Bulls and bears clash over how to communicate climate change

10 June 2009

Threat or opportunity? Vision or nightmare? How should climate change be portrayed by politicians, businesses and pressure groups as they communicate with the public? There seems to be less consensus over this than there is over more controversial subjects like the scientific evidence for global warming. At this month’s conference on ‘The Politics of Climate Change’, run by Policy Network at the London School of Economics, there was clear gulf between those who are bullish, talking up the opportunities involved in building a low-carbon economy, and the bears who feel communicators need to be candid about the toughness and scale of the task.

The dilemma has been framed by the LSE’s Prof. Anthony Giddens, famed for his concept of the ‘Third Way’, in his book on ‘The Politics of Climate Change’. He writes: “The political management of risk has to tread a difficult path between alarmism and reassurance.” Chief ‘bull’ at the conference was Peter Mandelson who cited one of the government’s favourite statistics about the global market for low carbon goods and services being worth around £3 trillion a year. If one examines the small print, this is a bit of a stretch given that the ‘market’ it refers to includes publicly-funded services such as waste disposal and businesses that depend on policy support such as renewable energy.

There was also a clutch of bullish CEOs in evidence, led by Tesco’s Terry Leahy who argues for carrots rather than sticks in policy and business. He pointed out that Ireland’s tax on plastic bags had lost its impact while Tesco’s offer of Clubcard points for reusing bags had worked. He claimed that ‘consumers want to go green’, saying one recent day’s sales of LED light-bulbs was greater than those in all of 2006.  Stelios Haji-Ioannou of Easyjet plays a difficult hand well by arguing that travel is good for society – as it promotes understanding and helps combat prejudice. He says that it is aircraft engines that pollute, not passengers. So filling aircraft with as many people as much as possible minimises pollution and policy should target take-offs rather than passenger numbers.

David Cote of Honeywell has an easier sell as his company’s products – from IT systems to programmable thermostats – drive energy efficiency.  Cote has a cogent story to tell, identifying the barriers to energy efficiency, such as companies’ payback horizons and consumer behaviour along with the incentives needed to remove them. 

The constant background music for the upbeat camp is Lord Stern’s finding that tackling climate change may cost 1-2% of GDP by 2050 whereas not tackling it could cost 5-20%. Stern’s report is often summarised in words such as “it costs more not to act than to take action.” But this only holds true long-term. In the here and now, doing something self-evidently costs more than doing nothing – as the more bearish voices point out.

Oxford Energy Professor Dieter Helm says too many politicians and business people don’t want to "scare the horses" and calls for more candour about the costs consumers will need to bear if emissions are to be cut rapidly enough. Business leaders aren’t all bulls either. Andy Duff, CEO of RWE Npower, who knows how angry the public can get over energy prices, says the short term costs of mitigation are immense and “it’s time we had an honest conversation with voters about it”. 

Tony Blair’s message has an air of ‘third way’ about it. His theme is the need to act – but to do so within the limits of what was politically possible. “Now is the moment when we have to be radical, because the occasion demands it - but also realistic because it’s the only way anything gets done.”

My own view is that honesty is the best policy – both about the downside and upside. Certainly Britons need waking up to the issue. In a recent Ipsos MORI poll, when asked to name the biggest issues facing Britain, 65% cited the economy, 29% immigration, 28% crime, 15% health, 13% education and just 8% the environment. I think the problem is that people have been inoculated against climate change. They see it as a relatively small issue, tackled by recycling and switching the TV off standby.

But in fact, as the new report from Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum underlines, it is a catastrophe today and a potential apocalypse tomorrow. Around 300,000 people a year are already dying as a result of global warming and the risks it poses later this century could affect billions - including widespread droughts and floods, massive increases in malnutrition and malaria, destitution and mass migration. The West may escape relatively unscathed but the pressure to ease the plight of those affected by its excesses will be huge and its security may be threatened by migration, resource conflicts and eco-terrorism. Meanwhile actions taken this century – or not – will determine what happens thereafter. Within decades we may have made the melting of Greenland inevitable, leading to unprecedented flooding and the redrawing of the world map. Ultimately, as James Lovelock has warned, humans could go the way of the dinosaurs. 

This potential reality for today’s children and their descendants needs to be communicated to people in as dramatic a way as possible – one that demands attention among an audience desensitized by action movies and emotion-shredding reality TV.  But once that risk has been set out, there is then the inspiring opportunity to communicate the fact that today’s generation has the chance, and the power, to avert this disaster – effectively to save the world and the human race. That is the point at which one starts to talk about the costs of change – but also the benefits of a cleaner, greener, more sustainable economy. So the longevity of low-energy light-bulbs does have a place in the narrative; it's just not a great place to start..     

Richard Lambert of the CBI observed that Martin Luther King didn’t inspire people by saying “I have a nightmare”. He didn’t, but the nightmare was self-evident - to many. My response was that a better parallel for a community facing an existential threat is Churchill’s stance against fascism in 1940. He didn’t say “All I can promise you is strawberries and cream”. He was candid about the need for “blood, toil, tears and sweat”.  My view is that unless people understand and feel the fear relating to the possible climate catastrophe, they will not summon up the necessary courage to act or accept the necessary sacrifices.  But we need to reach a consensus on this messaging issue – and fast. Because once we agree on what to tell people, we have a whole new problem – who tells them, how and when.