A Just and Inclusive Net Zero: Who should get there first? - Myles Allen

And over the past, uh, five lectures this year, we've been talking about when net zero and the case for stopping global warming as soon as possible. And in, in the last lecture, we were talking about how the longer we allow global warming to progress, the more likely it is that people will start to resort to the more, the, the, the somewhat crazier solutions like solar geo engineer, solar geoengineering, which might actually have quite destabilizing politically political consequences. So what in, in this, um, uh, in, in, in these ledges is how do we, um, address the danger of net zero, uh, in the UK becoming the next Brexit issue? It, it already seems to be happening. I suppose we could vote against them. I wouldn't possibly couldn't possibly comment on who I'm talking about here. Um, but, uh, I think the, the bigger question everybody who's interested in climate policy should be thinking about is how do we avoid playing into the hands of those who are looking to make net zero a divisive issue? So, I, I was, when I was writing the outlines to these lectures last year, I was thinking I'd be talking more about the international, um, justice questions, and we will touch on that in the lecture. But over the past year, um, net zero and inclusion in net zero policy has become a bigger and bigger issue in the uk. So I'm gonna be thinking a bit about Net zero in UK policies, uh, politics and, and what's happening there. Um, it doesn't look like being that big an issue in the coming election, um, although it's already interestingly emerging in some, some corners of the uk. So, um, you know, that's what we need to worry about. I mean, it's interesting. So I I, I highlighted will highlight in this, uh, uh, in this lecture the sort of risks of technocratic solutions and ending up with a slogan that I hope we can perhaps all unite around. Let's come back onto that, okay? Um, I do think people who hold up no net zero posters, so, well, so you want climate change forever. Um, probably not. Um, but I think we need to actually raise the game a bit, um, in political discussion around net zero, so that if you're gonna say, I don't like these policies, well, what are the policies you do? We've kind of got there with financial debate in politics, it's sort of, it's considered not very cool to offer completely unfunded. Um, and, and, you know, so when you, when you make a promise, you're expected to say how you're gonna pay for it. If you're gonna say, no, we're, we're not gonna have any nuclear power plants. So what are you gonna have? Or no, we're not gonna have any solar farms. Um, and, um, but, you know, as you, we've also got to be very careful about things that are actually nothing to do with Net Zero, like the les, for example, being swept up into it. Um, by the way, I, I think Les is a fantastic idea. I think the cleaner London's air the better. Um, uh, I, please don't attack me afterwards. Um, but this lecture is not about the Les. Um, because he's been told by, by Saudi Khan that, that Yules is all part of our net zero agenda. The impact of Yules on UK emissions is probably quite minimal. And so, and this, and this is, this is a problem. And, uh, Sharon Graham, the, uh, unite, uh, uh, chairwoman, um, uh, some Secretary General, um, uh, uh, has, has, uh, warned that oil and gas workers risk becoming the coal miners of our generation. And they're putting, um, uh, uh, posters up all over Scotland saying No ban without a plan, which actually is a pretty good slogan. I mean, I think we'd all be in favor of a plan. Um, there is a, a real danger, I think here, and this is what I mean about, um, the danger of the next administration being too politically, as I used the phrase to theater, it doesn't go down too badly with people. So, for example, we all know, as a matter of geology, the number of jobs in North Sea oil and gas extraction is going to go down a lot in the next 20 years. Now that prices have come back down to more normal levels, but the symbolism matters, um, and people will remember it. And, you know, as evidence that symbols matter, um, remember that coal mine, ENC Cambria, I mean, rumor has it that the company that wanted to get this coal mine licensed, um, a few months after COP 26 wasn't really interested in the amount amount of coal that could produce at all. I mean, this, uh, is new gas pipeline infrastructure going in in Guyana, a country, um, that has very ambitious climate goals has already declared that it's reached net zero. Okay, there you go. You'd have to concentrate in these lectures. Um, and they've also just discovered a huge amount of oil and gas off the coast. And there's actually a, there's a quite a fun interview on hard talk. Um, I don't, the, the reason I'm sort of raising this is I, it's very clear that the president of Guyana would be completely unimpressed by a decision by the UK to leave the remains of our royal and gas in the ground in the North Sea. So for him, I don't think that symbol, well, you can judge for yourself, watch the, watch the interview, but I don't think that symbol would, um, have any resonance whatsoever, which is why I think we could do, we could do much more things, which would be much more powerfully symbolic with the remains of our North Sea oil and gas. Anything we do with the UK's remaining fossil fuel reserves will be largely symbolic in the, in the grand scheme of things. We've already dug it up and burnt it. It's not that important