Clean Slate - Summer 2019

Clean Slate The Practical Journal of Sustainable Living

No 112 Summer 2019 £2.50

Climate Emergency Action Plan Energy Sufficiency Right to Repair

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Clean Slate 16

IN THIS ISSUE… 7. Inspiring action

Fear is paralysing – hope is energising. Tanya Hawkes invites you to come and inspire action on climate change with us at the 2019 CAT Conference this September.

9. Eyes in the sky

The Living Wales project combines state-of-the-art monitoring methods with citizen science to help improve environmental decision-making. Brook Woodman reports.

12. Seismic shift in the climate movement

At a pivotal moment in the campaign for urgent environmental action, Paul Allen has been flat out taking CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain message to groups across the country.

16. Can we reach zero carbon by 2025?

18

How quickly can energy, buildings, diets, land use and transport systems be transformed?

Paul Allen and Catriona Toms explore the need for a climate emergency action plan.

18. No planet B

A wide-ranging new work by Mike Berners-Lee asks some of the urgent questions facing humanity, starting with how we can make sure that fossil fuels stay in the ground.

21. Natural urbanism

In the second in our series on sustainable cities, Paul Chatterton looks at how designers are connecting to and learning from the natural world.

24. Beyond efficiency

How much energy do we really need? Tina Fawcett explores how the concept of energy sufficiency could help us to live within our means.

28. Changing systems, not lightbulbs

21

Adam Howard introduces a new practical guide to discoveries in learning and leadership, encouraging us to pick up the pace of change in our institutions and communities.

30. Make do and mend

The Rapid Transition Alliance celebrates the rise of repair cafés.

36. Leave a gift to CAT

Regulars 3. Editorial

With CAT’s Zero Carbon Britian Coordinator, Paul Allen

4. CAT news

All the latest news from the Centre.

30

11. Your views

Over to you for your views, advice, ideas and suggestions…

35. Crossword

Cryptic crossword by Brominicks.

Cover image: higrace/Shutterstock; wind farm in Taichung, Taiwan.

Editor Catriona Toms.

Design Graham Preston (grahamjpreston@hotmail.com).

The opinions expressed are those of individual originators, not necessarily those of CAT. If you wish to use material from Clean Slate for furthering the aims of the environmental movement, please contact the editor.

The printing of an advert in Clean Slate does not mean that the product or service has been endorsed by the magazine or by CAT. Published by CAT Publications, CAT Charity Ltd., Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys SY20 9AZ. Registered charity no. 265239

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editorial Paul Allen

Climate emergency: let’s talk solutions

W

e are witnessing a seismic shift in the campaign to prevent climate breakdown.

Schoolchildren have gone on strike, many deeply committed people have taken to the streets, towns and cities up and down the country have declared an emergency, and the BBC has – finally – broadcast a prime-time documentary on climate change.

If David Attenborough’s ‘Climate Change: The Facts’ (in combination with a Netflix series on the same theme) can have the same effect on the public response to climate change that Blue Planet II had on attitudes to plastics, then we might just turn the tide.

In the week that I write this, the UK, Welsh and Scottish parliaments have declared a climate emergency. They have recognised that we now have very little time to ensure that we stay within 1.5°C of global temperature rise. October’s IPCC special report on 1.5°C was very clear: we must reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions globally by 2050, with a 45% decrease on 2010 levels by 2030, if we are to avoid the unthinkable consequences of a world warmed by 2°C or more.

So, we have recognised that we are in an emergency. Now we must urgently turn the conversation to delivering the solutions.

For over 12 years CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain project has looked at how we can get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today – without relying on unproven future carbon-capture technologies and without new nuclear.

We’ve crunched the numbers on renewable energy, buildings, transport, diets and land use, and we’ve looked at the social, cultural and economic changes that are needed to bring about the transformation.

We are now in the process of updating our core research, and we urgently need to get the message out to a much wider audience.

We are seeking the resources to begin a huge step-change in our Zero Carbon Britain communications and outreach work over the next year, including CAT’s call for an official emergency action plan from government (see page 5), to help ensure that solutions are a key part of the climate conversation. Keep an eye on the CAT website and social media over the coming months to find out how you can get involved.

Thank you so much for supporting CAT’s work at this pivotal time.

Paul Allen, Zero Carbon Britian project coordinator

Keep in touch isit our website: V www.cat.org.uk

Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/centre_alt_tech

e our facebook friend: B Centre for Alternative Technology

Read the CAT blog: http://blog.cat.org.uk

email us: members@cat.org.uk

✆

Or give us a call!

01654 705988

Clean Slate is a member of INK, the Independent News Collective, trade association of the UK alternative press. www.ink.uk.com

Clean Slate 3

CAT news The Time is Now! Join us to march against climate change

Rob Pinney – Avaaz

On 26th June, thousands of people from across the country will join together in London to tell politicians that #TheTimeIsNow for bold action against climate change. CAT will be there, and we’re urging our members and supporters to join us. Find out more and add your voice at www.cat.org.uk/thetimeisnoow

New Masters courses open for application

CAT’s new Masters degrees in Sustainability and Behaviour Change, Sustainability and Ecology, and Green Building are all now open for applications.

Starting in September 2019, these courses provide students with a broad understanding of environmental issues and sustainable solutions, allowing specialisation in specific areas.

Our Masters degrees are highly flexible, meaning they can be studied alongside work or family commitments, and are open to people with relevant work experience or knowledge gained through informal learning as well as those with a more academic background. Postgraduate loans may be available to help with funding.

We have open days coming up in June and July – find out more at www.cat.org.uk or call us on 01654 705953.

Inspiring Action on Climate Change: thank you for your support

A huge thank you to everyone who has donated to our Inspiring Action on Climate Change appeal. We really appreciate

4 Clean Slate

your support.

So far you’ve raised more than £60,000 to help get our Zero Carbon Britain and climate solutions message out to more people – sharing positive, evidence-based, practical solutions that show how we can tackle the climate emergency. We’ll be scaling up this vital work throughout 2019 and we’ll keep you updated and informed of progress.

If you’ve not yet had a chance to donate, and would like to, please visit our website at www.cat.org.uk/donate or call us on 01654 705988. Thank you.

Sharing solutions at the Climate Emergency Summit

Over 100 people joined our ‘Climate Emergency Solutions Summit’ earlier this month, bringing together researchers, campaigners and policymakers to explore solutions and discuss ways of injecting more urgency into the mission to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions well before mid-century.

The event took place immediately after our latest Zero Carbon Britain course, allowing people to gain a good understanding of the technological

solutions before going on to work together on ways of accelerating change.

We’ll include a more in-depth report in the next issue of Clean Slate; in the meantime, take a look at the CAT website if you’d like to find out more and get involved. www.cat.org.uk

On the festival trail this summer

If you’re heading to Glastonbury or Bluedot festivals this summer, look out for CAT stalls or speakers and pop by and say hello.

At Glastonbury, a group of our architecture students will be building a timber frame structure, in which they’ll give demonstrations of building with straw bales and rammed earth, and we’ll have displays about how we can create a Zero Carbon Britain, including how we can all help make change happen.

Bluedot festival at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire in July sees our Graduate School of the Environment lecturer Louise Halestrap in the science tent giving an 'earth physics' show, an interactive demonstration that introduces the science of building with earth.

Find out more on the CAT blog: www.cat.org.uk

BBC Earth Lab comes to CAT

In February and March, BBC Earth Lab featured CAT as part of a series of online films on sustainable solutions.

Looking at ways of cutting the energy used in food production, presenter Maddie Moate interviewed CAT gardener Petra Weinman about how we grow fruit and vegetables in a low-energy, low-impact way.

This included a starring role for our hotbeds, which use the heat from composting food waste and straw to keep young plants nice and snug at the start of the year.

CAT student and experienced market gardener Ann Owen, who is studying MSc Sustainable Food and Natural Resources, gave an overview of plant proteins vs meat and dairy proteins, looking at the range of pulses that can be grown easily in the UK climate.

For the final programme in the series, Tim Brewer – who teaches our ‘Introduction to Solar PV’ short course – talked about solar electricity, looking at how the technology works and exploring the limitations of individual choice when it comes to energy provision.

You can watch the series via the CAT blog at www.cat.org.uk/bbcearth

Demand a climate emergency action plan

As this issue of Clean Slate went to press, the UK, Welsh and Scottish parliaments declared a climate emergency, and the Committee on Climate Change published a report showing how the UK could reach net zero emissions by 2050.

CAT would like to see net zero by 2040 at the latest, to take account of the UK's historic emissions and to help give the world the best chance of reaching net zero in time to avoid global temperature rises of 2oC or more.

We have launched an online petition addressed to the UK, Welsh and Scottish governments calling on them to urgently develop a climate emergency action plan that will ensure that the UK gets to net zero as quickly as possible.

You can view the petition and add your name at www.cat.org.uk/climatepetition Radical action is needed now if we are to avoid dangerous climate breakdown. Please sign and share!

CAT students support the climate strikers

On 15th March, CAT Masters students took time off from studying climate change solutions to show support for the global ‘Youth Strike 4 Climate’ movement.

Inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg’s weekly ‘Fridays for Future’ school strike, an estimated 1.6 million young people in 128 countries took the day off school to unite in protest against the lack of effective action on climate change.

CAT Masters students showed their support with a one-minute cheer before heading back to their lectures to gain the skills and knowledge that will help them be part of creating the world that the strikers are demanding.

Immediately following the strike, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced a new climate summit in September aimed at turning pledges made under the Paris Climate Agreement into “concrete, realistic plans… in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next decade, and to net zero by 2050.” Writing in The Guardian, he said: “These schoolchildren have grasped something that seems to elude many of their elders: we are in a race for our lives, and we are losing.”

The strikers have vowed to continue with regular school strikes until they see meaningful progress on climate change. To get involved, or to find out how you can support the strikers, visit https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/

CAT welcomes dogs

Visitors to CAT can now bring their fourlegged friends with them as they explore sustainable solutions.

Until now, dogs haven’t been allowed on the site because of concerns for groundnesting wildlife, but we were conscious that this prevented many people from visiting, particularly those staying in holiday accommodation.

Since we want as many people as possible to be able to access inspiration, information and advice on sustainable living, we were keen to find a way of allowing dogs to join people on their visit. So, with a bit of extra fencing, some dog poo compost bins (along with complementary compostable poo bags), and a few rules on where dogs can and can’t go, including a strict short-leash policy, we’re confident that the CAT wildlife and gardens will be safe from inquisitive noses.

Dogs are welcome to CAT free of charge throughout 2019; if this trial period is successful, we’ll make the change permanent.

If you’d like to visit, with or without a fourlegged companion, check out the website at www.cat.org.uk for opening times and special events.

Clean Slate 5

CAT news Sir John Houghton Bursary

Young growers and inventors get inspired at CAT Visitors to CAT during the spring holidays had the chance to be a gardener for the day, hone their skills as energy inventors, or get crafty in nature with some woodland weaving.

Budding organic gardeners got their hands dirty potting and planting seeds and seedlings in wellie boot planters to add to our container garden, then joined a special family tour of the CAT gardens to see how we grow food and flowers in a way that’s good for both people and wildlife.

