Ben Yeoh Chats Chris Stark: 2023, Climate Policy, NetZero, Adaptation, Heating, Buildings, Incentives
Chris Stark is the Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body which advises the UK and the devolved governments on emissions targets and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. I think he is one of the most important and thoughtful thinkers on climate change policy today. This is his second time on the podcast. We covered many topics in 2022 which you can check out here.
This time I ask on:
- How does it matter that we will pass 1.5c ?
- What did we learn after COP27 (climate conference in Egypt in 2022)
- How do you think we should think about NetZero at the corporate level
- How should we be thinking of adaptation and the CCCs latest report
- the CCC work on UK domestic energy rating
- Heating and building strategy
Some of the recent politics decisions and discussions such as the UK government decision on a Cumbria coal mine.
What the US IRA (inflation reduction act) might mean for climate policy:
“Now you asked me, has anything changed since last we spoke? And yes, it has. Something quite substantial has changed in the United States of America. So we have this inflation reduction act which is an unfortunate act in only one sense, really. It's the IRA. So in the UK of course it's very difficult to talk about the IRA being good. But it's just a kind of game changing piece of legislation. At the core of it I think is a fairly simple thing really which speaks to our last discussion about the difficulty of implementing carbon taxes. The economic logic of making dirty stuff more expensive than clean stuff is still there.But it turns out that the effort of putting carbon tax on something that you actually need in the present society is enormous politically and maybe it's best at just to make the green stuff cheap. Broadly, that's what the Inflation Reduction Act has done. It has done so in quite a controversial way. We're having a discussion now about the protectionist elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. It is a very protectionist piece of legislation but it has lit a fire under some of these green technologies.
Chris outlines some of the challenges of a carbon tax and why a carbon tax and dividend may also not work.
Chris ends on advice on to think about climate impact and future projects.