with, um, um, I know there's people in the room who worry about, um, licensing of North Sea, and so of course it's, you know, um, but, uh, but, but nevertheless, it's, it, it, it's, it, it's, it's a small part of the global, uh, it's a, uh, of global reserves. And so I think we, but we, we can think, we should be thinking quite hard about its symbolic value and what we do with it. Um, one thing I'm not going to talk about, um, in this lecture is the sort of most important injustice of all, um, which is illustrated by this amazing power of maps, which show you country's contributions to global warming over the second half of the 20th century. Now you can see, you know, the, the, the really striking thing is that how different the two maps look and how sort of squeezed and thin Africa is in, in the, in the top map and how dominant Africa and India are in, in the bottom map. It is very important, but I wanna talk about justice in climate solutions. So how do we ensure that the climate solutions we, um, we implement are inclusive and fair on everyone? Because there is a real problem that many of the solutions to climate, and I think we just have to take this head on and acknowledge it. Many of the solutions to climate change that we talk about today, um, from, you know, um, parochial issues, um, like, uh, the, uh, replacing, uh, home heating systems, uh, or, uh, electrifying transport in the uk, um, have the potential, at least if we're not careful, to, um, exacerbate inequalities. So, so rich, rich households, they, they've been normalized to the same number of people per household. So, so, so in terms of the contribution to carbon footprint, so this is the amount of CO2 in the vertical contribution to carbon footprint, um, as a function of, of, of what, how, how wealthy you are. Then as we go across your, your, um, mobility. So travel and flights and so on increases, um, as you go up to, uh, uh, the, the, the highest income households and, you know, more and more of your carbon is generated by leisure activities and things, which, you know, you could probably afford to do less of. And this study sort of documents and quantifies it. Um, but the main striking point about it is that it's gonna be, uh, uh, given where we're at at the moment, some parts of the UK are gonna have to go, um, further than others, so to speak. Um, or, and, and it's already the kind of north South London, the rest of the country divide that has been such a problem in the past in terms of social divisions. And without change to existing policies and strategies, um, new and unique inequalities will emerge. Um, and so we need to be very careful about net zero their points. The main point of the report is we need to be very careful about net zero policies, exacerbating inequalities. Now inequalities globally is something called the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which Europe is introducing, um, in, in recognition of the fact that, um, if Europe is imposing, uh, carbon pricing on heavy industry, um, then it'll be, you know, cheaper to produce steel in China than it is to produce in Europe, because there might be a lower carbon price in China. So Europe's solution to this is to introduce something called the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which means that in effect, um, uh, if Brussels doesn't feel that your, um, climate policies are good enough, then they impose a, a huge tariff on the imports. And it's a starting off with, uh, a few, a few high carbon products like steel cement, uh, aluminum and so on. Um, and, but eventually it would be escalated to, to a large range of products. And already a lot of African countries are suddenly discovering that, uh, it's going to be difficult for them to export to Europe unless they can prove to Brussels that, um, their climate policies are as good as Europe's. Um, why did you say that? It's already raising pretty serious hackles around the world. Um, and it's just too easy for the global warming policy foundation to sort of caricature it as, you know, the rich world putting up barriers. So gratuitously, I mean, it's this sort of thing that worries me about a very common framing, um, around climate, which is the sort of climate emergency framing. You should only talk about the climate emergency. Um, and apparently in Britain were one of the countries in the world where people believe in the climate emergency, uh, more than anywhere else in the world. I thought it was a interesting statistic, or at least it was a few years ago. Um, I mean, the first thing that people, I mean, um, the first, the first thing people do when, when there's a, an an when they've declared an emergency is they, they stop really bothering to consult very much. Um, when, when Europe was in a energy emergency, which it was an emergency following the invasion of Ukraine, um, they dealt with it by building a bunch of new LNG import terminals. Um, the way they got those through so fast, um, in Germany, um, which is notoriously slow at making infrastructure decisions, um, they simply reduce the normal consultation period from six months to six days. It generally means something's gone wrong. I mean, that the term's being abused, um, and climate is the kind of issue that will, you know, unfold over decades. So we don't need to worry too much about the details of asking to people, too many questions about whether they like the way we're going about it. We're just gonna crack on and, and do it. Um, and, um, so, so, you know, 'cause 'cause