'You have to win public consent' to tackle climate change, says Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn

The Labour MP for Leeds Central first took on the climate brief in Gordon Brown’s Government in 2007, and remains passionate about the practical changes needed “as a country, and indeed as a world” to fix the issues.

The principle of fairness, he believes, is key to getting the public on board with making the changes needed to tackle rising temperatures and carbon emissions.

It is an issue which is set out in a new report, Fairness and Opportunity: A people-powered plan for the green transition, from the IPPR think-tank’s Environmental Justice Commission, which he co-chairs.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled a 10-point plan in November for what he described as a “green industrial revolution” as part of the Government’s bid to end its contribution to global warming by 2050.

But the report says that the UK is failing to ensure that the costs and benefits of the transition to net zero will be fairly shared.

The commission was informed and driven to its recommendations by ‘citizens juries’ drawn from different walks of life, including people who had never been engaged in climate change discussions, in areas such as the Tees Valley most likely to be heavily impacted by the move to net zero.

Mr Benn says: “What’s distinctive about this report is our analysis because what we say is, if we don’t take the public with us, we’re going to have a problem.

“And if we don’t make these changes in a way that is fair, indeed, in a way that reduces inequality, rather than makes it worse in our society, then we’re going to have a problem too.

“It’s through that understanding that we have tried to address the changes which we’re going to have to make in the way we make things, the way in which we travel, what we eat, how we heat our homes and buildings.”

The report postulates that the public could “veto” any plans on the climate and environment which the Government puts forward if they do not agree with them or do not feel they are fair.

“You have to win public consent,” Mr Benn says.

The report suggests that “if the transition is managed poorly, or not managed at all, then it could threaten to make people’s lives harder, including those who are already losing out from the current economic system”.

It adds: “We cannot make changes that further embed unfairness in our society - on the contrary, this is an opportunity to put fairness at the centre of all we do.”

“Practical” changes such as a switch to electric cars, or swapping gas boilers for alternative heat pumps will need support from the Government if they are to be widely implemented among the public,” Mr Benn says.

“Particularly to constituents of mine and others who have trouble paying the gas bill every month and simply don’t have the money to put in a new boiler or heat pump.”

“From the point of view of an individual, they will ask these questions.

“What’s the alternative to my gas boiler? How much is it going to cost? Will I get help to meet that cost? Who’s going to fit it? When is this going to happen? And that is a really practical question.”

Reflecting on getting the public to agree with any plans for tacking climate change, Mr Benn discloses a conversation he had with an environmental campaigner.

“I remember having a discussion with one of the UN Extinction Rebellion protesters in Parliament Square a couple of years ago,” he says.

“And they said Parliament can’t be trusted to make the changes necessary because politicians are all short-term, and climate change is the ultimate long-term problem.

“They said they wanted a citizen’s assembly, and what it recommends, Parliament must implement. And I said to him, what if the public don’t agree with what your assembly has suggested?

“He was a bit stumped, because I’m not sure that he thought about it.”

The citizens’ juries from across the country which the Environmental Justice Commission spoke to - including one in Yorkshire - informed and shaped the report’s recommendations.

“We have been greatly influenced by the people who were there,” Mr Benn says. “Obviously they wanted to serve on the jury, but they weren’t climate experts.

“They were people who were interested in coming forward. And they had a lot of really interesting and informative things to say that have shaped the report that we published.”

Mr Benn admits that some of the people who attended “hadn’t thought a great deal about the climate change challenge”.

But he adds: “I think if you trust people with the issue, the problem, the tasks that we’ve got, you will get a lot of really helpful and sensible recommendations.

“People realise that some of this is really quite difficult, and there are choices and there are trade-offs to be made. A citizens’ jury brings the into the world of elected representatives who are grappling with these choices.

“It’s a way of bringing people along with us and informing the recommendations that we have made.”

One of the recommendations of the Environmental Justice Commission’s report was a Green-Go scheme.

Former Environment Secretary Hilary Benn described the proposal as similar to Help to Buy initiatives, which would assist people who need help to pay for the cost of making changes “whether it’s a different way of moving about, or changing the way in which they heat their homes”.

“If you try and impose a change on people, and they haven’t got the means to do it, well, it isn’t going to work,” he added.

Highlighting the recent flooding disaster in Germany and wildfires in California, he said: “The consequences of failing to act are much more costly for us as individuals for society.”