There was the chance to get up close to nature and to appreciate the beauty of the

world around us with a spring weaving walk, making wild artworks from fallen leaves, twigs and flower petals.

Young engineers learned about how we can produce and use electricity in low impact ways, using CAT's green energy kits to harness wind, solar and even potato power on our ‘Energy Inventors’ workshops.

CAT runs family activities like these during every school holiday. Coming up this summer, we have a packed programme of events, including the chance to take part in a real-life Earth observation project with the Living Wales Project (see page 9). Find out more at www.cat.org.uk/visit or give us a call on 01654 705950.

Defend and restore – an introduction to rewilding

“By defending, restoring and re-establishing forests, peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes, natural seabeds and other crucial ecosystems, very large amounts of carbon can be removed from the air and stored. At the same time, the protection and restoration of these ecosystems can help to minimise a sixth great extinction, while enhancing local people’s resilience against climate disaster.

Defending the living world and defending the climate are, in many cases, one and the same.”

So reads an open letter published in The Guardian this April, signed by a wide range of scientists and campaigners who are

6 Clean Slate

calling on policymakers to provide funding and support for natural climate solutions.

But what does this restoration of ecosystems actually involve? How best can we go about protecting and restoring woodlands, peatlands and other vital habitats, whilst enhancing climate resilience?

That’s the question we’ll be asking this July in CAT’s ‘Introduction to Rewilding’, which brings together experts from across the UK to explore the basic principles and practices of ecological restoration.

With speakers from Rewilding Britain, the Wildland Research Institute, Cambrian Wildwood and the Vincent Wildlife Trust Pine Marten Recovery Project, amongst others, the course covers everything from key concepts in ecology and basic land management to community engagement and current legislation. Case studies, practical exercises and visits to local projects help bring the theory to life.

The course runs from 20th to 23rd July – find out more and book your place at www.cat.org.uk/courses

Our annual bursary for students starting a CAT Masters degree is now open for applications for entry in September 2019.

The Sir John Houghton bursary provides £4,500 to a promising postgraduate student who demonstrates that they have an excellent academic record and a passion for tackling climate change.

The bursary is available thanks to a generous donation from Sir John Houghton, whose career as one of the world’s most eminent climate scientists included being Chief Executive of the Met Office and cochair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Scientific Assessment Working Group.

On donating the bursary fund to CAT, Sir John said: “I have spent a lifetime studying the atmosphere and the climate and latterly have been concerned with the reality of human induced climate change. I now want to help the next generation tackle this serious problem, possibly the biggest the world faces.”

For more information and to apply, visit www.cat.org.uk/funding.

Applications close on Monday 17th June 2019.

Climate conversations at Man U

CAT’s education team were back at Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, in February working with the Climate Coalition and school groups from across Manchester to #ShowTheLove for all the things that are at risk from climate change.

As part of the event, a team from CAT ran a workshop on the effects of climate change on sport, helping pupils to develop a news report on the potential impacts and how we can turn things around.

CAT Engagement Manager Amanda Smith said: “We are in awe of these young people who tackled a difficult subject with enthusiasm, and within an hour were filmed delivering a credible news report.”

CAT’s education team works with school, college and university groups from across the UK, looking at environmental challenges and exploring solutions. Find out more at www.cat.org.uk/learning

Inspiring action at the CAT

Conference

Fear is paralysing – hope is energising.

Tanya Hawkes invites you to come and inspire action on climate change with us at the 2019 CAT Conference in September.

T

his year’s CAT Conference will be different. The findings in the IPCC 1.5o special report last October are forcing us to focus heavily on rapid solutions to climate breakdown.

While the IPCC report looks at the context of ‘strengthening the response to the threat of global climate change,’ the CAT Conference will meet this challenge by exploring how to help make this a reality in our own communities, organisations, cities, regions and nations.

Since the report was released, climate change stories have filled the mainstream news – and it’s not good. Extreme weather events are becoming the new normal across the world. The emissions from high emitting countries, like ours, are already causing suffering and disasters in other places.

But the response to this challenge is phenomenal. Brave school pupils and students are taking to the streets across the world to demand system change. Indigenous groups in some of the most affected areas on the world are defending nature and their communities and opposing fossil fuel extraction, from Nigeria to Alberta.

At CAT we are very aware of the part we can play in this.

The CAT Conference will be a space to build networks between like-minded people who want to help create real world solutions to climate change. It’ll be a chance to work out where our time and energy is best placed to make a difference. We’ll work together to share ideas and expertise on how to have the most impact.

This year, to contribute to the theme of Inspiring Action, we’ll bring together CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research, adaptation and scenario planning, and practical sessions on tackling climate change that we can all start in our communities. We’ll develop our ability to have difficult conversations about climate change whether with our families and friends, our work colleagues, door to door in our communities, at the bus stop or the supermarket. The change begins with us and how we navigate this complex subject outside the safety of our familiar ‘eco-bubbles.’

CAT is well placed to help people. For 45 years we’ve honed the skills needed to talk to people about environmental change.

Whether it’s the casual visitor to CAT who hasn’t thought about environmental issues before or the PhD-level academic researching low carbon building or adaptation policy, we are blazing the way forward to help all sections of society cope – as positively as possible – with the coming societal and technological changes that are required to keep global temperature rise within 1.5oC. We value the input of our supporters who attend the conference.

It helps us explore and evaluate solutions to climate change. We learn so much from the work of the participants and we hear from the feedback we receive every year that the conference inspires hope and change and provides a window into the work of CAT. We’ll be dishing up tasty vegetarian food from our restaurant.

There’ll be time and space to explore our beautiful gardens. We’ll be welcoming back Ro Randall from the Climate Psychology Alliance to discuss ‘how to have difficult conversations about climate change,’ and our expert staff and volunteers are ready to welcome you all and help develop our understanding of how we can rapidly transition to a just and zero carbon society as soon as possible.

We look forward to working, eating and dancing with you all in September.

Book your place The conference takes place 27th - 29th September 2019.

Tickets are £200 per person, including accommodation and food, for Friday evening to Sunday morning. Please note: There are a limited number of concession tickets that we can allocate to those who may be struggling to afford to pay.

There are spaces for people to extend their stay until Monday, booking an extra night’s accommodation if they wish.

Book online today at https://www.cat.org.uk/cat-conference/ or call us on 01654 705988.

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CAT news Eyes in the sky An innovative new project combining state-of-the-art monitoring methods with citizen science will provide a picture of the changing landscape of ‘Living Wales’, helping improve environmental decisionmaking. Brook Woodman reports.

Collaborating through drones: The CAT and Living Wales teams 'ground truth' satellite data acquired over CAT.

D

o you check the weather forecast in the morning, or use GoogleMaps to plot your course to your next destination? If so, then you’re already a part of the exciting world of remote sensing.

Remote sensing is the process of deriving useful information about what is happening on Earth from data collected from afar, primarily by instruments on board satellites or aircraft. Using the different properties of electromagnetic waves, sensors are able to gather a wealth of information on the Earth’s surface, such as the temperature of the land and sea, the amount, type and dynamics of vegetation, and the intensity of flooding and storms.

These ‘eyes in the sky’ give us unprecedented insights into the physical, chemical and biological states and dynamics of our landscapes, and can allow us to make much more informed decisions when it comes to land management, nature conservation, urban planning and many other fields.

Satellite snapshots

All areas of the globe now see satellites passing overhead several times a day.

This gives us an incredible collection of snapshots of our planet and enables us to look back through time at the changes that have taken place and those that are

still ongoing, allowing us to look to the future and make predictions of what is to come. These insights are becoming crucial for effective and sustainable policy and management decisions, particularly in relation to the environment.

Our ever-growing computing capacity enables us to automate many processes that, until recently, were still painstakingly slow and often manual. Maps that would previously have taken weeks to create can now be drawn up within minutes. What's more, routine and regular production of these maps opens the possibility for automated detection and alerting of changes that might otherwise have been overlooked.

The University of Aberystwyth, supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Sêr Cymru II programme and Welsh Government, is moving to harness the potential of these remote sensing data and is developing stateof-the-art systems to automatically process, store and access the data and derived products. They plan on making this wealth of information publicly available for the benefit of Wales and other countries.

Ground-level verification

Whilst our technological advances are providing us with an enormous amount

of remote sensing data, it is imperative to verify that the information produced is reliable when compared to what we see on the ground. For this purpose, the Living Wales team has developed a Mobile App, which allows for near real time collection of ground level information. These data give a reality check on the national land cover classification and change maps being produced through Living Wales. The Mobile App and the data collected are also being made available to allow people across Wales to contribute to the production of the maps and provide feedback.

The maps generated from remote sensing data are being made available to increase interest and raise awareness of the events and processes that are shaping the landscape of Wales. The information provided is also intended to support national efforts towards increasing the prosperity, sustainability and resilience of Wales.

New exhibition at CAT

In collaboration with Aberystwyth University, CAT is opening a Living Wales Exhibition Centre to highlight the importance of the Living Wales project.

The Centre will showcase the range of remote sensing data acquired over Wales, looking at how these can be used to address current and future issues, including responding to climate change, conserving biodiversity, optimising rural economies and promoting the wellbeing of current and future generations.

Visitors of all ages will be able to take part in data collection and use the remote sensing data. In doing so, they will learn how they can actively contribute to the future of the Wales and the global environment.

Keep an eye on the CAT website for details: www.cat.org.uk CS

About the author

Brook Woodman is an MSc student in Environmental Management, particularly interested in the uses of remote sensing for sustainable development. His search for impactful work has led him to CAT, where he is currently on a placement, working in collaboration with the University of Aberystwyth on implementing the Living Wales project. wales.livingearth.online

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Your views Opinions expressed are not necessarily those held by CAT. We reserve the right to edit letters where necessary.

Climate breakdown Dear CAT In Clean Slate 110, I appreciated seeing the expression ‘Climate Breakdown’ being used.

I believe the words ‘Climate Change’, in most situations, are no longer appropriate. The situation is too dire.

Other truthful designations would include ‘Climate Meltdown’, ‘Climate Crisis’, ‘Climate Emergency’ and ‘Climate Chaos’. Different situations require different wording, but ‘Climate Change’ really does seem seriously ambiguous and casual.

If one does need to be neutral, at least ‘Global Warming’ describes the overall reality in a clear fashion.

Christoph Rubach

Counting carbon Dear CAT There have been many proposals over the years for personal carbon accounting systems. That described by Martin Burgess (Clean Slate 111) is one of the narrowest in its focus. The carbon intensity of the UK electricity system has seen remarkable falls in recent years. This, together with improving efficiency of boilers and buildings means that it becomes increasingly important for these systems to take a wider focus. The innovation we need to see is in such systems being applied to travel (especially flying and cruises) and embodied emissions in the goods and services we consume.

Ian Smith Dear CAT I have long held the belief that individual carbon accounts could do for our nation what is advocated in the article by Martin Burgess in Clean Slate 111.

My solution is slightly different from that proposed in the article. Each owner of a motor vehicle would be issued with a carbon credit card. When buying fuel at the service station, the purchaser would use their carbon credit card to gain a discount until their carbon credits ran out, at which point they would pay the full price of fuel.

Initially the carbon credits would only apply to petrol or diesel, but the scheme could be expanded to include domestic gas. The carbon credit cards could be issued by the DVLA each year along with the registration of vehicles but later could be issued to all households to be used to purchase more than vehicle fuel.