in the end, um, you know, climate policy is for everyone and people have to be included. I mean, the most successful climate policy in Britain over the past 40 years was undoubtedly Mrs. So, you know, that's, uh, I mean, it was effective, but it's not the way to do it. Um, we need, we need to bring people along. Um, because in the end, it's, it's for everyone. Um, of course, it doesn't mean that everybody will benefit from climate policy. I mean, some people will gain, some people will lose, but we need everybody to understand why we're doing what we're doing and why. I mean, some people will gain, some people will lose, but we need everybody to understand why we're doing what we're doing and why. Um, so, and, and you know, we're gonna talk a lot next year about specific climate solutions. Um, so, and, and you know, we're gonna talk a lot next year about specific climate solutions. Um, and there's 2 1, 1 particular thing that one particular, um, uh, argument I want to pick up on is, um, the notion of, um, sort of fair share. Um, and there's 2 1, 1 particular thing that one particular, um, uh, argument I want to pick up on is, um, the notion of, um, sort of fair share. Um, the notion of fair shares, of global emissions, of remaining global emissions, because this is an, it's just an example of, of in what I see as the dangers of doing policy by algorithm. Um, the notion of fair shares, of global emissions, of remaining global emissions, because this is an, it's just an example of, of in what I see as the dangers of doing policy by algorithm. Um, so the Climate Action Tracker, an extremely influential, um, NG well, NGO led, um, science-based initiative, um, uh, led outta Berlin. Um, so the Climate Action Tracker, an extremely influential, um, NG well, NGO led, um, science-based initiative, um, uh, led outta Berlin. They, they, they grade countries on their performance, um, relative to 1.5 or two degree goals, and they give them a sort of orange, green, or red generally read, um, score for how badly they're doing. They, they, they grade countries on their performance, um, relative to 1.5 or two degree goals, and they give them a sort of orange, green, or red generally read, um, score for how badly they're doing. Um, and at the heart of this is the Climate Action Trackers analysis of what is your fair share of global emissions. Um, and at the heart of this is the Climate Action Trackers analysis of what is your fair share of global emissions. Um, and so this is a figure from a recent paper that she led, which shows there are many different, she's a international legal scholar. Um, and so this is a figure from a recent paper that she led, which shows there are many different, she's a international legal scholar. She's been at the heart of climate, um, policy, um, formation for, for the past, uh, uh, well, for 20 years or so, um, heavily involved in, in the, uh, drafting of the Paris Agreement. She's been at the heart of climate, um, policy, um, formation for, for the past, uh, uh, well, for 20 years or so, um, heavily involved in, in the, uh, drafting of the Paris Agreement. Um, and, and she, she points out there are many ways of determining, um, what a, a country's fair share of emissions might be. Um, and, and she, she points out there are many ways of determining, um, what a, a country's fair share of emissions might be. Um, you know, uh, what's their cap, what's their capability for reducing emissions, for example, as one of the things highlighted there. Or, um, should we be aiming for equal emissions per head of population? So that's another criteria you could use. Um, or should we be looking at the responsibility of the country for the climate changes that have already happened, depending on how much they've emitted in the past? Thinking back to those, um, distorted maps I was showing you about country's contributions to past emissions and all these are gonna give you different answers and ranges of answers. And here's some illustrations of the range of answers you get for where emissions should be now. Um, well at least, um, in, in the past few years, um, relative to different ways of calculating countries fair shares of, um, ongoing emissions. Um, and just to highlight one here, this is the G 20 countries there. So that's where, where emissions going up or down and so on. So if it's below a hundred percent, it's gone. We'd be taking CO2 back out of the atmosphere. We'd be past net zero already for it. To be fair. Um, the only two countries that come out sort of more or less close to their fair share are India and, uh, Indonesia. But I actually have a fundamental problem with, with this sort of fair share analysis, because it's sort of the, the kind of te tennis of it and the, the, the discussion with Lani goes on, and of course, she's a lawyer, so I've, I'm sure it'll lend badly for me. Um, but, um, but my, my worry about it is it sort of implies that by virtue of our existence, we all have a right to do irrevocable harm to the global environment. Uh, and, and LA would argue that I'm caricaturing their position and fair enough. So, um, you know, uh, because of course the total amount that needs to be done is set by basic physics. So, you know, if this, no matter how you cut it, you've gotta work out this sort of allocation, uh, problem. Um, and, and as I say, I, I, I, I think they may be, my feeling is they're asking the wrong question, at least in the climate action tracker. And so if you suddenly turn around and tell the British voter, oh, um, we've