UK environmental, climate and energy policy
Over the last few years my focus has been, first, on the need for a 'Sustainable Economy Act' which would give the UK statutory environmental targets of the same form as provided by the Climate Change Act; and second, on the potential for industrial strategy to promote both radical emissions reduction and environmental improvement, and good jobs across the country. I sat on the IPPR Environmental Justice Commission, whose final report, Fairness and Opportunity: a people-powered plan for the green transition, was published in 2021.
I have also written about the relationship between environmentalism and social democracy. After leaving government I reflected on the major shift in climate change and energy policy which occurred under Labour from 2006-10 and with which I was closely involved - an interesting case study in how, and when, governments succeed in introducing radical policy change. I wrote an academic paper on this with Neil Carter, Professor of Politics at the University of York, published in Public Administration in 2013. It was also the subject (in part) of my Inaugural Lecture at the University of Sheffield. Background As a member of the Council of Economic Advisers at the Treasury from 2004-7 my responsibilities included the development of the UK’s environmental tax and spending policy, covering seven Budgets and Pre-Budget Reports. This included policy on the EU emissions trading scheme, transport, landfill and North Sea oil taxation, water regulation and pollution, the Common Agricultural Policy, business regulation and fuel poverty. Initially at the Treasury and then at No 10, I was closely involved in the major shift in climate and energy policy which occurred after 2006. I oversaw the development and passage of the Climate Change Act and the 2007 Energy White Paper, and the subsequent development of the Government’s renewables, nuclear, energy efficiency and major infrastructure planning strategies. I initiated and helped develop policy for the demonstration of carbon capture and storage. I originated the £600m public-private Energy Technologies Institute and £350m Community Energy Saving Programme and helped initiate the Government’s electric vehicle programme. I brokered the industry deal to phase out high-energy lightbulbs in the UK. In 2008 I helped establish the Department of Energy and Climate Change. From 2008-10, working with the new Secretary of State Ed Miliband, I oversaw the development of the Government’s new policy on consenting coal fired power stations, the creation of carbon budgets, the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan and the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, including the £400m Low Carbon Investment Fund and the promotion of investment in wind turbine manufacturing. Much of my work in government drew on the ideas I developed as an academic and policy consultant in the late 1980s and 1990s, including my 1991 book The Green Economy: Environment, Sustainable Development and the Politics of the Future (Pluto Press). I wrote a lot about the concept of sustainable development and its application in policy, and about different techniques and philosophies of environmental valuation. I studied the employment implications of environmental policy, and developed the idea of ‘a green route out of recession’ in the early 1990s (to which I returned in the notion of a 'low carbon recovery' after the financial crash in 2008). I worked on proposals for environmental taxation and the link between environmental regulation and technological innovation. I tried to articulate a concept of ‘environmental modernisation’. These themes are reflected in the various publications I wrote in that period. Some of the policy proposals and narratives were subsequently adopted by the Labour Government, notably through the 2008 Climate Change Act (which reflected the proposals I made in The Green Economy) and the 2009 Low Carbon Transition Plan. In my last year as Special Adviser at No 10 in 2009-10 I wrote a series of newsletters to external stakeholders on the last Government’s climate change and energy policy. I have collected them here to act as a historical archive. |
Recent writingFrom net zero to rock bottom
Inside Story 25 September 2023 The case for a UK windfall tax on oil and gas giants is unanswerable Guardian 11 February 2022 Boris Johnson's high-stakes gamble Inside Story 29 September 2021 Labour's Green New Deal is among the most radical in the world - but can it be done by 2030? The Conversation 25 September 2019 The Green New Deal: easier said than done? SPERI blog 3 July 2019 What exactly is the Green New Deal? SPERI blog 26 June 2019 'Net zero' and the innovation-policy nexus SPERI blog 13 June 2019 The environment act should be a sustainable economy act Green Alliance blog 11 October 2018 Only revolutionary new laws can stop Brexit harming the environment Guardian 3 April 2018 Don't panic, Brexit doesn't have to spell gloom for the environment Guardian 30 June 2016 Energy companies are cheaper and cleaner when run by the council Guardian 3 June 2016 George Osborne will soon be forced to show his hand on climate change Guardian 17 March 2016 A new politics: why we need collaboration between the Greens and Labour Resurgence Nov-Dec 2013 (also published here) Housing, places and people: Labour and the fifth wave of social environmentalism Essay in Green Social Democracy: Better Homes in Better Places, ed Matthew Spencer et al, Green Alliance, September 2013 Explaining radical policy change: the case of climate change and energy policy under the British Labour Government 2006-10 (with Neil Carter) Public Administration August 2013 Osborne's anti-green agenda is strangling growth New Statesman 12 March 2013 Green social democracy Fabian Review Winter 2012 (reprinted by the New Statesman 18 January 2013) The politics of place and the greening of Labour In One Nation Labour - Debating the Future ed Jon Cruddas, Labour List e-book January 2013 (and Labour List 12 November 2012) Environmental and climate change policy: a case study in preventative action Prevention Working Paper New Economics Foundation January 2013 A low carbon future is the one we must all fight for Guardian 2 December 2012 The Coalition's energy policy Guardian and Political Quarterly blog 18 October 2012 EU economy - black hole or green growth? Comment on Martin Wolf's Economists' Blog Financial Times 28 October 2011 Tax can be used to tackle climate change Interview in International Tax Review 1 October 2011 Writing 2010-11
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