The simplicity of the scheme would be that it would cost very little to implement both from the point of issuing the cards, by the DVLA, and from the point of using them to purchase fuel, since all service stations have credit/debit card facilities.

I would welcome a price per litre of fuel of £1.60 or more if I could get a discount until my carbon credits ran out. If, at the end of the year, I still had carbon credits left, they would automatically be credited to my account with DVLA so that I would have to pay less road tax.

Adrian Kendon

start could be made by persuading those advertising and selling such destructive pursuits to always include a note of the airmiles involved in such trips and the carbon emissions which result.

Best wishes Dr Joyce Leeson

Driving demand

Planning problems for wind power

Dear CAT I followed Martin Burgess’s case for Personal Carbon Accounts with interest, and agree that something like that will have to come.

In his opening sentence he says: ‘Consider that all carbon emissions are ultimately driven by the demands of people…’

This made me try to think of something that is consumed, that was actually ‘demanded by people’. I had to assume that by ‘people’ he meant us ordinary folk. And I couldn’t think of anything that caused CO2 emissions, or indeed any kind of pollution, that was ‘demanded’ by us people.

I could only think of things that had been produced because someone thought that they could make money by selling them and had then spent huge amounts of money and time creating the demand for them by making ‘people’ think that they had to have them and eventually that they could not live without them: cars, plastic bags, televisions, electric toothbrushes, computers, iPhones…. The list is endless.

I would like to amend Burgess’s second sentence to say: ‘it immediately follows that unless this system of producing things in order to please investors and then creating a demand for them, is reduced, then emissions reduction targets cannot be met.’

Percy Mark

Advertising air miles Dear CAT Those of us deeply concerned by climate change find many people agree fervently with us – but continue to make many long haul flights.

My friends all seem to do it. Those who are retired with decent pensions and love nature seem to feel the need to go and see all they can of it – everything on the Blue Planet series.

I find it painful sometimes to walk with them while they enthuse about what they saw in the Falklands, the Galapagos, the Barrier Reef or the Antarctic.

Even worse perhaps, are the quality papers and nature charities that express deep concern about climate change and at the same time advertise and profit from long haul holidays.

What can we do about this? I wonder if a

Dear CAT I can answer the question as to why government policy has been hostile to onshore windfarms. I can answer from personal experience – it is because a very vociferous and well organised section of the community is totally opposed to them and sway decisions well out of proportion to their numbers. In some cases, it is a matter principle, but it is just as likely to be a perceived loss of value of their property.

In the past I have been both chair and vice chair of my local planning committee and it was my misfortune that it fell to me to lead site visits on contentious planning applications.

The worst were mobile phone masts, closely followed by on-shore wind farms. The committee would be presented with pages of objectors’ signatures as part of the planning report. To be confronted by scores of placard waving, shouting objectors was a nightmare.

Where were the voices of those supporting wind power when we needed them?

Phil Wort (‘Your views’, Clean Slate 111) is going to email his MP. I wish him luck – MPs and Local Councillors will all say that they are in favour of these alternative forms of energy production nationally but the quickest way of losing their seat is to say that they are in favour of them being located in their patch.

Dick Cains In CAT’s county of Powys we have a great local group called ‘Powys Wind Farm Supporters Group’ that has been set up to represent ‘the voice of the silent majority’. It’s not a campaign group but encourages those who support renewable energy to speak out. We’d certainly encourage anyone who would like to see more wind turbines installed to be proactive in their support.

Stay in touch and join the debate Call us: +44 (0)1654 705988 Email us: members@cat.org.uk Visit our website: www.cat.org.uk Follow us on twitter: @centre_alt_tech Connect on facebook: Centre for Alternative Technology

Clean Slate 11

changing planet

Seismic shift in the climate movement Paul Allen outlines a week’s travel amongst the growing wave of organisations that are speaking from the heart, accepting that past goals are now history and planning for a Zero Carbon Britain.

Sharing Zero Carbon Britain research at the Climate Emergency Conference, Lancaster.

I

n December 2016 a council meeting in Darebin, Australia declared: “Council recognises that we are in a state of climate emergency that requires urgent action by all levels of government, including by local councils.” And so began the ‘climate emergency’ movement.

The scale and speed of the evolution of this movement in the 18 months since has been astounding to witness. Since November last year, it has accelerated across the UK, Australia, USA, Canada and Switzerland. As of the beginning of April, 68 town, city and county councils across Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England have declared climate emergencies and are building plans to reach net-zero on timelines from 2028 to 2038.

It’s often hard to pin down the shape of the evolving zeitgeist, but what I keep hearing is a growing social recognition that

12 Clean Slate

‘we must, and will, act’.

One of the key reasons climate change is such a serious problem is that it is nonlinear. It contains many systems that feed back on each other and accelerate change.

There is also growing recognition that the reason why we now face an emergency situation is that governments and industry have not acted fast enough.

Thankfully, our human response is also non-linear and contains an emerging array of feedbacks which can accelerate the solutions. This is what we are now seeing across many countries: new leadership at town, city and regional level scaling-up, cross-fertilising again and again, and so becoming the new normal. There are many more declarations in the pipeline, so it is only a matter of time before this changes the national political and cultural narratives.

Here at CAT, we are truly feeling the

wave. We have never had so many requests for Zero Carbon Britain presentations, and I have never, ever been this busy. Whilst this is exhausting, it is also highly uplifting, as this is exactly the social shift that CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain project (ZCB) was developed to support.

Here is a brief overview of one week spent travelling the country talking to a wide range of different groups about how we can reach zero carbon and prevent climate breakdown. I hope some of these stories might prove useful to other groups working on climate emergency action processes for their own areas.

Greener Tywyn first anniversary gathering The small Welsh coastal town of Tywyn, near CAT, has shown exciting grassroots leadership. During its first year, the

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Greener Tywyn group has undertaken a range of practical actions such as recycling and clearing beaches of plastic; then on 13th February this year, following a unanimous decision by the Town Council, Tywyn became the first town in the county of Gwynedd to declare a climate emergency.

Working alongside Green Tywyn, the town council are now developing action plans to: reduce Tywyn’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero as soon as possible; make Tywyn more resilient to climate impacts; and maximise the local benefits of these actions in sectors such as health, agriculture, transport and the economy.

Their enthusiasm was infectious, so much so that a few weeks later the whole county of Gwynedd also declared an emergency.

Hosted by the local independent cinema, this anniversary event brought together a range of practical projects to share ideas and inspiration. My role in the celebration was to use the cinema screen to tell ‘The Extraordinary Story of Human Beings, Energy and Happiness’, a presentation that begins with the birth of the sun, and ends with a Zero Carbon Britain!

Manchester Mayor’s ‘Green Summit’

From the tiny coastal town of Tywyn, I took the train north to one of the UK’s largest and oldest urban areas – the Manchester Metro region.

Back in 2018, driven by analysis from the Tyndall Centre, the Metro Mayor Andy Burnham’s initial Green Summit launched an ambitious process to make Greater Manchester one of the leading green city-regions in the UK and Europe. Now a year on, following input from Zero Carbon Britain and deep collaboration with all parts of the ‘Greater Manchester family’, from electricity grid operators to transport providers, an initial five-year action plan was launched at this year’s Green Summit.

The event was packed, filling Manchester’s Lowry Centre. The ‘5-Year Environment Plan’ sets out the long-term vision to be carbon neutral by 2038 – outlining the urgent actions Manchester needs to take.

The event was opened by the growing voice of youth calling on us to galvanise this commitment and unify our actions. There was also honest recognition that there is still a ‘gap’ between the detailed plans agreed and the actions needed to ensure that we keep to 1.5°C of warming, and so avoiding really dangerous climate impacts.

My role was to share Zero Carbon Britain amongst the many attendees.

“The voices of young people are ringing louder than ever on the issue of climate change. There is a new groundswell of pressure calling for more decisive and extreme action on climate change.

The Mayor’s Green Summit organisers recognised the need to include young people in their event, so schools from across Greater Manchester were invited to attend.

We need to respond to this together but those with the power to implement change are the ones that need to step up and act: it is the responsibility of adults to make change happen.”

Raichael Lock, Coordinator Manchester Environmental Educators Network

Kendal: National Grid to National Park

After Manchester, I headed north to Kendal in the Lake District for a run of three powerful events.

Leading the North West to Zero Carbon: The first event was an invitation to input the technical detail from our Zero Carbon Britain research into Electricity North West’s consultation event on power grid management plans, outlined in their new ‘Leading the North West to Zero Carbon’ report. This is a vision to create and manage a dynamic and interactive electricity network that can cope with the doubling of demand as society switches from fossil fuels to renewable electricity as the main way we move energy around.

Electricity North West clearly recognise that the adoption of electric vehicles, solar generation and battery storage isn’t just advantageous but essential. As well as significantly contributing to achieving low carbon targets, they are making plans that enable smart energy systems to allow people to participate in energy markets in new ways and to share the rewards of this transformation.

A few days after the event, the UK National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) announced that the UK power system will be ‘zero carbon ready’ by 2025.

Lake District Leaders’ Summit: I was then invited to join a ‘climate summit’ for local leaders, including CEOs, mayors and chairs of partnership organisations from the region, who were exploring what rising to the climate emergency means for Cumbria.

This was an incredibly moving event as

Paul speaking at Electricity North West's zero carbon event.

many senior leaders clearly spoke from their hearts, recognising that previous lowcarbon targets were no longer relevant and that a significant increase in ambition must begin immediately.

Lake District National Park Authority: The Lake District National Park Authority’s climate action plan, The Low Carbon Lake District Initiative, was launched a decade ago, but in light of revised climate science they now expect that their emissions reduction targets will need to be radically improved. Their 10th anniversary event included presentations from Lancaster University’s Dr Becky Willis and Professor Mike Berners-Lee outlining key lessons from a decade of action in the Lake District, showing that we can tackle climate change in ways that strengthen local communities and economies. My presentation demonstrated that a rapid transition to zero carbon is not only technically possible, but brings a wealth of co-benefits. This was well received, with a range of practical questions in the discussion session which followed.

Again, there was a new sense of ambition in the air. Lake District National Park CEO Richard Leafe made it very clear that the dormant period was over, even though they had been working to climate plans for a decade, previous targets would now be scrapped and replaced my much more ambitious goals.

Clean Slate 13

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Next steps

This was all in a single week, and there are many more events on the calendar, from Swansea to Glasgow and from Bath to Bonn – plus, here at CAT, we’ve added a second Zero Carbon Britain short course and Climate Emergency Solutions Summits in December.

So many organisations are making their voices heard, accepting past goals are now history and planning for zero carbon. There is a growing acceptance that, with just 12 years to make big changes, we only have a couple of years to agree the plans and organise the kit! CS

Supporting the growing zero carbon network

Joining the dots at the Climate Emergency Conference.

“We are used to hearing about tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. We are now approaching a tipping point in what we consider to be socially acceptable behaviour in terms of action on climate change. Could your council be the one that tips the balance, reaches critical mass and leads to the national declaration of climate emergency and the rapid transition to zero carbon we so desperately need?”

Hazel Graham, Chief Executive Cumbria Action for Sustainability

Climate Emergency Conference, Lancaster

The next day I moved on to Lancaster Town Hall, which was hosting a Climate and Environmental Emergency Conference.