done this fair share analysis and we decided we have to stop emissions tomorrow, it's gonna be like, well, well, who did the analysis? You know, why? Where, you know, telling them that, oh, well, I've run the model is, is not gonna work. Um, um, there's another initiative, similar lines, but targeting companies rather than countries called a science-based Targets initiative, um, and which will be coming back to in, in one of our lectures next year. So sort of how much should emissions be coming down in the oil in the, in the steel sector, and then compare a company's performance to what should be happening within that sector. And we'll get it, you know, the, the, these are detailed and complex calculations we'll get into, um, sort of how that works next year. Um, but the crucial problem is, you know, deep in these integrated assessment models, there are all kinds of assumptions about what is fair. Um, because the, the, the models, although, although these are, these models don't, they're not explicit about the fact they're looking, um, for allocating shares, they still, um, calculate a least cost way of achieving a climate gold globally. Uh, which means you've got to, in order to calculate the least cost way of doing something globally, you've gotta allocate effort to different countries. So there's no getting away from it. The modeler has somehow made some decisions that resulted in an outcome that meant, you know, this sector has to do more, this sector has to do less and so on. So some of these, some of the, and some of these estimates of cost are pretty straightforward. I mean, the cost of re replacing coal power stations with nuclear power stations is, you can, you can document that. It's harder to say, put a cost on the impact on nuclear proliferation, for example. But you know, again, you, you can, you can imagine ways of doing that. Others are much more subjective. If, if that's something we have to do, um, in order to achieve, uh, net zero, or how do you balance, you know, the value of flying with the value of being able to drive to work or, um, um, and, and again, because all these assumptions are there deep in the sort of engine rooms of these integrated assessment models, it's very difficult to take the output of one of these models and turn around to a voter and say, well, this is what we gotta do, because that's what the model says. Uh, you know, we need to do a much better job of explaining why we need to do what we know and not just re relying on these scenarios and saying, well, you know, we have to do this because that's the scenario. Um, I mean, the, the, the, the, we need, we need, you know, we need to change the conversation. Um, we need to change the conversation away from this negative, um, argument about how much harm can you still, how much harm are you allowed to still cause to a positive argument about if you've got the capacity, how do we fix the problem and who has the duty to fix it? I think that's the big transition to debate. I always try to be positive in these, in these lectures. And who's got the capacity to fix it? And how do we put policies in place to fix it as quickly as possible? So some things are pretty straightforward. Okay, we stop using coal. That's a pretty simple message, um, that is easy to communicate. And so therefore, if somebody's working in the coal industry, that's not really consistent with meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. So that's, that's something which can be sort of straightforwardly explained to anybody. There's many other reasons why we need to wind down our global, there's, there's so many other harms coal does as well as, um, affecting the climate. But it just, it, and the reason, by the way that we have this drop off of coal in these scenarios, of course, these scenarios are looking for least cost pathways to achieve net zeros. So it just doesn't make any sense to use it anymore. So the argument for phasing out coal is overwhelming. We do reduce the amount of oil we produce, um, and use, but it down by about, you know, two thirds or so. Um, and then, and you know, and then there's a big spread, you know, anywhere from, um, close to zero to about only about half. We have some scenarios in which gas, even climbs gas use even climbs, um, in, uh, these net zero scenarios. And of course, the way in which those are net zero scenarios is that the remaining use of fossil fuels, all of the fossil fuel use that's happening after 2050 is fully compensated for by capture of the carbon dioxide that's generated and injection back underground. So when we see, so just bearing in mind that picture and the, and the enormous spread of, um, uh, of, of the possible futures for the global gas industry, we have to ask ourselves when we hear news like this one, a very important climate justice case in the past few years, in which a court in the Netherlands, so these are the lawyers celebrating, um, following a court decision in the Netherlands requiring shell to reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide generated by both its activities and the products itself by 45% relative to 20, uh, 10. It wasn't given any options on this. Now, the difficulty with this is, and it's needless to say, shall are appealing, and the difficulty with this decision by the court is that Shells counterargument is, and they weaken their own argument by not, not being very coherent either, but the argue, the counterargument they were making was they wanted to be measured by the carbon