Green Recovery – First Principles
This article is the first in a series looking at different aspects of the ‘Green Recovery’ from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this first article we look at what is meant by a Green Recovery, some of the key ideas behind it, and why it demands urgent attention now from the world’s policymakers.
Future articles will address:
Green Recovery – business response
We will investigate the sometimes unexpected but strong levels of support for the Green Recovery from business groups and leaders, and what difference that may make.
Green Recovery – the future of coal
We will look at some of the debates about renewed and continuing investment in coal mining and coal burning, and the implications for the Green Recovery and for being able to meet Paris Agreement targets.
Green Recovery – international responses
These already vary very considerably, from the EU Green Deal and Recovery Package, to examples of very different responses, such as the Australian government’s proposals covered in Edward Wilson’s blog . We will look at some of the different approaches around the world and what they may mean for COP26.
In the first half of 2020, the world was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with appalling loss of life and its immediate health effects leading many governments to impose drastic measures, such as lockdowns, to try to contain the disease. Following closely behind the health effects was the devastation of countries’ economies, either as people were literally confined to their homes and unable to get to work, or as different sectors of economies suffered from radically different trading conditions to any they had contemplated even a few short months before. The results are all around us, and ongoing.
Governments responded to this overwhelming economic damage with immediate economic support and with economic stimulus and recovery packages running into many billions of dollars, pounds, euros and yen. It quite rapidly became clear that these economic stimulus and recovery packages were on such a scale that they would determine the future course of many economies for decades to come, and as far as climate change was concerned, this would be decisive.
From March to June 2020 and subsequently, there were very rapid political developments as many world leaders woke up to, and spoke out about, the need to address climate change and the economic effects of COVID-19 together. It would not work, they argued, ‘simply’ to pour money into economic recovery packages to attempt to re-start economies, if that money was used either directly to support continued fossil fuel based industries such as coal, oil and gas, to support high-emitting industries such as aviation without obtaining commitments to reduce emissions, or to perpetuate high emissions from forms of transport, heating or other industrial activities.
The reason for this is that the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is very clear that global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, whereas the Paris Agreement on Climate Change commits those countries which are Parties (most of the countries in the world) to:
”Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”
In other words, climate change has not ‘gone away’, and on the basis of scientific advice, the window for addressing it consistently with the Paris Agreement targets is rapidly diminishing – think of the latest information on the rate of Arctic warming and the melting of the Greenland ice cap.
It therefore becomes a matter of real importance, and urgency, that economic recovery packages to address COVID-19 should address both economic recovery and climate change objectives, which for the UK and a growing list of countries means Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That is what has resulted in demands from world leaders for a ‘Green Recovery’. The urgency of the issue stems both from the urgency of the need to address climate change, and also from the realisation that multi-billion dollar recovery packages are going to be decisive, in the very near future, as to what form the investments will take and whether they will actually address climate change objectives or instead lock in dependence on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions for the next decades, making it almost impossible to meet the Paris Agreement targets.
That is what the ‘Green Recovery’ is about.
Image from: www.statista.com/chart/9656/the-state-of-the-paris-agreement/
N.B. Since Nov 2019 Angola has ratified the agreement. The membership of the USA depends on the presidential election on Nov 3rd. Under President Trump the USA will formally withdraw on the 4th Nov, however the Democrat candidate Joe Biden has vowed to rejoin the agreement immediately if he becomes president.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has set out what needs to be done on climate in 2020:
“If we are going to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to demonstrate, starting this year, how we will achieve emissions reductions of 45% from 2010 levels this decade, and how we will reach net-zero emissions by mid century.”
Secretary General Guterres has also referred to …”“a rare and short window of opportunity to rebuild our world for the better”.
One of the leading academic studies of this issue has been published by Professor Cameron Hepburn of the Oxford Smith School, Lord Stern, Nobel-prizewinning economist Joe Stiglitz and others:
“Overall, although COVID-19 has reduced GHG emissions in 2020, the overall impact will be driven by investment choices. The emergency rescue packages that are currently being implemented represent life and death decisions made by government officials about people alive today. The imminent recovery packages, soon to be designed and implemented, will reshape the economy for the longer-term, representing life and death decisions about future generations, including through their impact on the climate.”
Christiana Figuerres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, underlined the urgency of the issue in this way:
“Those 10 years that we thought we had have now been shrunk into basically anywhere between three to 18 months because by the end of those 18 months all the decisions and in fact most of the allocations of the recovery packages will have been made.”
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, puts it like this:
“We must do everything in our power to promote a “green recovery” … taking measures now to fight the climate crisis is not just a “nice to have”. It is a “must have” if we are to leave a better world for our children”.
“When governments provide financial lifelines to carbon-intensive companies, they should mandate commitments to reduce carbon emissions.”
Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, has said that governments have the opportunity in the wake of the corona pandemic:
“to put clean energy technologies – renewables, efficiency, batteries, hydrogen and carbon capture – at the heart of their plans for economic recovery.”
“Governments can use the current situation to step up their climate ambitions and launch sustainable stimulus packages focused on clean energy technologies. The coronavirus crisis is already doing significant damage around the world. Rather than compounding the tragedy by allowing it to hinder clean energy transitions, we need to seize the opportunity to help accelerate them.”
In future blogs we will look at what the response has been to these calls from world leaders – from business, from different governments around the world, and in some of the key relevant industries such as coal and other fossil fuels.