With governments failing to take effective action on climate change, local councils from across the UK came together to share experiences of planning a response. Their ultimate aim is a national declaration of a Climate and Environmental Emergency, with its ability to unlock all the required policy changes and funds for a rapid climate emergency mobilisation, so local councils are setting the ball rolling by sharing successful climate emergency initiatives at the local level.

Workshops included: getting carbon targets into local plans, engaging local authorities in the energy debate, the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on physical and mental health, the potential

14 Clean Slate

co-benefits of concerted action, and the role of Citizen Assemblies to devise plans.

My role was to share Zero Carbon Britain as an opening keynote speech then run a workshop to explore the ways of overcoming barriers to change. I also ran a Land Use and Carbon Capture workshop with Mike Berners-Lee, exploring ways of changing land use so that carbon is captured rather than emitted.

Again, the event was packed, opening many powerful conversations, sharing ideas and information to help ensure that urgent, effective action is taken.

“The extraordinary rate at which local councils are declaring a Climate Emergency is like a wave that is breaking over the inertia that previously governed so many of those outside of the general environmental movement. It is at long last possible to believe that the tide is turning in our favour.

We may not yet be on the crest of that wave, but the momentum for urgent action is building at a speed unseen in our lifetimes.

CAT deserves enormous credit for the part it has played in this, from having created ripples of awareness all those years ago, to having initiated and produced Zero Carbon Britain in its various iterations, which is now the go-to ‘bible’ for anyone looking to discover practical and achievable ways of living in harmony with the planet.”

John Bodger, Chair, Penrith Action for Community Transition

Organisations all over the UK are turning to CAT for help with putting zero carbon plans in place in their communities. Over the next year we have plans to radically expand our Zero Carbon Britain outreach and engagement so that we are able to provide inspiration and advice to as many groups as possible.

We currently lack capacity to give all the organisations that require help the level of assistance they require. As a first step we want to commission research to get to know the range of organisations requiring help, and to understand their needs and opportunities so that we can put in place effective capacity-building support and development for these organisations.

If you would like to input to this research or would like to help fund a growing movement for change – a network of Zero Carbon Groups across the UK putting in place effective Zero Carbon Plans in their communities – please get in touch with Ingrid O’Donnell: email ingrid.odonnell@ cat.org.uk or call 01654 705988.

STOP PRESS: In the week we went to print, the Welsh, Scottish and UK parliaments all declared a climate emergency! This article was written just before the declarations.

CAT has now launched a petition calling on the UK and devolved governments to urgently create a climate emergency action plan that will see us reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 at the latest.

Please add your name at www.cat.org.uk/ climate-petition – and please share this link with your friends and family.

July 2019 4 – 5 July

Stove Installers Course

6 July

Compost Toilets

6-7 July

Building with Ecobricks and Cob

7 July

Reedbeds and Waste Water Management

8 – 11 July

HETAS Installation of Dry Appliances & System Chimneys

8 – 11 July

Build a Shed – For Absolute Beginners

12 – 14 July

Introduction to Permaculture

13 July

Introduction to Rush Weaving

15 – 20 July

The Science of Sustainable Food Production

20 – 23 July

Introduction to Rewilding

22 – 26 July

Build a Natural House

26 – 29 July

A Way of Building: Using Locally Sourced Materials

27 – 28 July

Cob Building

August 2019

SHORT COURSES

Summer to Autumn 2019 Discover our full short course programme at www.cat.org.uk – and sign up for our quarterly short courses newsletter, full of special offers and early bird discounts.

3 August

DIY Furniture: Upcycling with Pallets

5–9

Timber Frame Self Build

17 – 18

Intro to Solar P.V. & Off Grid Solar P.V.

19 – 23

Building with Straw Bales

24

Earth Oven Building

September 2019 7

Hempcrete: Retrofitting for Self-Builders

7

Create a Felt Bowl

7–8

Building with Ecobricks and Cob

14

Build a Lapsteel Guitar

20 – 22

Pond and Stream Invertebrate Life

21 – 22

The Science Behind Gardening

23 – 26

Build a Tiny House

www.cat.org.uk | 01654 704966 | courses@cat.org.uk

changing planet

Can we reach zero carbon by 2025?

As protestors demand that the UK government sets a target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in six years, Paul Allen and Catriona Toms look at what it would take to make the transition.

Transformations in diet and land-use are a key element of reaching net zero.

T

hrough researching and communicating a detailed model of a Zero Carbon Britain, CAT aims to stimulate debate around rapid decarbonisation, engage the research community and get society thinking in new ways to help build consensus around rapid action.

What is Zero Carbon Britain?

Zero Carbon Britain is CAT’s flagship research project. For over 10 years now we have been looking at ways of getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today, in response to the urgent need to find solutions to the climate crisis.

Our most recent technical scenario, Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future, was published in 2013 and is currently being updated to take account of developments in knowledge and technology.

Our intention is to open conversations that are rooted in the physical realities of what the global scientific consensus demands, whilst also acknowledging the

16 Clean Slate

UK’s historical responsibility as a longindustrialised emitter. What our model offers is an end-point, where all our emissions add up to net zero.

Can we reach zero carbon?

Our modelling to date shows that – whilst challenging – it is possible to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today.

We have produced a technical scenario that shows how it could be achieved through a combination of powering down energy demand from buildings and transport, powering up renewable energy supplies, and changing diets and ways of using land.

The solutions in 'Rethinking the Future' are complex and interlinking, but some of the key elements are: •H igh Passivhaus standards for all new builds, retrofitting all existing buildings, and improving internal temperature control could reduce heating demand by around 50%.

• Reducing how much we travel and changing how we travel could reduce

energy demand for transport by 78%.

• It is possible to meet 100% of the reduced energy demand with renewable and carbon neutral energy sources, without fossil fuels and without new nuclear.

• Many different renewable energy sources are in the mix, with wind (both on-shore and off-shore) providing around half of the energy supply.

• Most of the energy in our scenario (around 60%) is produced in the form of electricity.

• We can balance supply and demand – hourly modelling of the renewables mix in our scenario over a ten-year period shows that we would produce a surplus of energy 82% of the time. Smart appliances and energy storage solutions (batteries, pumped storage, heat storage, hydrogen, carbon neutral synthetic natural gas) could be used to cover the remaining periods.

• Diets and land-use are an essential part of the mix. Dietary changes, mainly reducing meat and dairy, combined with food waste reduction and

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improved agricultural processes could cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 75%.

• T his could also improve our health and free up land for other purposes, including a doubling of forest cover, restoring peatlands and providing more ‘wild spaces’ for biodiversity to thrive.

This represents a massive transformation in society, but we believe that – with enough political, social and cultural will – it is possible. As the IPCC 1.5oC special report shows, the alternative is simply unthinkable.

How quickly can this be done?

We have created a scenario showing that a Zero Carbon Britain is technically possible using technology available today. How quickly we get there depends on the level of political and social commitment.

There are key dates that should be considered in this conversation: 1. T he date the science demands we reach zero The UK must play our part in offering a good chance of humanity avoiding very serious climate impacts. The recent IPCC report shows that to stay within 1.5oC of warming we need to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions globally by 2050, with a 45% decrease by 2030.

Let’s be clear – at 1.5oC of warming there are serious impacts; it’s just a lot less frightening than the 2oC and above scenarios.

Every decimal of a degree makes a difference so the faster we get to zero the better.

2. T he date demanded by climate justice The UK also needs to build climate justice into its plans; we have been burning fossil fuels for 150 years, and many majority world countries still urgently need to build the basic human infrastructure.

So ideally the UK should consider reaching zero as quickly as possible.

3. T he date by which we can physically install the required infrastructure This includes the time needed to retrofit houses, re-shape transport systems, change land-use and install the renewable capacity described.

When we launched our original scenario in 2007, we estimated around 20 years to deliver, focusing on paths that minimised disruption. But now, 12 years

on, with our government still working to an outdated ‘80% by 2050’ target, and with far too little national-scale systemic planning in the intervening years, time is getting very tight.

Is there support for the kinds of radical changes that would be needed?

We believe that, with the social support shown by school strikes, the civil society actions and the climate emergency declarations from town, city and regional councils, cultural groups and now universities and parliments, it could be possible to get to zero much faster than would be possible without this groundswell of support.

What government measures would help us reach zero?

We need strong government policy and financial support to achieve the transition.

Here are a few of the measures we’d like to see: • P hase out fossil fuels fast. Follow the lead of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and stop fracking now. Stop burning coal.

• Support a nationwide programme to insulate the UK’s housing stock, allowing us to power down our energy demand.

• I nvest in renewable energy, including on-shore and off-shore wind, powering up our clean energy supply.

• Transform agricultural subsidies to support a food system that is good for the environment and for our health.

• R adically increase UK tree cover and enhance other natural climate solutions like soils and peatlands.

• I nvest in joined-up affordable public transport, and in better infrastructure for walking and cycling.

• Cut flights through a frequent flyer levy – and scrap the third runway at Heathrow.

• Pay our historic debts – the UK and other long-industrialised nations grew wealthy on the back of burning fossil fuels; climate justice demands that we take ambitious action now, and provide both financial and technical support for less developed countries to help with mitigation and adaptation measures.

Government action is key to cracking climate change – what can the rest of us do?

• Campaign for change – use your voice to encourage politicians and businesses to take urgent action.

• Change how we travel – fly less, drive less, cycle more, take the train.

• Switch to a green electricity provider to support investment in renewable energy.

• W herever possible, insulate our homes to reduce wasted energy.

• Eat less meat and dairy – our dietary choices can have a big impact.

• Buy less stuff.

• Check out each political party’s climate change policies before deciding how to vote – and challenge local candidates.

• Join a community energy scheme – or start one up.

• Talk about climate change with friends, family and colleagues.

So can we do it by 2025?

The short answer is that early action is vital, and we won’t know until we try.

Want to find out more about our research?

We hope our research will support those actively working to catalyse urgent action across all sectors of society – if we can’t picture ourselves in the solution, we will surely stay stuck in the problem.

Visit our website for more information: www.cat.org.uk/zcb or join our next Zero Carbon Britain short course, 4-5 December: www.cat. org.uk/courses CS

About the authors

Paul Allen is project coordinator for Zero Carbon Britain. He has been a member of the Wales Science Advisory Council (2010), board member of the International Forum for Sustainable Energy (2008) and a Climate Change Commissioner for Wales (2007). He holds an Honours degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and has been at CAT since 1988.

Catriona Toms is Editor of Clean Slate and manages CAT’s communications team. She has a Masters degree in Food Policy.

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped fund the Zero Carbon Britain project over the past 12 years – we could not continue this essential research without your support.

Clean Slate 17

changing planet

No planet B A wide-ranging new work by Mike Berners-Lee looks at some of the urgent questions facing humanity. There is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years covers everything from tackling climate change to the future of work. In this edited extract, he explores how we can keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Will we have renewables as well as or instead of fossil fuels?

Does more renewables mean less fossil fuel?

Not necessarily. The big question is whether we will have the renewables as well as or instead of the coal, oil and gas.