intensity of the products they sold, sold. So they were, they were looking to, to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide generated per, um, per liter of petrol sold or per, um, per BTU of gas sold. Um, that was their preferred metric. But you can see, you know, shell, um, an oil and gas pr more and more a gas company, um, could easily point to this and say, but the scenarios are all over the place. You know, why, why, why does the courts have any right to say this is the one that's relevant to this company, um, when that company's, uh, oil and gas production is only a few percent of the world's total. So it's gonna continue. Um, but the, the, the, the difficulty with this is that, um, if we, if these cases start to succeed, um, the net result, I mean, shell have already moved their headquarters to London because of, because they, one of the reasons they say it's'cause they, they're grumpy about this case. I dunno if that was a part of the, uh, part of the argument. Um, but, um, uh, but you know, one, one of the potential consequences of these cases start to succeed is that we will push oil and gas production ever more into companies that are just immune from litigation companies like Gas Prom or Aramco, or, you know, where there's just no point in trying to sue them. So, groups wanting to end fuel poverty, unite, wanting no ban without a plan, and the just stop oil campaigners. Because I would argue that, and justice of course cuts both ways. Remember, I, 'cause I would argue that the greatest injustice, the greatest climate injustice of all is the fact that we have the most profitable industry the world has ever known by far, that is making its money, selling a product that's causing a very serious problem. And nobody is even asking them to fix it. In fact, they seem to have got away with the fact that, oh yeah, they'll fix the problem, but only when the taxpayer pays them to clean up. Well, it's kind of what Thames Water are trying to do. Um, but um, and, and, and I think we need to be, and and ironically the so many people in the climate debate are perpetuating this situation. The, the, the, the sort of anti les campaigner on the one hand is they think they're defending their right to drive. Um, the, the the just stop oil protestor who's glued to the gantry, they think they're, they, they think they're sort of bringing forward the demise of the fossil fuel industry. They probably don't know that the fossil fuel industry executives that I've talked to are perfectly comfortable with people saying phase out fossil fuels. Um, they say, that's fine. We'll, we'll go with fa we'll, we'll, we'll just sell 'em in the meantime. Apparently they're gonna be phased out. Apparently they're gonna be phased out. You know, they're, they're, they're fine with that message. You know, they're, they're, they're fine with that message. Um, and um, indeed I've even had them tell me to my face, um, oh, we can't invest in carbon capture because the world's decided to transition away from fossil fuels. Um, and um, indeed I've even had them tell me to my face, um, oh, we can't invest in carbon capture because the world's decided to transition away from fossil fuels. So it would be too risky for us to invest in that knowing full well they're investing in oil and gas fields that won't be producing until the 2040s. So it would be too risky for us to invest in that knowing full well they're investing in oil and gas fields that won't be producing until the 2040s. So we're just giving them an excuse to carry on doing nothing when we could be requiring them to get on with actually doing something which is stopping the product they sell from causing further global warming. So we're just giving them an excuse to carry on doing nothing when we could be requiring them to get on with actually doing something which is stopping the product they sell from causing further global warming.'cause they absolutely know how to do it.'cause they absolutely know how to do it. And this is, you know, by in effect, we've already decided this. And yet nobody's put it that way. And yet nobody's put it that way. And 2050 is only 25 years away. And 2050 is only 25 years away. So any company whose main line of business is selling products that cause global warming directly should have filed a plan already with the Department of Energy and natural and, and net zero department energy security and net zero, sorry, it's bit of a math, um, saying, how are they gonna stop the product they sell from causing global warming? So any company whose main line of business is selling products that cause global warming directly should have filed a plan already with the Department of Energy and natural and, and net zero department energy security and net zero, sorry, it's bit of a math, um, saying, how are they gonna stop the product they sell from causing global warming? Which is kind of the kind of plans that's the level of, that's the level of ridiculousness of some of their plans. Which is kind of the kind of plans that's the level of, that's the level of ridiculousness of some of their plans. Uh, at the moment they're just saying, oh yeah, we're just gonna carry on selling it in line with society is the i the the line they like to use? But in the meantime, we're just gonna carry on. How, and they're not making any effort to explain how they're gonna get from 2030s to the 25th and nobody's asking them to, which is bizarre. Um, that was, that was explicitly in, in, in that somebody was just taking the