The problem with tackling climate change is that it requires a co-ordinated global effort to effect positive change – and change means that some of those benefiting from the status quo will lose out. These people and organisations have immense wealth and power and have been using that to lobby against the change that is required. Few personify this phenomenon more unpalatably than the Koch Brothers, infamous for their power within the world’s oil and petroleum industry. One of the biggest challenges to effective mobilisation has been the lack of a definitive inflection point around to which to rally – instead, there is a gradual, ongoing process of change to the climate, a pattern of events each of which has impact but which collectively occur over a period of months and years, dispersed across multiple locations. Every year the global picture becomes clearer for the need to act ever more urgently, so much so that for many there is a sense of defeatism – what can one person really do? Individuals have been doing what they can, increasing recycling, eating less meat, flying less (with some companies, including Scene, enabling their staff to do so by offering paid journey days through a Climate Perks programme) – but, aside from this, effecting the necessary systemic change requires collective mobilisation across society, and a fundamental change in policy direction from national governments and global corporations.
A Turning Point
It may turn out that this opportunity to mobilise has come from the coronavirus medical crisis. The ancient Greek word ‘krisis’ was a central term in Hippocratic medicine, referring to the turning point in a disease - the beginning of the recovery or the onset of death. A true crisis by definition is a vitally important moment at which change has to come – for better or for worse.
Historians have argued that the black death caused the end of feudalism, with a mortality rate so severe that an estimated one third of Europe’s population was wiped out, with much more in some places. And terrible as this pandemic has been, and fully acknowledging that every premature death is a tragedy on those left to mourn the loss, the current pandemic is of a different scale. However, to slow its spread, society has been forced to suspend business as usual. Those who were slowest to respond, who tried to carry on as normal, like the US and UK, have suffered the most. But, eventually, everywhere and everyone has been forced to stop. Planes are grounded, most shops are shuttered, and entire countries have been required to ‘Stay at Home’.
And with the suspension of business as usual, comes the chance to reflect on this new reality. Few have failed to notice the birdsong this spring, audible as if for the first time as the background roar of traffic has disappeared. Worldwide, people have enjoyed the new-found pleasure of walking and cycling on roads no longer dominated by lethal and fast moving four-wheeled metal boxes. So much so that “[bicycles] are the new toilet paper and everyone wants a piece”. From London to Paris to New York, roads are being shut to traffic to allow the increased number of cyclists to maintain social distancing.
But - what will happen when the lockdown is lifted? How can we avoid a return to business as usual? How can we retain some of these unexpected social and environmental benefits from the pandemic? What does a green recovery look like, and how can it be supported?
Clear Alternatives
The lockdown has given us an insight now into what the electricity system of the future will look like. The reduction in energy demand from the closure of businesses has shown us how the electricity system will operate with a high proportion of renewables in the mix, and how it could work with 100% renewables. Because the input energy for renewables (i.e. wind, water, sunshine) is free, once installed it is more cost effective than any other form of energy to operate. The collapse of oil prices has led to a glut of oil globally, leading to supertankers being drafted in for storage, in a desperate attempt to keep the wells pumping, because once stopped, it may never be possible or viable to restart. However, while this has led to the exceptional position of negative pricing for oil, even then it cannot compete with the wind, water or sun as the cheapest form of energy.
During the lockdown, the UK’s energy system has been operating at its highest ever levels of renewable generation. In part, the system has been able to cope through increasing the role of consumers in their demand response. For customers with a smart meter who are able to sign up to Octopus Energy’s Agile tariff, this even means getting paid to use energy. This is the future of energy – no longer is it just about encouraging everyone to use less energy, it’s about using the right energy (i.e. clean energy) at the right time (i.e. when it is abundant) and avoiding times when there is not enough renewable energy to meet demand. Flexibility can therefore replace grid reinforcement to provide resilience to the energy system, while new flexibility platforms, like the one Scene is developing for a pilot trial in Huntly, can provide the technology to optimise energy systems and maximise price saving for consumers.
As the electricity sector is already so low carbon, and renewable energy is the lowest cost technology, it can accelerate the decarbonisation of transport and heat. One of the key advantages about focusing on demand flexibility is that electrifying other energy vectors will create a positive feedback loop:
the transition to heat pumps creates highly efficient electric heating (with every unit of electricity you put in generating over three times as many units of heat out, as shown in this neat video from our Powering Parks project partner ‘Possible’). But it also creates the ability for our homes and businesses to function as ‘heat batteries’, to pre-heat our homes to avoid periods of peak demand.
the transition to electric vehicles will provide each car owner with a battery which could power your home at periods of peak demand, and provide flexibility throughout the night on the timing for when the battery needs to be recharged, to best match when there is a surplus of renewable generation.
Growing Pains
Delivering a green recovery is about more than just creating a zero-carbon economy. It’s about ensuring that the interests of people are valued, and that human and social capital are balanced with economic and environmental capital. There will be some winners, and some losers. Allowing the aviation industry to downsize – allowing the oil industry to become extinct – are necessary if we are to live within a zero-carbon economy. Pre-COVID, it was impossible to envision a way to make this happen. Post-COVID, all that’s necessary is to choose not to invest billions in bailing these industries out.
Investing instead in a green recovery is a viable alternative. New jobs can be created in clean energy – instead of jobs in oil and gas, we can create jobs for low-carbon heating engineers. We certainly need them – data from 2017 showed that 77% of gas engineers were over 45. Smart, local energy systems require connectivity. Investing in rural broadband will not only help people work from home and support the diversification of the rural economy, but will also enable homes to become zero carbon.
In the process, we end up with cleaner cities with less air pollution and less noise pollution; and we end up with better homes which are better insulated, and smartly controlled. We can also get a fairer energy system: rather than a few windfarm owners being paid millions of pounds per day for switching off when there is surplus renewable generation, why not have millions of individual customers benefit from low or negative energy prices. This is the opportunity from the current crisis: change will have to come, so let’s make sure it’s for the better.