The past 150 years of energy history tells us that the arrival of new sources have dented but not stopped the growth of other energy sources. Oil softened the rise of coal somewhat, but it continued to grow. Later, the arrival of gas only softened the growth in oil. When a new source comes along we have traditionally used more energy in total, but we have also felt relatively energy-rich for a while and the hunger for other sources has somewhat slackened.

A huge surge in solar and other renewables could give us a period in which it is relatively easy to let go of fossil fuels, but it won’t be enough to make it happen automatically. Policymakers need to get their heads around this. Please don’t vote for any who haven’t.

18 Clean Slate

What is the catch with energy efficiency?

It goes hand in hand with an even greater increase in demand for whatever the energy is used for.

In 1865 William Stanley Jevons spotted that if the UK used coal more efficiently it would end up wanting more of it, not less.

This phenomenon has become known as the Jevons Paradox.

Energy efficiency leads, by default, to an increase in total demand, rather than the decrease that is often assumed. It applies just as widely today as it did in 1865 and it has game changing implications for energy and climate policy. It may be counterintuitive at first but makes perfect sense on reflection.

Look at it this way. Imagine if it took a tonne of coal to keep a family warm for one night and that family saves up to enjoy one warm winter evening - a New Year celebration perhaps. Now imagine that a more efficient burner is invented, and the

same tonne of coal can keep them warm for two nights. Coal has just become twice as valuable to them, so they make extra effort to buy enough to keep themselves warm for three nights in the year. They might spend one of those nights fitting new insulation so that the coal becomes even more useful to them and the other night working by the fire to earn the extra money they need for their increased coal budget. However, the price of coal per tonne comes down a bit to help them because demand is going up so much and economies of scale are kicking in, along with a stack of investment in new extraction technologies. And so it goes on.

This is just a caricature of how the Jevons Paradox works, but I hope it demonstrates the principle.

Over the years we have become many times more efficient in our production of just about everything. LED lighting is hundreds of times more energy efficient than oil and gas lamps. Microchips are millions of times more efficient at storing data than paper,

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LED lights are more efficient – so we use more of them.

and the cloud more efficient still. Electric trains are many times more efficient than steam trains, let alone horses. Yet our energy usage has risen hand in hand with those efficiencies and is actually enabled by them.

In fact, we can see that we don’t use more energy despite the efficiency gains, but rather we are able to use more energy because of the efficiency gains. Wow! Feel free to pause at this point and reflect on the gigantic policy implications of this perspective. It means that whilst efficiency gains help us get more benefit from any given amount of energy, they also end up leading to an increase in total consumption unless that is deliberately constrained.

Just before you go ripping out all your double glazing and deflating your tyres, note that I am not saying that efficiency gains cannot be useful in the future. But I am saying they are no good at all on their own.

Given the catch, what can efficiency do for us?

We badly need more efficiency, but we also need to learn not to squander it with increased consumption.

We have to make efficiency work for us in a different way than we are used to.

From now on when we get an efficiency improvement we have to deliberately bank the savings rather than allowing the default outcome in which our consumption appetite increases and the savings are lost through a myriad of rebound effects. This is a critically different approach to adopt at the

point of consumption.

The way to make it work is to have a constraint on total use of resources, and in particular fossil fuels. When fossil fuel use is forced downwards, rebound effects will cease. The dynamic will change.

Efficiency will suddenly become a force for wellbeing that will, for the first time, come without hidden, detrimental environmental consequences.

Under these conditions, efficiency will be one of the key routes to having the things we need and want.

Where does the money come from? As luck would have it a whole lot of investment opportunity is created by the divestment from fossil fuels. The switch from yesterday’s energy system to tomorrow’s is loaded with business opportunities, and it will be net positive for jobs as well.

To constrain the supply, it is no good hoping that renewables will be so good that we lose interest in the coal and can’t be bothered to dig it up. And it is no good hoping that with just some parts of the world doing the right thing we will get somewhere. We need an enforceable global deal to leave the fuel in the ground. It doesn’t matter how hard you think this is to achieve, because nothing else will do. The 2015 Paris Agreement was progress towards that, although leaving a long way yet to go.

Subsequent climate talks in Marrakech and Bonn have barely inched us any closer.

For such a deal to be possible, there are some conditions that will need to be in place. A limited amount of fossil fuel remaining in the total carbon budget will somehow need to be shared out and the very different ways in which countries will be affected by such a deal need to be taken into account, because unless it works for everyone, it won’t happen.

The early stages of climatic change also look very different in different parts of the world. While the Maldives sinks, Bangladesh floods, and California burns,

How can we keep the fuel in the ground?

Since green energy on its own won’t help much and efficiency on its own won’t help at all, there is no escaping the need for a constraint on extraction.

The fossil fuel we use will be the gap between the clean energy supply and the total energy use. Straight away that gives us two clear levers; push the green supply up and hold the demand down. A third lever is to constrain the fossil fuel supply. This hard cap will end the rebound effect on carbon emissions.

To push the clean energy supply up, we need to invest in it hard. This includes the global rolling out of the renewable (especially solar) supply and the infrastructure to go with it, as well as the research and development into the rack of accompanying technologies that will be required to make solar work for us: storage, electric transport and so on. All this is doable.

We need to invest in solar – but that’s just part of the picture.

Clean Slate 19

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Who has the most fossil fuel and how will they cope?

The chart shows the 12 countries with the biggest fossil fuel reserves. Between them they hold over 80% of the world’s proven reserves. My chart compares their share of the world’s fossil fuels with their share of the sun. With caution, we can use it as one indicator of what the clean energy transition might mean for each of them as players on the world energy stage. It should give us some simple insight into the hopes and fears that the thought of such a transition might evoke.

The top five, the USA, China, Russia, Australia and India all have plenty of sun as well as fossil fuel, so the transition might

be as much of an opportunity as a threat.

Australia in particular will be basking in solar energy in exchange for its grotty coal reserves. Things also look good for Canada and Saudi Arabia.

On the other hand, Venezuela is being asked to swap a globally important position in the oil rankings for a relatively impoverished place in the sunlight rankings. It is fairly similar for Iraq and even Germany, which for a while lead the solar revolution. This chart makes the low carbon world look extremely threatening to Qatar, which has plenty of oil but is too small to have much sunlight.

Proportion of all fossil fuel reserves

Proportion of all sunlight reaching land

Germany

Germany

Coal Oil Gas

Iraq Qatar

Iraq Qatar

Canada

Canada

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

Venezuela

Venezuela

India

India

Australia

Australia

Russia

Russia

China

China

USA

USA 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

About the author 0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

The countries with the biggest fossil fuel reserves, and their proportion of the world's sunlight.

Russia is likely to find its crop yields going up at first, its ports becoming ice free for twelve months of the year instead of eight, and yet more of its fossil energy reserves becoming accessible. In poorer countries a carbon constraint will certainly impact on wellbeing unless a clean energy replacement can be found, whilst in richer places the link between energy and happiness has probably already long been broken in the same way that the link between wellbeing and GDP has been shown to break down.

A global deal is going to be very hard to cut because it requires both understanding of the different implications for each country and a sense of international fair play that the world has never yet known.

The difficulties do not change the reality

20 Clean Slate

the switch, the availability of other nonsolar energy sources, the ‘usability’ of their sunlight and so on. Sunlight on the equator is relatively compact and also comes in all year round, whilst in Russia and Canada it is more thinly dispersed and centred on the summer months.

However, my charts do serve to highlight yet again that moving to a low carbon world means a completely different thing to different countries: some should be rubbing their hands together in glee whilst others are understandably scared.

How could a global arrangement be made without taking all of these different circumstances into account? Are we asking Qatar to be catapulted into poverty? If not, then a deal surely needs to see the world through its eyes along with those of every other country.

The urgency of responding to climate change looks very different if you are a drowning island state than if you are a huge nation that stands to find its ports unfreezing in winter, its frozen wastelands becoming fertile and its abundant fossil fuel reserves more accessible.

This seemingly impossible yet essential global deal opens up the enormous question of sharing, which children learn to do as they grow up and now humankind must do likewise as it grows up. CS

that we must have the global deal to leave the world’s fuel in the ground.

The winners will have to compensate the losers. For this to be possible there will have to be a good enough understanding of the implications of a low carbon world for all parties and there will need to be a strong enough sense of fair play and goodwill that such a deal can become possible. How this might be achieved is one of the questions explored elsewhere in There is No Planet B.

What does this mean for a global deal?

My comparison of fossil fuel reserves with total sunlight (see box above) is by no means a perfect measure of the winners and losers. There are many other factors to take into account: the resources to make

Mike Berners-Lee thinks, writes, researches and consults on sustainability and responses to the challenges of the 21st century. Amongst his other works are ‘ The Burning Question’ (with Duncan Clark) and ‘How Bad are Bananas?’ He is founder of Small World Consulting and a professor in the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University. ‘ There is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years’, published this year by Cambridge University Press, is available from the CAT Ecostore and all good bookshops. www.cat.org. uk

D-VISIONS/Shutterstock.com

building

Natural urbanism C

In the second in our series on sustainable cities, Paul Chatterton looks at how designers are connecting to and learning from the natural world, helping transform the relationship between urban dwellers and their environments.

ities and nature have become strangely separated. One is associated with work, commerce, industry, consumerism and a host of negative ecological effects such as pollution, noise and dirt. The other is associated with tranquillity, leisure, escape and beauty. But this unhelpful binary must be challenged if we are to create truly sustainable urban areas: cities and nature need to reconnect through a new human-nature urban deal.

Two ideas are central to this fundamental rethink of city life: biophilia and biomimicry.

Biophilia literally refers to the innate emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms and the strong emotional and psychological benefits that are derived through connection to nature.

This idea has been brought into the realm of urban design to replicate the experiences of nature into the design process in ways that reinforce that connection.

Examples are multiplying in terms of incorporating nature-based design as a method to create healthier spaces in ways that improve wellbeing outcomes, reduce stress and improve working conditions.

This can range from individual household interior design to schools, workplaces, hospitals and hotels incorporating abundant daylight, natural ventilation, plants and greenery. It can also inform urban design more broadly through biophilic neighbourhoods or indeed biophilic cities.

At this scale, significant shifts would be required as planning and the management of space is reoriented around a connection with natural and biological systems that we depend upon.

Reflecting and enhancing natural forms

The vertical green walls of Milan's il Bosco Verticale are home to 1,000 different plant species.

Leading advocates and architectural practitioners of biophilic design, Terrapin Bright Green, have outlined its essential patterns, which include connections to nature especially in terms of presence of views, air, water and light, the use of natural materials in ways that reflect and enhance natural forms and senses, and create spaces that evoke certain senses including withdrawal, mystery, excitement and also risk.

Biophilic urban design is an agenda for creating regenerative or restoration urbanism, which proceeds through learning from, connecting to and working with natural systems and creating cyclical and slower relationships between the social and

Clean Slate 21

building

natural worlds. Just as in natural systems, this approach to urban design proceeds from a multitude of small examples that accrue slowly over time and connect together.

Applied at a city scale, the biophilic city would foreground an organic, evolutionary and grassroots approach to design through observation, trial and error. Urban development would proceed through iterative cycles where citizens are organically involved in that development process. As a more intimately natural system, the biophilic city would draw on decentralised and hence resilient characteristics of natural systems, in contrast to the centralising and concentrating tendencies of the capitalist industrial city. This is nothing short of a paradigm shift in terms of the relation between urban dwellers and their environments in ways that connect them to light, air, food, nature and community.