mate. Um, which brings us back to what do we do about North Sea licenses? So what constructively could labor do? It would create that world leading carbon capture and storage industry overnight. The government ministers keep telling us we're gonna have and then tell us we have to pay for it. No, the industry's making plenty of money. And of course, they'll immediately scream. And the daily mail will no doubt go nuts over the fact that this'll make fossil fuels more expensive. A 10% take back requirement. So requirements on the industry to get rid of 10% of the carbon dioxide generated by the products sells, which is where we need to be by the early 2030s, if we're gonna be on track for a hundred percent by 2050, would add n 0.1 penny to the cost of a kilowatt hour of natural gas, which is less than you save by shopping around. So, and, and by the way, there's no need for them to pass all that cost on anyway. They're making plenty of money. Of course, in the long term, if you require the fossil fuel companies to start the process off from causing global warming, then fossil fuels will get more expensive. There's absolutely no getting away from it. Um, and, and the point is, we, the, the government is clearly sensitive to the fact that people probably care more about energy security than they care about net zero. They're to make sure that we actually having decided that fossil fuels are gonna be made safe for the planet and therefore they're gonna get more expensive. We better invest in some alternatives because it's, it's, it's insecure to continue relying exclusively on them at the level we do. Because as I say, the, the cost of the, the price of fossil fuels is set by what the market will bear, not what they, not by what they, their cost to produce and deliver. Um, uh, it we could, we could, we could, uh, we could, we could, um, club together to achieve that outcome. Lots of people insist to me that, oh, it's not that simple miles, it's much more complicated than that. It's not really, we just need to stop fossil fuels from causing global warming. So drive electric instead. Um, if we wrote, refocus the conversation on simple principles like this principle of producer responsibility for fossil fuels, um, we might be able to diffuse these arguments from becoming as toxic as they could, um, um, over, over the next 20 years. Thank you. The, uh, and one's asked, uh, could, could cbam in the UK in the EU stimulates a program of global taxes, which would then, uh, even out and, and, uh, responsibility around the world taken for carbon emissions. Well, I mean, that's the idea. Um, but the, the difficulty is that it's essentially the EU and UK taking it upon themselves to tell Namibia, um, what carbon tax it should set. Um, and I suspect the government and or certainly the, if looking at that, um, hard talk interview with the president of Guyana, I think you're gonna get some pretty, um, pretty hard pushback on that. Um, so the, the, the difficulty with that is that somebody's decided this is the right level to set the carbon tax. Um, and that's a subjective decision. There's, there's so many sort of imponderables in, in what is that right level, um, that it's very hard to justify one level over another. Some countries will have much more, uh, will get onto into all this sort of stuff next year. Um, but some countries will have much more elastic emissions than others. Um, uh, so I don't wanna put you off the, I've just put you off next year's lectures, haven't you? Economists can't wait, I'm sure. Um, and as I said, you know, if you have to defend your policy by saying it's not neocolonialist, you've already got a problem.<laugh>. Um, I just wanted to ask, in terms of SBTI brought out sort of, they changed their methodology to include carbon offsetting, and then there was huge pushback and then they backtracked on that. What are your thoughts on that? Um, it's a huge topic, um, and, um, it's, uh, but the, the fact, I mean, it, it, it's, can I just sort of par that one with, it's really interesting that conversation's happening because on the one hand, at a positive thing, it shows that meeting science based targets is hard. So companies are having to really think about it. If something doesn't mean mean anything, it's very cheap. Promise You, you haven't said explicitly how this would happen. I think you're suggesting carbon capture and storage, um, but that, that's, that's hardly a, a given thing. That it, it's, But the scale, but just don't listen to them. They're wrong. They can do it today, But the scale of it is minute at the Moment. The scale is minute because nobody's incentivized to do it at the moment. The only reason anybody does carbon capture at the moment is because some government pays them to do it. And 'cause governments haven't got unlimited pockets, they haven't done that very often. If the industry were people within the industry have said to my face, of course, if we had to do it as a licensing condition of selling fossil fuels, we just do it. Like, like I was, they were almost insulted that I would even think that they would do anything else. What Yeah, sure. For what kind of carbon? Price? Price? That's sort of, um, 50 odd, um, pounds per per ton of CO2. Um, and the reason people aren't putting this carbon capture in at the moment is because even when the, um, carbon price wobbles over that level, they're not confident enough that it'll stay over that level. And these plants have to be built and they have to run for decades. So why bother