We could have been green

This week we learn just how unprepared we are for climate change. Trains fail. Schools shut. Hospitals are overwhelmed. People die.

My own experience was just one of minor inconvenience compared to many: A long-delayed journey with three cancelled trains, only to arrive at a ‘boutique’ hotel room that featured broken air conditioning, rotted balcony doors that wouldn’t shut out the heat (or insects), and deeply insufficient insulation for its top floor location. I was lucky enough to be able to pack up and move to a hotel that while much less ‘cool’, was at least cool.

The Green Lady

It didn’t have to be like this. There will always be crap hotels. But Britain could have been a nation that led the way in renewable energy and climate preparedness.

This is from 1989:

“Recently three changes in atmospheric chemistry have become familiar subjects of concern. The first is the increase in the greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons—which has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability. We are told that a warming effect of 1°C per decade would greatly exceed the capacity of our natural habitat to cope. Such warming could cause accelerated melting of glacial ice and a consequent increase in the sea level of several feet over the next century…

Stable prosperity can be achieved throughout the world provided the environment is nurtured and safeguarded. Protecting this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late Twentieth Century.”

Unless you know this speech already, you might be surprised at the orator. It was Margaret Thatcher.

Alternative history

I’m no political historian. And obviously there were many forces that might have made such a path difficult to follow. Not least, Labour and the unions who naturally wanted to protect employment in established industries. But somewhere on the branching timeline of history, there is a reality where as Britain turned away from coal, it turned towards renewable energy. What might that look like today?

You can imagine social consequences from the earliest days, at least sporting your rosiest of tinted spectacles. New industries supported to replace those that were lost. It would have been tax breaks rather than state money under most administrations. But if the government creates demand and the right environment, investors will come in where there is profit to be made. Wind turbine, wave power and solar technology might have advanced at a much faster rate with a globally-significant economy behind them. We would have pushed harder on nuclear evolution. Britain still carried great soft power that might have swayed others in a similar direction.

Avoidance and mitigation

Fast forward to 2026 and we might not be in the position of having to accept that we will shoot past the 1.5 degree warming threshold. We might not even be facing a 40 degree June, let alone the infrastructure failures and inevitable deaths that will bring about. Even if we were, even if we were a single green nation in a world of high carbon economies, imagine facing this with cheap, renewable energy.

If we had moved wholesale to renewables much earlier, then the electrification of everything would have been greatly accelerated. Perhaps not cars - it’s unlikely we alone could have made the requisite advances in battery technology. But trains. Heating. Cooling.

Accepting the prospect of warming at not just a theoretical, but a practical level, with state investment and extensive policy built around it, would likely have had wider effects. That deep, state-wide acknowledgement of the reality of anthropic climate change - particularly with a focus on industrial development - would likely have quieted climate change denial. Especially if the oil and gas industries could have been persuaded of the investment opportunity. We wouldn’t just have worked to avert climate change, we would have worked to mitigate it. Insulation. Tree planting. Covered walk ways.

I’m not going to pretend the world would be perfect in any scenario. There would still be disruption and heat deaths if the temperatures reached what they will this week. But there will always be that knowledge that somewhere along our path, we could have taken a different turn.

Looking back and forward

Looking back shouldn’t stop us looking forward though. Just because we didn’t doesn’t mean we couldn’t, however belatedly. With a new leader coming into 10 Downing Street in the next month - one with an apparent appetite for state investment in infrastructure - we could make a new turn.

Andy Burnham will be faced with many options for spending priorities. Restoring growth and the benefits that brings in terms of employment and tax revenues will likely be top amongst them. But the levers to do this are many. And I for one would be very tempted to re-ignite the green transition by using state money to overcome some of its barriers.

One example. In France, my client ArcelorMittal is investing EU1.3bn to build a new electric arc furnace, in order to make low carbon steel. It can do this because of a mix of policies, state support, and guaranteed access to low carbon energy - the most important part of the mix. Creating a low cost, low carbon energy supply doesn’t just help consumers and reduce our contribution to climate change, it attracts new industry and investment.