Biophilic cities would have abundant access to enjoy, benefit and learn from biodiverse, multi-sensory natural environments.

These ideas are building an urban movement. The Biophilic Cities project involves 13 partner cities across the globe attempting to foreground nature within the city. Projects include promoting dark skies, coexisting with animals, creating nature soundscapes and maximising natural light.

As founder of the Biophilic Cities Project, Tim Beatley, states they are nature-ful.

Birmingham is the UK’s first city to join the project and claim itself a biophilic city, mainly focusing on its efforts to develop an inter-connected network of green and blue spaces.

Learning from our environment

Reconnecting with nature is only one side of this radical new natural urbanism. The second idea is biomimicry. This literally refers to emulating or mimicking the complex engineering and design principles found in the natural world. It is gaining traction within innovation circles, referring to a bio-inspired design method where insights into how nature solves problems can be used to achieve better product performance.

The real prospects come from combinations that include innovations in performance that also tackle significant social challenges such as climate breakdown or air pollution. Biomimetic design focuses on the innovations that can

22 Clean Slate

occur when natural features are used to improve, integrate and solve challenges.

It patiently studies nature to understand what design solutions have emerged. After all, nature is a great teacher. But it teaches us not to aim just to maximise outputs or create one-size-fits-all solutions. It seeks the optimal solution for each given environment and moment. It starts from the user’s perspective, and how they would design environments to maximise their wellbeing.

Examples of biomimetic design abound: the Japanese Bullet train with a nose inspired by the kingfisher’s beak that reduces noise and power consumption while increasing speed; Velcro fasteners inspired by hooks on seed burrs; or the swarming patterns of animals, especially bees and wasps, that are assisting with new models of air traffic control and delivery logistics.

Biomimetic design in an urban context is in its infancy. But it has a huge amount to offer in terms of the design, planning and management of urban neighbourhoods and indeed whole city areas that can begin to mimic natural patterns and processes in form and function.

There is a growing movement of researchers and innovators supporting the idea. Under the auspices of the CEEBIOS Network, the European Centre for Biomimicry Innovation recently opened in the French town of Senlis. Located in a former military camp, its aim is to support biomimicry research and teaching with the explicit goal of advancing progress towards a post-carbon society. Similarly, Biomimicry UK and its Innovation Lab is spreading the word on how to learn from nature, through workshops, seminars and collaborative research.

The pioneering green architect Alison Bernett stresses that it’s easy to mix up biomimicry and biophilia, but they are concepts with different aims. The exciting aspect for the urban agenda is to explore the applicability of both together – an approach that innovates, solves challenges and improves performance by emulating natural systems, as well as engendering a deep reconnection and love for nature and other species. And it is this last part that is so crucial. Without this deep reconnection, most people will simply not see the rationale for protecting and regenerating nature.

The biomimetic, biophilic city

These are not just fanciful ideas - practical examples are emerging. We are beginning

to see a proliferation of hybrid natural and built forms through, for example, living walls, rooftop farms, vertical or sky gardens and breathing buildings. These can have significant beneficial effects. For instance, urban street canyons refer to the effect created by high buildings lining a street, which can become hotspots for harmful pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. A study by Thomas Pugh and colleagues from the Lancaster Environment Centre suggests that strategic placement of vegetation in street canyons can cut air pollution by up to 30 per cent.

They can also stop urban overheating and provide effective insulation and shading for buildings, as well as reducing noise pollution. And of course, there are the psychological and aesthetic benefits of being proximate to an abundance of natural greenery.

Green corridors and linear parks can be retrofitted into the existing city. For example, the High Line project in New York transformed an old rail line into nearly two miles of urban park. It opened in 2014 and became a short cut for walkers and one of the city’s favourite parks featuring art installations and places for hanging out.

Other cities are following, including Chicago’s 606 Park and Toronto’s Bentway, which has slotted 55 outdoor rooms under its Gardiner Expressway, including farmers markets, performance spaces and a children’s garden. Miami is also building the Underline, a nine-mile linear park underneath its metrorail line. In my own city of Leeds, a community group is attempting to do the same thing on one of Leeds’ abandoned Victorian train viaducts.

The Madrid Rio project was one of the most exciting urban reclamation projects in Europe – burying a former ring road to create over 600 hectares of parkland.

Efforts are being made not just to create greenspaces, but to create interconnected green corridors. For example, the All London Green Grid is the green infrastructure strategy for London, which sets out a vision to create an interconnected network of green and blue spaces across the entire city. It is this interconnection that is so important in terms of creating space for biodiversity to move more extensively.

Vertical forests

It is not just streets that are turning green but whole buildings. Reputedly the world’s largest vertical garden is in Bogotá,

building

The Santalia building in Bogota acts as a giant air purifier and carbon sink.

Colombia, on a building called the Santalaia, a nine-storey residential building featuring 85,000 plants and using recycled water to irrigate them through 42 water stations.

Santalaia is a giant air purifier and carbon sink absorbing the annual carbon dioxide emissions from over 700 cars.

In Milan, the il Bosco Verticale is one of the most comprehensive vertical green walls in the world. It is a living example of city design that engenders a reconnection to nature whilst solving challenges and improving performance by emulating natural systems. Opened in 2014, it comprises two towers that are home to 1,000 different species of plants, made up of 480 large and medium trees, 300 small trees, 11,000 perennial and covering plants and 5,000 shrubs. An estimated 1,600 species of birds and butterflies interact with the vertical forest. The vegetation was specially selected according to the optimum conditions required for each plant and was the result of three years of botanic study.

This coverage helps mitigate smog and air pollutants, produces oxygen, moderates building temperatures, slows excessive winds, and attenuates noise, and given the two towers contains over 100 apartments, reduces urban sprawl.

The wonderful aspect about these innovations is that they are simple and

based on ancient principles of vertical growing which have been evident in human culture for centuries, epitomised for example by the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Work is also underway on vertical forests in eastern China on two towers that will be covered in 1,100 trees and 2,500 cascading plants and shrubs. The project in Nanjing city will include offices, school, shops and exhibition space. It is hoped that the towers, designed by Italian architect Stefano Boeri also responsible for Milan’s il Bosco Verticale, will absorb 25 tonnes of CO2 every year and produce 60 kilograms of oxygen each day. Those behind this project hope to build thousands more around the world to help offset deadly urban air pollution, especially in China.

International standards

Internationally recognised standards are now emerging to promote this green building movement. The International Living Building Institute’s Living Building Challenge is a green building certification programme and sustainable design framework for bio-inspired buildings.

It requires a project to meet 20 specific imperatives within seven performance areas including site and sustainable mobility options, water use and recycling, renewable

energy, health, materials, equity (especially in terms of quality and size of workspaces), and beauty. The Institute has also established the Biophilic Design Initiative to promote the practice of connecting people and nature within our built environments and communities.

Innovators across the world from all sectors are beginning to unlock the potential of nature in the city, with biophilia and biomimicry being just two aspects of the wider bio city agenda. The question remains whether action can be fast enough to respond to the urgent threats of climate breakdown, water stresses, pollution and biodiversity loss. CS

About the author

Paul Chatterton is an academic, campaigner and writer. He is Professor of Urban Futures in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, and a visiting lecturer in CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment. He is co-author of Do It Yourself (2007) and author of Low Impact Living (2016).

This is an edited extract from Paul’s latest book Unlocking Sustainable Cities: A Manifesto for Real Change, published by Pluto Press 2019. You can buy the book through CAT’s Eco Store at www.cat.org.uk or by calling us on 01654 705959.

Clean Slate 23

energy

Beyond efficiency:

exploring how we think about energy How much energy do we really need? Tina Fawcett explores how the concept of energy sufficiency could help us to live within our means.

I

n 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It presented vivid warnings of the dangers of increasing climate change, and called for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to reduce these risks.

The report reinforced the vital importance of transformations to use of energy. These transformations will be about more than just technology; they must include changes to the way our societies organise, use and think about energy and its benefits.

This article argues that the idea of ‘sufficiency’ could be important in guiding our thinking about the future of energy use.

This is against a background of increasing

24 Clean Slate

civil society concern and activism on climate change, and views within the energy research community that traditional routes to change – particularly energy efficiency – will not be enough.

Slow progress

In recent months, three civil society movements demanding substantial action in response to the threat of climate change have emerged.

The most high-profile is the global ‘school strike for climate’ movement, inspired by Greta Thunberg who began her weekly strike outside the Swedish parliament in autumn 2018. On 15th February 2019, British school pupils and their supporters joined this growing world-wide movement, with the first UK-wide climate strike. In other European countries, school strikes

are a weekly event, attracting thousands, or even tens of thousands.

Secondly, the international Extinction Rebellion movement has taken direct action to highlight climate change and species and habitat loss, and calls for radical economic, social and political change.

Thirdly, local councils are being urged to declare a ‘climate emergency’ and, as of 27 March 2019, councils representing more than 36 million citizens in Australia, America, Canada, the UK and Switzerland have done so. This includes councils covering 20 million UK citizens. These movements are all demanding immediate, significant and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

However, change is not happening at anything like the rate required. Global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising.

energy Figure 1: Visualising energy sufficiency

In November, the United Nations Environment Programme released its ‘Emissions Gap Report 2018’, which concluded that nations need to ‘triple efforts to reach the 2°C target’ (which is less demanding than the 1.5°C target in the IPCC report). Nationally, the UK’s Committee on Climate Change has announced that the country is not on track to meet the interim steps to its reduction target of 80% by 2050. This target itself is not ambitious enough to contribute fairly to staying within 1.5°C. Other organisations and movements have proposed much more ambitious targets, including CAT in its Zero Carbon Britain work, which has shown how net zero greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved using technology available today.

What is energy sufficiency?

Accepting that we need further and faster changes to the energy system, there has been renewed interest in the idea of sufficiency. My colleague, Sarah Darby, has led our work on the concept of energy sufficiency. This fits within a wider programme of research and engagement, guided by the NGO European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ECEEE), which is available at www.energysufficiency.org.

The programme aims to bring together current knowledge on sufficiency, develop new thinking and analysis, and suggest how

sufficiency policy could be developed in Europe.

What do we mean by sufficiency, and how does this concept relate to energy? The dictionary definition is a good place to begin: Sufficiency is an amount of something that is enough for a particular purpose. From this, we developed a working definition of energy sufficiency: Energy sufficiency is a state in which people’s basic needs for energy services are met equitably and ecological limits are respected.

The term energy sufficiency is also used to refer to an organising principle for achieving that state. This definition is deliberately high level and conceptual, and inspired by the literature on sufficiency and the good life. Many of the words and phrases in our definition could be questioned. What are ‘basic needs’? Why ‘energy services’ rather than energy?

What do we mean by ‘equitably’, and what ‘ecological limits’ do we have in mind?

Understanding boundaries

Before exploring this definition in more detail, we present a visualisation of energy sufficiency – see Figure 1. This diagram is adapted from the sustainable development ‘doughnut’, developed by Kate Raworth, originally for Oxfam, and further in her book, Doughnut Economics.

Here, energy sufficiency is depicted as

a safe space for humanity between a lower boundary where too little energy is used to meet people’s needs, and an upper limit where too much energy use causes severe environmental damage.