to invest when somebody else might pay for it? There's, there's, there's a whole raft of reasons why it's not happening, but they're all on the policy. There's nothing wrong with the technology. There's nothing wrong with the technology. We've just yet to come up with a, a, a, a clear and unavoidable reason why people have to do it. We've just yet to come up with a, a, a, a clear and unavoidable reason why people have to do it. And, and that's why I, I would advocate a very, very simple thing that labor could do, which would have a dramatic impact on the world, will be to say, if you want to dig it up, if you wanna import it into Britain, you've gotta start putting away the CO2 now just get on with it. And, and that's why I, I would advocate a very, very simple thing that labor could do, which would have a dramatic impact on the world, will be to say, if you want to dig it up, if you wanna import it into Britain, you've gotta start putting away the CO2 now just get on with it. We're not gonna give you any more subsidies. And, and if they were to do that, you know, you can start small, you know, only one or 2% right away, that would immediately transform the CS industry. And, and if they were to do that, you know, you can start small, you know, only one or 2% right away, that would immediately transform the CS industry. So just to sort of one or 2% requirement would, would, you know, crank it up immediately and, you know, 10% by the early 2030s would be perfectly feasible for the industry. So just to sort of one or 2% requirement would, would, you know, crank it up immediately and, you know, 10% by the early 2030s would be perfectly feasible for the industry. I mean, the industry themselves, they say, yeah, we could, we could do this. I mean, the industry themselves, they say, yeah, we could, we could do this. But then they say there's no business case. But then they say there's no business case. There's no stronger business case than the license to operate. There's no stronger business case than the license to operate. Um, you know, people like P Colby and Alex Jones and generally, do you think they generally believe what they say because they generally take, or is it tribal politics because they generally take the opposition view on everything, the anti-vax, some of them even don't even believe that earth is round and whatever, you know, any, whatever you say, they say the opposite because that's what their tribe says. Um, you know, people like P Colby and Alex Jones and generally, do you think they generally believe what they say because they generally take, or is it tribal politics because they generally take the opposition view on everything, the anti-vax, some of them even don't even believe that earth is round and whatever, you know, any, whatever you say, they say the opposite because that's what their tribe says. They actually believe that, um, climate change is not real? They actually believe that, um, climate change is not real? So we may as well just carry on emitting for another few decades. So we may as well just carry on emitting for another few decades. That's sort of more the position, uh, people are, are, are taking. That's sort of more the position, uh, people are, are, are taking. Um, I, I don't know. Um, I, I don't know. I can't really get inside their heads, but people do. I can't really get inside their heads, but people do. But, but one thing I could say very highly relevant to the topic of this lecture is people do talk themselves into positions. But, but one thing I could say very highly relevant to the topic of this lecture is people do talk themselves into positions. And once somebody's talked themselves into a position of, you know, holding, once somebody started holding up a placard, very well suspiciously, well printed placard, I might say, um, saying no net zero, it's very hard to talk them down from that. And once somebody's talked themselves into a position of, you know, holding, once somebody started holding up a placard, very well suspiciously, well printed placard, I might say, um, saying no net zero, it's very hard to talk them down from that. So that's why, you know, back to the theme of this lecture. So that's why, you know, back to the theme of this lecture. Um, we need, we need to sort of get ahead of it and explain to people that, you know, net zero is not a threat to your way of life. Um, we need, we need to sort of get ahead of it and explain to people that, you know, net zero is not a threat to your way of life. Um, you know, it's, it's something we can all get behind, which is a fossil fuel industry cleaning up the mess after itself. Um, you know, it's, it's something we can all get behind, which is a fossil fuel industry cleaning up the mess after itself. You know, somebody putting up a Packard saying, no, preserve the fossil, preserve the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Good luck with that placard. Good luck with that placard. Um, I'm, I'm afraid we've, uh, run outta time for this evening, and that one of the things we've been able to demonstrate comprehensively, once again, is actually the science of climate change is always surpassed by the, the, the human issues, uh, around it. And the, uh, one of the reasons the debate is so vigorous is because people are difficult. Uh, and, uh, they, we should never lose sight of that. Um, but ladies and gentlemen, it's been a fascinating evening. The, uh, Frank Jackson Foundation, professor of the Environment, professor Miles Allen. Thank you.