Blog post
The Green Deal: what happened to climate change?
Those unlucky enough to be signed up to the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) mailing list would have received an message yesterday titled “£125m Green Deal cashback scheme opens”.
The Green Deal is – supposedly – the Coalition government’s flagship public-facing climate change policy. Over the next decade, the Green Deal aims to provide finance for household insulation and other energy-saving measures in millions of homes across the country.
It is a critical that the Green Deal works if we are to meet our national carbon targets. But it is also a once in a lifetime opportunity for the government to initiate – and lead – a national conversation about climate and energy. The success of the Green Deal – let alone the many other climate change and energy policies that will follow over the coming years – hinges critically on people accepting the rationale for saving energy.
The rationale is, of course, climate change.
But you wouldn’t know it from DECC’s press release:
“Energy saving has never been so attractive” – that’s the message from Edward Davey today as he announced the Green Deal Cashback Scheme is open, with hundreds of pounds of cash available to householders in England and Wales who make energy saving home improvements.
Householders who use the Green Deal to make improvements such as loft insulation, solid wall insulation and new heating systems will qualify. Packages could be worth over £1,000.
The more work households decide to have done, the more cash they could receive. To qualify for the Cashback Scheme, households need to book a Green Deal property assessment so they are then ready to have improvements installed under the Green Deal from 28 January and get their cashback.
The full press release, on the DECC website, mentions climate change not once. The message is clear: this is about a financial transaction, pure and simple. Energy saving has never been so attractive. But why the hell are we saving energy in the first place?
Replace the term ‘Green Deal’ with the only slightly more generic ‘Good Deal’, and you’d struggle to know what was even being promoted. It could be about furniture. Or dog food. Dog food has never been so attractive, says Ed Davey.
The dangers of using an overly-economic framing for climate change and sustainability messages are well documented. For one, promoting the Green Deal to people in this way will do absolutely nothing to make the next big initiative – perhaps a big push on public transport – any easier. No-one is being encouraged to think about what climate change means, or how different behaviours (around the home, and when commuting, for example) might be related. No-one is being encourage to think about climate change at all.
The exclusively economic framing of the government’s flagship public engagement policy sends a clear message: we should take part in the Green Deal because we might make a few quid – or at worst, not lose any.
If all we had to do to tackle climate change was make a few, unrelated, financially beneficial changes to things like cavity insulation, then this would be a brilliant public engagement strategy.
But given that what actually needs to happen is somewhat more challenging than this – ultimately involving a complete overhaul of how we travel, eat, heat our homes, consume and work – the “it’ll save you a few quid” approach seems a little shortsighted.
The longer we postpone genuine engagement with what climate change means for the UK, the harder it will be.
Sadly, the Green Deal is a missed opportunity for the government to begin this conversation.
[…] The Green Deal: What happened to climate change The dangers of using an overly-economic framing for climate change and sustainability messages are well documented. […]
Though I understand where you are coming from, and might personally agree in part agree, there is nothing that will motivate the general public to act like offering them money. Whether it’s saving money on their energy costs or a cash back incentive to get them to sit up and listen, money is a great motivator. By and large people are apathetic and need a reason to act and though you and I might agree that the implications of long term Climate Change is reason enough I’m afraid that we are in the minority. So my view is, who cares what the message is so long as it gets people to act and it’s hard to argue against the fact that money will certainly do that.
In 2007 after reading articles, books, watching films regarding Climate Change I wanted to do something so decided on a new career in the energy conservation sector. I became the Commercial Director of the largest company of Domestic Energy Assessors in the UK though this activity was all about assessing and not doing.
Here I am, 5 years later and I have set up a company which is to be a Green Deal Provider and have developed systems and services which will enable many thousands of energy assessors, trade installers, supply merchants etc to be involved in this new initiative and fully expect that we will install in excess of 15,000 energy saving projects in homes and businesses throughout the UK, helping them to save money as well as making a direct and significant impact on CO2 emissions; something I wanted to achieve when I started this journey back in 2007.
OK, so it’s taken a little longer than expected for Government to create the Regulatory and Legislative framework to enable this to happen but I think they may have finally go there so I for one intend to make an impact by offering services which assist and encourage people to act.
There are many ways and many messages we can all use but surely making an impact has got to be the most important outcome!
John,
Most people are in favour of being offered money, but quite a few are vaguely conscious that it’s their own money that you’re offering them. Taxes have to be higher, and money has to be diverted from other services to pay for it. Did you ever read Bastiat’s ‘Sophisms’?
I tend to agree with Adam that this sort of thing is just ineffectively tinkering around the edges, using climate change as an excuse to push various minor private political schemes that won’t achieve anything material against climate change.
If it really was a serious crisis, the first thing they would do is what France did in the 1980s and convert all of their power generation to nuclear. They would reduce prices by eliminating bureaucratic delays, reducing safety margins, and building them in the middle of big cities to reduce transmission costs and allow the hot water to be used for heating in winter. Yes, there’s a risk, but it’s a pretty small one compared to the end of the world, isn’t it?
Then, while that first batch is being built, they’d do the R&D on the next generation of IFRs that will run at 50 times the efficiency and burn all the radioactive waste created by the first generation. (The Americans already had a working prototype when the greenies had it shut down.)
The most effective ways to protect the environment are through technology and prosperity.
All this mucking about with lightbulbs, windmills, and publicity campaigns about polar bears is a waste of time, effort, and political capital. It’s like the Americans trying to put a man on the moon in ten years by encouraging the general public to buy fireworks. Get serious, or go away.
Well, Bill McKibben said in End of Nature (1992) that people weren’t likely to act until they felt it (the fear) in their guts, and I’m guessing that the Green Deal based on the existing premiss is going nowhere. The oil price is falling; in recession the rational decide that prices are falling and investments can therefore wait for lower prices; we don’t live in a world where the public good is a respectable motive, we should all optimise our individual gains.
I changed my life twenty-five years ago in the manner of John Johnson above… I’m still waiting for the chance to deploy my expertise and enthusiasm.
Bring on the ice melt; the weather extremes — there’s a chance that we might collectively recognise our peril, and and then organise for change!
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group of scientists from around the world, brought together by the United Nations to assess our understanding and the potential impacts of climate change. Every five years they do a follow-up study to assess recent findings. Most important, they are identifying our options for lessening the rate of change and describing how societies can adapt to it.