Urging people to stop consuming stuff in order to slow the rate of climate change is a gambit that is doomed to fail. It would be helpful if shoppers put off buying a suit or installing a new kitchen, but it’s not going to happen. Demonising those who fly to Barcelona for a long weekend is another tactic that will have almost no impact.
It’s not for nothing that economists base many of their assumptions on populations having unlimited wants. Most people strain to acquire stuff that the rich have long taken for granted. Telling them to switch off this desire has never worked and is unlikely to do so now, even when the future of the planet is at stake.
In this vein, the accession of Donald Trump to the presidential throne should not be read as a spectacular one-off reaction by a narrow, if electorally important group who missed out on GDP growth.
Consumption is how most people measure progress, and that will still be the case next year and in 10 years’ time, when Trump is long gone. Take a look at the figures for flights in and out of the UK, home of some the world’s busiest airports. City Airport, which is embarking on a £344m expansion, saw 4.3 million passengers in 2015.
Heathrow, which has the government’s blessing for its own multibillion-pound development, welcomed 75 million passengers in the same year, Gatwick broke 40 million, and Stansted hit double-digit growth with 22.5 million passengers. Last year, Manchester airport boasted annual growth of 11% after it attracted 23.7 million passengers.
And these figures don’t include the huge amount of imported and exported goods that flow through Britain’s airports. If it’s true that trade is in the UK’s DNA – and the figures support this – any government, of whatever colour, will think twice before standing in the way of airport expansion.
That doesn’t mean governments should not think about air travel when searching for ways to tackle climate change. Aircraft makers should be forced to make their planes more efficient, and airport owners must clean up the pollution they create. But this is an exercise in minimising the impact of flying, given that its expansion is inevitable.
The same analysis should have applied to the country’s steel plants –and to its other polluting industries. Without a reduction in steel consumption, we must live with its continued production.
Does anyone believe that when Anglesey’s aluminium smelter closed in 2009, and Lynemouth’s in 2011, that the UK stopped using aluminium? Did it help reduce global warming for these operations to be transferred to less- regulated countries outside Europe, and for aluminium to join the long list of imported items?
The Anglesey plant was the biggest employer in north Wales when it closed. It meant the end of almost 400 jobs directly, and thousands of other ancillary ones in the region.
This was largely the European Union’s doing and was typical of a “see no evil, hear no evil” policy that meant if the activity was outside the EU’s borders that was fine. The EU was clean and met its targets.
That’s not to say schemes to cut emissions from steel and aluminium plants – and to reduce electricity consumption – are a waste of time. It’s just that a realistic assessment shows they are incremental and take many years to implement. And if these activities stay in the UK, the process can be monitored and implemented properly.
So the answer must be to reduce emissions elsewhere – relying on technological solutions rather than calls for abstinence.
Take transport,for example. Undoubtedly, the Jeremy Clarkson brigade will go on obsessing for some time about the combustion engine and how much horsepower their motor can generate. For most people, though, the car is a means to get from A to B at the time of their choosing and in comfort. And few people obsess about trucks; they are just utility vehicles.
So encouraging drivers to swap their combustion engine for an electric engine creates minimal friction between consumers and government. There were only about two million electric cars on the world’s roads at the end of 2016 – which is just 1% of the market in Europe and China. But with the environment movement behind it, cheaper models with longer ranges in the pipeline and cities cracking down on air pollution, more electric vehicles will take to the roads.
Electric cars can look the same as today’s models – or they can be much more futuristic. They can also continue to be an object of conspicuous consumption, which campaigners will have to accept, aiming to encourage the use of eco-transport and not enforce some form of back-to-nature socialism via the back door. Electric vehicles, powered by solar generators, could reduce transport emissions to zero in tropical countries, which currently account for 40% of the world’s population and will account for 55% by 2050.
There are also effective ways to reduce the impact of air conditioning in these countries – and to encourage home insulation in much of the northern hemisphere.
Friction, or more precisely the lack of it, should be the watchword as a guide to what is achievable and what is not. Too many environmentalists have failed to learn this lesson.