Within this doughnut – or lifebelt – everyone has access to the energy services to support their fundamental needs. The inner ring is the minimum energy required to meet needs for shelter, health, work, mobility and communication. The outer ring is the maximum amount of energy that can be used without breaching important environmental limits or planetary boundaries. The external environmental limits relate to the impacts from: sources of energy for human use and the associated greenhouse gases and pollutants; materials used for everything from power stations to wires, heating systems and electrical appliances; land and water used to provide energy services.

This visual representation incorporates the two principal characteristics of sufficiency: the idea of absolute limits (sufficiency as a restraint) and of minimum requirements (sufficiency as satisfaction, or ‘enough’).

Our definition of sufficiency has focused on ‘energy services’, that is, the benefits provided by energy, such as cooking, lighting, cooling, IT-based communication, automotive transport and industrial processes. Energy is defined as the ability to do work, and human beings value energy primarily for what it can do – for energy services, rather than for so many units of electricity or gas. A focus on services could offer the best prospect of achieving sufficiency in terms having enough and not using too much.

For example, in commercial buildings, the rise of air conditioning in warmer European countries (and globally) could hugely increase energy use. An energy services focus could mean meeting comfort needs in different ways: accepting more flexible ideas of comfort, buildings designed not to overheat, non-mechanical cooling methods, and different social and working arrangements. This contrasts with simply more efficient air conditioning, which can only slow the growth of energy for cooling, but not stabilise or reduce it.

Needs and wants

‘People’s basic needs’ are a key feature of

Clean Slate 25

energy

the sufficiency definition – and the inner ring of the doughnut. This suggests that needs are a distinct category from wants.

There are long-standing debates as to whether this distinction exists, and if so, how it can be defined. Some of these debates emerge from philosophical/ political/social science traditions, with others arising from the requirements of public policy (e.g. what should social security payments cover?). Economists, in particular, tend to resist a distinction.

A theory of need developed originally

by Len Doyal and Ian Gough, and updated

by Ian Gough in his more recent book Heat, Greed and Human Need, has guided our thinking on this complex issue. They argue that there are fundamental material and non-material needs that must be met for all human beings so that they can lead a worthwhile life (in their own terms), but that the means of meeting these needs will vary between places and over time.

Indeed, despite arguments against the existence of objective human needs, everyday language suggests that people instinctively feel that they do exist and can be identified. Empirical research on a ‘Minimum Income Standard’, has investigated needs within contemporary British society, by asking people to make a collective judgement about what to include.

The minimum is defined as follows: A minimum standard of living in the UK today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.

This Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is calculated by specifying ‘baskets’ of goods and services required by different types of household. The definition of needs has been generally stable across the ten years for which this periodic research has been running. The MIS is important in showing that it is possible, through careful participatory research, to reach social consensus on what minimum needs are in a given time and place. Such discussions could themselves be seen as part of a process of creating and maintaining a sufficiency-based society.

Limits to consumption

For energy policy, adopting sufficiency as a guiding principle would entail significant

26 Clean Slate

change. Policy on, for example, residential energy demand does not use the language of needs and wants, it focuses largely on energy efficiency and adoption of lower carbon or renewable energy sources.

“

A minimum standard of living in the UK today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.

Increasing energy efficiency has been very effective – between 2004 and 2017 gas consumption in UK homes has fallen by 25% and electricity by 15%, despite growing population and household numbers, as well as warmer homes (more energy service).

But this approach cannot meet even our current target of 80% carbon reduction by 2050, particularly in more difficult sectors like transport. Moving to a sufficiency basis for policy means considering limits to consumption – which are much harder to agree than limits to (in)efficiency, which involve judgements about technologies and cost, rather than how much is enough.

Making a distinction between needs and wants entails moving from abstract concepts to particular descriptions and numbers, and applying these to individuals and organisations. Translating Figure 1’s ‘shelter’ and ‘mobility’ needs, to space per person and energy service standards in housing is likely to be challenging.

The boundary between needs and wants could be set in terms of a current socially acceptable minimum (the Minimum Income Standard approach). Another starting point would be to distinguish

‘luxury’ or particularly high personal consumption. For example – should all air travel be considered a luxury, or flights above a certain number a year, or just first-class air travel? The question of how services are distributed between people and organisations within the ‘sufficiency space’ of the doughnut – what equity is taken to mean – is even more difficult.

Such a basis for policy would be very different from the perceived neutrality of efficiency policy.

This work on sufficiency is still in its early stages. However, we believe it usefully opens up the conversation about ensuring enough energy services for all, and what those might be, while responding to the calls from scientific, civil society and political leaders for rapid change to protect the natural environment on which we all depend. It calls for judgements on specific issues of ‘enoughness’ and challenges the idea of ‘sustainable growth’ and mainstream economic thinking. It means facing up to the need for substantially different ways of life, which will still have to emerge from existing materials, institutions, ideas and processes. We see it as an important concept to feed into policy at a time when so much is at stake for climate, biosphere and human welfare. CS

Further reading

• G ough, I., (2017) Heat, greed and human need. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK. • Padley, M. and D. Hirsch (2017) A minimum income standard for the UK in 2017. York, Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

• R aworth, K. (2017) Doughnut economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st-Century economist. London, Random House Business Books.

About the author

Dr Tina Fawcett is a senior researcher at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions.

Her research focuses on energy demand and demand-side policy for households and organisations.

The research this article draws on was funded by ECEEE, the KR Foundation and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council via the UK Energy Research Centre, grant EP/L024756/1.

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society & culture

Changing systems, not lightbulbs Adam Howard introduces a new practical guide to discoveries in learning and leadership, encouraging us to pick up the pace of change in our institutions and communities.

Solar SOAS

established models and habits of thinking, such that we can truly listen. What patterns do we see? What could the future be calling for?

A series of lively workshops formed around these questions on the second day of the event. What emerged was a range of principles, practical actions and ‘generative questions’ for building pathways to zero carbon. As the event team, we felt moved to write this up. Whilst the resource we have created has a university environment in mind, the approaches and tools we present can be used to build engagement in many organisational and community settings.

Changing Systems, Not Just Lightbulbs: Building Pathways to Zero Carbon in Higher Education – a Guide to What Works is available online and in printed form.

Here are five of the guide’s key messages.

Solar SOAS is the country’s first student-led community energy project - image shows three of the team with DIY solar chargers.

C

hanging Systems, Not Just Lightbulbs was a two-day event hosted by the Carbon Neutral University Network in Sheffield in May 2017. People came from universities across the UK to explore questions of leadership in the transition we must make to zero carbon.

“You need to have a goal or vision and be committed to making it happen. You can’t take no for an answer, and you’ve got to just keep trying!” These are the words of Hannah Short who, as a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, played a key role in creating Solar SOAS – the country’s first student-led community energy project.

Skills for changing systems

Can we find ways of overcoming the resistance to change that is inherent in most of our institutions? Where is leadership going to come from, and what skills do leaders need? To change a lightbulb, we use existing skills. To change a system, a new set of skills are needed, skills that are less well understood in the field of leadership.

These are skills that all of us, whatever our position, can develop further.

On the first day of the event we heard from

28 Clean Slate

David Somervell about the University of Edinburgh’s journey to gaining a high level of staff and student engagement in a ‘Zero by 2040’ target. Paul Allen and Lisa Hopkinson presented CAT’s work on Zero Carbon Britain, illustrating both the scale of the challenge we face and the ways that barriers to achieving zero carbon can be overcome.

Further stories emerged over the weekend of low-carbon initiatives locally, nationally and internationally. Themes included lowcost low-carbon housing, water supply in arid environments, low-carbon food supply systems, fossil fuel divestment campaigns and citizens working to put climate change on Sheffield City Region’s strategic agenda.

As the final keynote speaker, I presented Theory U: leading from the future as it emerges. An intriguing ‘theory of change’, Theory U is based on research that has identified a different dimension in many successful change initiatives. During the event, we followed Theory U’s model of firstly building a deeper understanding of our situation, and the challenges we are presented with. We then paused, and asked ourselves, “What are we learning here?”

This is the reflective space at ‘the bottom of the U’, where the work is to suspend our

Systems intelligence and diversity Systems change is needed. If we are agreed on that then we need to understand systems. This is our first proposition. We need to educate ourselves about systems, and we need to integrate systems thinking skills into curricula, from primary school to university. For example, double-loop learning, properties of complex systems, leverage points. None of this is rocket science; “human beings are natural systems thinkers, but… this talent must be understood and cultivated”, according to Peter Senge, in The Necessary Revolution.

To understand systems, and to change them, we need to be willing and able to listen to different perspectives and embrace a diversity of voices. Many people need to be actively engaged. This brings us to our second proposition. Leaders at every level need to learn the skills and approaches that can build this kind of engagement. This is a relatively new skills-set and brings into play something very different from the token ‘consultations’ common in many of our institutions. The latter leads to cynicism and distrust; the former to interest and active participation. Where we are not in a position of formal leadership, the question of listening to others is just as important. A chapter of the guide is devoted to building

society & culture

constructive relations with senior leaders.

Thirdly – there is no getting around it – we need to take a serious look at communications. Emissions graphs just don’t cut it with a non-science-oriented audience. Leading with scare stories all too often turns people away. The messenger is often just as important – if not more so – than the message. There is much, much more to say here. For engagement and active participation to build, in any movement, this is a vital field of work.

Rapid social prototyping Fourthly, we need to create a culture of rapid experimentation and prototyping in our institutions, and in our communities.

For example, the University of Edinburgh has set up a Sustainable Campus Fund of £2.75 million that will support good projects brought forward by anyone within the university. From proposal to answer, the turnaround is quick. This is ‘the right-handside of the U’, in Theory U terms, where once ideas emerge, we move quickly – and find out more about what can work through trial and error. Complex systems are inherently unpredictable, and there is no substitute for small-scale experimentation that can avoid costly mistakes and inform us of where more substantial investment of time, effort and money is needed.

Leadership and vision Our fifth point is about ‘leadership in time’. Research has shown that leaders of organisations that have a track-record of success consistently build for the future with a long time-frame in mind. By this we mean not five or ten years – we mean multiple decades, way beyond an

Left to right: Christian Unger, co-chair of the Carbon Neutral University Network (CNU) and Environmental Engineer; Hannah Short, co-founder of Solar SOAS and Governance Co-ordinator at SOAS Students’ Union; David Somervell, Sustainability Adviser to the University of Edinburgh (to 2016); George Coiley, PhD student in Environmental Politics and member of Sheffield Climate Alliance; Rachael Treharne, co-chair of CNU (to 2017) and PhD researcher in Arctic Ecology; Adam Howard, CNU member and Project Leader.

individual’s own tenure as a leader. Climate change, and the full range of sustainability challenges we are presented with, calls for just such visionary and flexible leadership in our social and business institutions.

Returning to the question that we opened with – where is such leadership going to come from? Our answer – you may have guessed by now – is from all of us. Whatever our position, wherever we live, work, meet people, play some part in society, we can help this kind of understanding to build. We can contribute, in however small a way, to building a culture where all are invited to participate; and where we listen, rather than just imposing our view. For those of us in formal leadership positions, this imperative is all the more vital. A chapter of the guide is devoted to approaches to building engagement and embracing diversity.

