The Green Transition: Patrick Vallance's seven rules for net zero
Weekly analysis of the shift towards a new economy.
Dear Readers,
Happy Friday. Jonny Ball here, associate editor of Spotlight, the New Statesman’s policy section. As ever, you can find our policy coverage here.
It was the King’s Speech week this week – and we’ve got plenty of analysis of the announcements in our In Brief section below.
But first, a great edition from our very own sustainability correspondent, Megan Kenyon. Follow her on Twitter. In a new podcast, shared exclusively with The Green Transition, the government’s former chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance – of Covid lockdown press conference fame – draws parallels between tackling Covid and taking on the net zero challenge. Thanks to the Carbon Trust for sharing it with us.
Let’s get right into it. Enjoy!
“Most of the things you touch will fail”: Patrick Vallance’s seven lessons for reaching net zero
The development of a vaccine typically takes a decade. But when the UK was faced with a lethal global pandemic, this process was expedited to a matter of months. This kind of successful “moonshot” mission might be just what we need to reach net zero.
As chief scientific advisor to the UK government between 2018-2023, Patrick Vallance had a front row seat for this feat of rapid scientific innovation. As the founder of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce, Vallance, alongside the venture capitalist, Kate Bingham, oversaw the successful development and distribution of the coronavirus jab across the country – one of the standout success stories of the UK’s pandemic response.
And it’s no secret that rapid scientific innovation and huge national efforts are going to be essential to tackling the climate crisis. Time is running out. This week, it was announced that 2023 is set to be the hottest year since records began. Over the past 12 months, temperatures have averaged 1.43 degrees above pre-industrial levels (that’s very close to the 1.5 degree limit that was agreed in Paris in 2015).
Vallance is clear that there are lessons to be learned from the pandemic – in particular around vaccine development – and translated into government efforts on climate change. In a new podcast from the Carbon Trust, Net Zero: What’s innovation got to do with it, shared exclusively prior to its release today with The Green Transition, Vallance shares seven lessons:
1. Have a clear, time-bound, measurable objective.
2. Put in place a single point of accountable, empowered leadership and truly make it empowered.
3. Bring experts into government quickly (within weeks, not months or years).
4. Bring together an approach that includes R&D, manufacturing, and procurement.
5. Be prepared to help public-private partnerships and bring sectors together to make something happen.
6. Be prepared to take portfolio risk and accept that things will fail. Don’t view the failure as a waste of public money.
7. And all times when you’re doing this, think about the legacy.
If Labour enters Number 10 after the next election, the party could do well to take this kind of advice for Keir Starmer’s supposedly laser-focused, “mission-oriented” government. A clean energy grid by 2030 stands as one of the party’s five priorities to be achieved with ruthless efficiency, reforming zeal and cross-departmental efforts. Or that’s the story, anyway. Starmer doesn’t seem like the type of politician with an appetite to break with the normal civil service and Whitehall protocols, nor to push back against orthodoxy and take fiscal risks. This could leave him beset by the usual burdensome, bureaucratic processes and encumbered by the Treasury’s normal delay-by-default.
As a scientist by trade, Vallance is keen to point out that to those outside of his profession, science can often be seen as dealing in absolutes. But that isn’t always the case. “Science corrects itself, and of course the same is true of climate,” Vallance says on the podcast.
“[In science] there are always uncertainties. Those uncertainties shouldn’t stop decision making, but it’s important to be aware of them,” he says.
Vallance is keen to assert that accepting failure is vital to tackling major scientific crises. And that means nurturing an appetite for experimentation and failing upwards in usually risk-averse governments and the public sector.
Vallance insists that due to the existential threat that climate change poses “we can’t take a normal approach. We have to have some risk.” But to do this will require a change in the government’s mindset. Failed innovations are often seen as “the most monumental waste of public money” when under scrutiny from spending watchdogs such as the National Audit Office, or the Public Accounts Committee. This, he says, can often drive conservative behaviour among decision-makers.
“We have to get over that”, Vallance explains, “and that needs leadership. It needs acceptance of that risk profile upfront.” He adds that when working to develop innovative solutions at scale “most things you touch will fail.”
“That’s the price of a successful innovation”, he says.
Vallance’s comments are prescient. With the Covid Inquiry ongoing, the aftershocks of the pandemic are still being felt within the UK policy landscape. But time is of the essence. Vallance and his team took less than a year to do something which usually takes ten. His seven lessons might just help the UK do the same for net zero.
You can find the Carbon Trust’s new podcast, Net Zero: What’s innovation got to do with it, on all podcast platforms. Their first episode – 7 lessons from the Covid crisis, with Sir Patrick Vallance, is out now.
In brief
The King’s Speech: It’s been a while since we had parliament opened by a male monarch, and we didn’t just wait seven decades to hear about a crackdown on unlicensed pedicabs (nope, me neither). There were all sorts of treats for the lifelong environmentalist sovereign to read out, including on new oil and gas licenses.
Robbie MacPherson from Uplift has penned this piece on why those announcements have nothing to do with the claimed excuse of “energy security” and “lower bills”, oft-spouted by government ministers who themselves look like they need convincing.
And Megan gathered reactions to the announcement from climate, environment and energy experts including Green MP Caroline Lucas, the IPPR think tank, Green Alliance, and many more here.
“Fuel poverty is not a lifestyle choice”: Yesterday was Energy Secretary Claire Countinho’s first outing in front of MPs since her appointment in August. Some are tipping her to be appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer before the election, which would count as a meteoric rise for someone only elected to parliament in 2019. Megan has got the story on what happened at the select committee.
See you next week.
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The Green Transition is produced by Spotlight, the New Statesman's online policy section and print supplement. Spotlight reports on policy for the people who shape it and the business leaders it affects. Explore our in-depth reporting and analysis here.
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As important, if not more so, is reducing under-occupation so that resources are not used in insulating and heating space and fabric that is not meeting housing needs, and increasing the demand for new build that has unsustainable upfront or embodied carbon. The Government should concentrate housing policy on subdivisions and retrofit. The 300,000 plus target for new building will be found to be illegal when the Government carbon reduction plan is challenged for non-compliance with the Climate Change Act and the agreed carbon budgets and targets.
Management of our waste to recover valuable raw materials so that we are less reliant on imports, is very important, however the focus only on clean electricity production misses the point that electricity is only around 20% of the UK primary energy demand of 2,200 TWh a year. It is arguable that by that crucial date of 2050, at least 80% of our primary energy needs to be delivered as fossil-free electricity, the rest is likely to be geothermal energy. Increasing electricity production 4 times over the next 26 years is a formidable task. It is probably that some of that extra power will still be imported, not as oil and gas but as ammonia which is a hydrogen carrier and much easier to transport than hydrogen gas.