermines the credibility of the rest, like a wonky leg on a table. If Luce is right about the new plenty, American environmentalists may start to claim that they never needed the arguments about peak oil or security of supply to make the case for reductions in energy use and investment in renewable sources, but the question will come back is 'why then did you make them in the first place?’

In the UK many green campaigners are keen to argue that promoting sustainability will have all sorts of beneficial side effects ranging from weaning us off the consumption treadmill to promoting social justice. This may well be true, but is it good tactics? I have often heard climate change sceptics on the right argue that the green movement exaggerates the threat of climate change in order to smuggle in an anti-capitalist, anti-market agenda which would never win public support in its own terms. The more environmentalists pile up the progressive causes which will be aided by action on climate change, the more credible this charge becomes.

Which is why I continue to advocate a much more prosaic case. It is this: nearly everyone spends a significant proportion of their income on something which rarely gives them any direct benefit, to whit various forms of insurance. The chance of our house burning down or of us dying in an accident are remote but – although we may quibble about premiums and fine print – we accept the case that we need to cover ourselves for the worst.

It is not necessary to believe that man-made climate change is proven absolutely or global warming inevitable to accept that the risk of climate change is greater than the risks against which we personally insure. Is it not therefore reasonable to argue that society as a whole should be willing to invest proportionately as much in cost (or opportunity cost) to reduce the climate change risk as we do personally to reduce much smaller personal risks?

This may not be an argument which lifts the soul, challenges the culture of consumer capitalism or even fosters twenty first century enlightenment, but that might be exactly why it could prove more effective.

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