TUC hits back at banking boss who suggested public-sector pay should be curbed because the economy falling
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TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said that while the government has “taken the right approach” by investing in public services and infrastructure, “the job of securing growth is far from over — and more support is needed to see that investment sustained in the long term.”
“That’s why it’s time for a grown-up conversation about taxing wealth and financial institutions,” he said.
“It’s only right that banks, gambling companies and the wealthiest in our society contribute their fair share to fund our schools, hospitals and local authorities.
“The government needs to ensure it can repair and rebuild our vital public services along with wider critical national infrastructure.”
Mr Nowak also called on the Bank of England to further Bank of England to “ease the pressure on household budgets and to make it more affordable for businesses to invest.”
Keir Starmer’s pledge to cut the UK’s emissions by 81% by 2035 is undoubtedly ambitious. However, his assertion at the Cop29 climate conference that it can be achieved without “telling people how to live their lives” is probably not true – at least, not according to what scientists who study this problem have found.
We are two such researchers. Our work concerns the lifestyle and behaviour changes needed to mitigate climate change and we argue that Starmer’s claim is not only unrealistic, it’s also potentially harmful to the prospects of effective climate action.
Many politicians, including Starmer, subscribe to the belief that technological advancements alone – more efficient wind turbines or electric vehicle batteries – will solve the climate crisis. This kind of “techno-optimism” is rife in government policy statements and strategies, but it is misplaced.
The latest scientific assessments, and our own research, show that systemic changes to society and the global economy are necessary to keep global warming at safe levels. While some progress has been made in shifting the supply of energy from fossil fuels to renewables (in the UK, renewables now account for 40% of electricity generation, though only 25% of total energy), far less attention has been paid to tackling demand – how we use energy and resources – which directly relates to people’s lifestyles and values.
Radically different lifestyles
Telling people “how to live their lives”, or more accurately, encouraging and enabling significant lifestyle changes, is essential for meeting climate targets. Most measures for reaching carbon targets in the UK will require changes to public behaviour. It’s the government’s job to make it easier, cheaper and advantageous for people to make those changes.
The necessary scale of this change is startling. To stay within the emissions budget consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, the average UK carbon footprint must shrink from the equivalent of 8.5 to 2.5 tonnes of CO₂ by 2030.
This cannot be achieved through incremental change. It requires radically different lifestyles which involve flying less, eating more plant-based foods, wasting less and replacing boilers and combustion engines with heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Not everyone needs to change their lifestyle to the same extent. Those with the largest carbon footprints – typically the wealthiest people – need to make the most significant changes. As well as having a moral responsibility to act, wealthy people also have a greater capability to change and have more potential to influence wider change as organisational leaders and investors.
Emissions inequality exists within and between countries. International Energy Agency/Samuel Hampton
Change for the better
Not all climate action is sacrifice. Pro-environmental behaviour and lifestyle change can improve your wellbeing.
There is overwhelming evidence that climate action has health benefits, whether it is eating more plant-based food and less meat, or enjoying cleaner air as you walk or cycle instead of driving.
People with greener lifestyles also tend to be happier. Our international analysis found people who took more environmental action reported higher wellbeing. It can also help manage anxiety about the climate. In this sense going green is more likely to improve your quality of life rather than diminish it.
Importantly, research from numerous countries shows that there is public appetite for radical change. This includes not just a desire for governments and businesses to do more to address climate change, but also a willingness to make personal sacrifices. In a survey of 130,000 people randomly selected across across 125 countries, 69% said they would be willing to contribute 1% of their personal income to climate action.
Achieving the necessary changes to our lives and wider society will require more than public information campaigns (“telling people how to live their lives”, as Starmer calls it). These are what we call downstream approaches: they urge people to make different decisions but have been shown to have little effect in changing behaviour in the long term.
Instead, we need upstream approaches which change the array of options available to everyone. This could involve using regulations, taxes and subsidies to make low-carbon lifestyles easier, cheaper and more attractive to adopt. Most of these measures already enjoy public support.
While Starmer’s emissions target is commendable, his reluctance to discuss lifestyle changes is at odds with the scientific consensus. Tackling climate change effectively requires a shift to a more equal society, where happiness is prioritised over consumption. It necessitates radical behavioural changes, particularly from the wealthiest, and policies that enable these changes.
The richest people on the planet, representing a small sliver of the total population, are emitting carbon dioxide at a rate that’s imperiling hopes of keeping global heating below 1.5°C, prompting fresh calls for government action to rein in “luxury” pollution and combat the intertwined crises of inequality and climate change.
New research by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) shows that by 2030, the carbon footprints of the wealthiest 1% of humanity are on track to be 30 times larger than the size compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century, the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious temperature target.
If current trends continue, the richest 1% will account for 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2030.
The carbon emissions of the poorest half of the global population, meanwhile, “are set to remain well below the 1.5°C-compatible level,” according to the analysis, which was commissioned by Oxfam International and published Friday. The planet has already warmed by roughly 1.1°C, and scientists have said any heating beyond 1.5°C would have destructive consequences worldwide.
“The emissions from a single billionaire spaceflight would exceed the lifetime emissions of someone in the poorest billion people on Earth,” Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam’s climate policy lead, said in a statement. “A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute. Their oversized emissions are fueling extreme weather around the world and jeopardizing the international goal of limiting global heating.”
“The emissions of the wealthiest 10% alone could send us beyond the agreed limit in the next nine years,” Dabi added. “This would have catastrophic results for some of the most vulnerable people on Earth who are already facing deadly storms, hunger, and destitution.”
Authored by Tim Gore, head of the Low Carbon and Circular Economy program at IEEP, the new research paper notes that “while carbon inequality is often most stark at the global level, inequalities within countries are also very significant.”
“They increasingly drive the extent of global inequality, and likely have a greater impact on the political and social acceptability of national emissions reduction efforts,” the paper reads. “It is therefore notable that in all of the major emitting countries, the richest 10% and 1% nationally are set to have per capita consumption footprints substantially above the 1.5⁰C global per capita level.”
To slash the outsized planet-warming emissions of the global rich, the study calls on policymakers to pursue restrictions on mega-yachts, private jets, and recreational space travel. In a paper published last month, French economist Lucas Chancel estimated that “an 11-minute [space] flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger once indirect emissions are taken into account (and more likely, in the 250-1,000 tonnes range).”
“At the other end of the distribution, about one billion individuals emit less than one tonne per person per year,” Chancel observed. “Over their lifetime, this group of one billion individuals does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person. It therefore takes a few minutes in space travel to emit at least as much carbon as an individual from the bottom billion will emit in her entire lifetime.”
In addition to targeting sources of “luxury carbon consumption,” the analysis by IEEP and SEI also proposes restrictions on “climate-intensive investments like stock-holdings in fossil fuel industries.”
“The global emissions gap to keep the 1.5°C Paris goal alive is not the result of the consumption of most of the world’s people: it reflects instead the excessive emissions of just the richest citizens on the planet,” Gore said in a statement. “It is necessary for governments to target measures at their richest, highest emitters―the climate and inequality crises should be tackled together.”
Emily Ghosh, a scientist at SEI, agreed, arguing that “carbon inequality must urgently be put at the center of governments efforts to reduce emissions.”
“Our research highlights the challenge of ensuring a more equitable distribution of the remaining and rapidly diminishing global carbon budget,” said Ghosh. “If we continue on the same trajectory as today, the stark inequalities in income and emissions across the global population will remain, challenging the equity principle at the very heart of the Paris Agreement.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
model houses on a pile of coins and bank notes