Paul Allen told us of how he once walked into an HMV store and asked, “Do you have any films that show how we made it through our current difficulties and built a sustainable, happy future?” Standing amidst hundreds of the latest DVDs, the assistant looked at him blankly. Perhaps above all, then, we need to build a new vision together.

What George Monbiot has described as a new ‘restoration story’. Hannah’s and David’s stories, from SOAS and the University of Edinburgh, form the two case studies with which Changing Systems, Not Just Lightbulbs concludes. On the back cover we quote Raymond Williams: “To

be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.” CS

About the author

Adam Howard is a community organiser based in Sheffield who holds an MSc in Human Ecology from the University of Strathclyde, and a Diploma in Renewable Energy and the Built Environment from CAT. He was the project leader for Changing Systems, Not Just Lightbulbs.

The Changing Systems, Not Just Lightbulbs guide is available online at http:// bit.ly/zcuguide; for printed copies, contact carbonneutraluniversity@gmail.com

Clean Slate 29

society & culture

Make do and mend With so many products pre-programmed to fail and difficult to fix, it’s little wonder that so many items end up on the scrapheap, but a growing global movement aims to turn things around.

The Rapid Transition Alliance

Repair cafés are becoming more popular across Europe and North America as people seek to extend the life of their goods.

T

he relationship with ‘stuff’ in highconsuming, wealthy economies is set to change. From the European Union to the United States new laws are being developed to support the ‘right to repair’ to radically reduce waste, make things last longer and make them easier to repair. The giant economy of California is now the 18th state to make such a proposal.

The expectations we have about the lifetime of the things we buy have changed.

Everyday items like washing machines, televisions and toasters have become transient visitors to our homes, which, once they break, are often cheaper to replace than repair. In our high consumption, disposable culture, the resource-draining turnover of consumer goods has become normalised, taken for granted and, as a result, almost invisible.

Most people will be familiar with the nagging frustration when, just a year or two after spending several hundreds of pounds on a mobile phone, it slows right down and the battery drains to zero in minutes. It turns out that the new operating system is too much for this ‘old’ model. The phone, it seems, has been pre-programmed to fail. This is what is often referred to as

30 Clean Slate

planned obsolescence, where products are designed not to endure but rather to be replaced on a frequent basis to feed economic demand. Most of us feel that there is something not quite right with this all too familiar scenario, and a global movement has been growing out of a desire to change it.

In 2009 a Dutch journalist called Martine Postma ran an experiment in her home town of Amsterdam. She brought together a group of handy friends and ran what she called a ‘Repair Café’ – a free event where people could bring their broken belongings and volunteers would help to try and fix them. Following the huge popularity of the events in Amsterdam, Martine set up the Repair Café Foundation and published guidance to help other volunteers do the same in other places.

A decade later, there are 1,700 repair cafés offering their services in 35 countries around the world. The grassroots movement to bring repairing back into our economy is growing and making political demands too, taking on the world’s biggest companies through legislation that will force them to make products that are repairable and live longer.

Wider relevance

The growth of repair cafés and the repair movement is exciting because of the potential they have to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2017, 1.9 billion mobile phones were sold. The total carbon footprint to manufacture those phones is equivalent to Austria’s annual carbon emissions. And yet, in the EU in 2010, only 6% of phones were being reused, and only 9% were disassembled for recycling – which means that the remaining 85% of phones were left forgotten at the back of a drawer, until eventually being thrown ‘away’ to further clog up landfill sites. By simply using a phone for longer we can radically reduce carbon emissions – for example, if we used every phone sold this year for one-third longer, we would prevent carbon emissions equal to Singapore’s annual emissions.

The Restart Project, a regular repair café focused on electronic goods which started in London in 2013, has so far helped 11,942 people, aided by 18,978 hours of volunteered time working on 9,648 devices.

A survey of participants attending ‘Restart Parties’ in 2016 found that close to half of people were ‘slightly’ or ‘not at all’ confident

© LeoFellinger-Kunstbox

celebrates the rise of repair cafés.

society & culture

The industrial caterpillar

The rise of the grassroots repair movement is a direct challenge to the logic of our consumerist economy.

Oxfam economist Kate Raworth describes the degenerative nature of industrial design within our current economic model as ‘the industrial caterpillar’ – a linear model based on extracting natural resources, employing them in industrial processes, using the final output and, eventually, throwing it away. Raworth highlights the need to transform this linear logic of ‘take, make, use, lose’, into a regenerative ‘butterfly economy’ where resources are used and re-used within the economy, and waste is radically diminished.

Similar arguments were made over decades during the late 20th century by people like designer Victor Papanek and Jane Jacobs, a critic of the economic processes within cities. Both used ecological analogies to advocate better design of both products and whole economic systems. Jacobs argued for regenerative local economies that mirror ecological processes in their dynamism, rejection of waste and the way in which things can be reused and, ultimately, in how they exist in a state of dynamic equilibrium, rather than endless accumulation and growth. Repair workshops could serve as a vital building block of a future circular economy, and also help in bringing these concepts down to the tangible,

© LeoFellinger-Kunstbox

undertaking repairs of their goods at home, and that 45% were unable to find a commercial repairer they could trust.

Without the help of Restart volunteers, many of these goods would have been discarded. Restart calculates that their volunteers have prevented 13,817 kg of CO2 emissions from the 5,112 devices they have fixed not being thrown away and replaced.

As well promoting more sustainable patterns of consumption, repair cafés seek to build communities, too. Repair cafés are socially inclusive places, with volunteers and users of all ages and backgrounds, sharing in expertise from sewing to soldering. Through the face-toface interaction between the volunteers and people who bring in goods in need of repair, education is built into the process. Repairing is always done together with the owner watching, as the aim is to empower people to learn to feel more confident in fixing their own things.

Sharing skills at an Austrian repair cafe.

community level.

For the founders of The Restart Project, the local component is crucial: “We are the inner circle of the circular economy… For us, these are the circles where we can approach a future economy on a human scale: making sure that the products we buy are more repairable and long-lasting by focusing on creating local opportunities to flourish for repair, reuse and refurbishing. This is where we can transform our reality.”

Context and Background

The ‘make do and mend’ culture that wartime Britain was famous for is alive and well in most developing countries today.

When resources are scarce, people tend to eke as much life as possible out of the things they buy.

However, in many wealthy, industrialised countries, people have more disposable income to ‘upgrade’ their belongings more regularly, and the power of advertising has meant that repairing items that might be considered ‘out-of-date’ has become unfashionable.

A 2015 study found that between 2004 and 2012, the number of household appliances that died within five years doubled from 3.5% to 8.3%. When it comes to large household appliances, the situation is even worse, with the proportion being

replaced within five years increasing from 7% in 2004 to 13% in 2013. An analysis of junked washing machines at a recycling centre showed that more than 10% were less than five years old.

It is not just household appliances that are being binned long before their time. An estimated 300,000 tonnes of clothing were sent to landfill in the UK in 2016, and the average estimated lifespan for a piece of clothing in the UK is a mere 3.3 years.

Consumer electronics make up the largest growing waste sector globally.

In 2016, 44.7 million metric tonnes of e-waste were generated around the world – equivalent to almost 4,500 Eiffel Towers.

A mere 20% of that total was collected and recycled. The booming quantities of e-waste – which is expected to reach 52.2 million metric tonnes by 2021 – can in part be explained by consumers moving on to the new and most up-to-date model long before their current one has failed on them.

However, this wasteful model is also a function of ‘planned obsolescence’, which is when manufacturers purposefully design their products to break down after a limited amount of time, and make them hard to fix, in order to encourage new sales.

The growing backlash against the material waste from this form of consumerism – a kind of unhealthy relationship with the finite world of resources – has produced calls for a ‘new materialism’ based on the care, maintenance and repair of goods, which must begin at the design stage and be built in.

“

In our high consumption, disposable culture, the resource-draining turnover of consumer goods has become normalised, taken for granted and, as a result, almost invisible.

Clean Slate 31

Fairphone – Closing The Loop

society & culture

Measures of success

since the first repair café was • Ahelddecade in Amsterdam in 2009, there are 1,700 repair cafés offering their services in 35 countries around the world.

the world, 50,000 people go to • Aa round repair café every month, where they receive help from more than 21,000 volunteers. Due to the efforts of all these people, around 300,000 kilos of CO2 emissions were prevented in 2017.

ccording to data contributed to • ARestart’s Fixometer, 54% of all products brought to a Restart Party are repaired on the spot, while 27% are ‘repairable’, by repair volunteers or businesses, once a spare part or adequate tool is procured.

estart calculates that their volunteers • Rhave prevented 13,817 kg of CO 2

emissions from the 5,112 devices they have fixed.

“

If we used every phone sold this year for one-third longer, we would prevent carbon emissions equal to Singapore’s annual emissions.

Enabling factors

The rapid growth of repair cafés around Europe and North America has been driven by volunteerism – groups of committed (and handy!) people who regularly give up their time to help their neighbours bring life back to their broken belongings.

The social, community cohesion building element of repair cafés is fundamental to their continued expansion and popularity.

Valuable practical knowledge – often held by older citizens – is being applied and passed on. With nearly 1,700 repair cafés up and running around the world, thousands of people are contributing to this grassroots movement.

Technology has also supported the development of this rapid transition. Both London’s Repair Project and the Repair Café Foundation have developed online tools

32 Clean Slate

that enable volunteers to collate and share data on their repairs online. Through these centralised databases, volunteers share information on the problems they faced and how they fixed them, or if they didn’t manage to. This helps build the shared knowledge and capacity of the network, and also provides hard data that repair groups are increasingly using in their advocacy.

The global repair movement is using its data and volunteers to get organised, and demand changes from manufacturers to increase the repairability of consumer goods. Repair data allows these groups to identify common problems that arise with particular products or companies, which they can take to the manufacturers to demand improvements. In October 2018, repair groups from around the UK signed the Manchester Declaration, where they ask:

“UK legislators and decision-makers at all levels, as well as product manufacturers and designers, to stand with us for our Right to Repair, by making repair more accessible and affordable, and ensuring that we adopt product standards making products better supported, well documented and easier to repair by design.”

The EU has recently responded to calls to protect the Right to Repair with proposals to extend the life and improve the repairability of lighting, televisions and large home appliances, and in the US some 18 states are considering similar laws.

About the Rapid Transition Alliance

The Rapid Transition Alliance, of which CAT is a founding member, is a group of organisations and experts that have come together to gather, share and demonstrate evidence of effective climate solutions.

Find out more and share your stories at rapidtransition.org CS

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Cryptic crossword

by Brominicks

http://www.brominicks.wordpress.com All the letters of the alphabet fill the perimeter of the crossword.

These letters are not further clued.

To enter: Name: Address:

Email:

Across 8 A group preoccupied with gear changes? (6,4) 9 Ground broadcasting bowling spell (4) 10 Sailor's daughter on the front of Playboy (5) 11 Number of furlongs horse covered to become unlikely winner (4,4) 12 Release individual in tangled net (5) 13 Inform the English about losing Scottish border (9) 15 Model fairly regularly seen outside university (7) 17 Native worked for communist state (7) 20 Unaware of sending back six pound bills (9) 22 Employ European, the first to head east (5) 25 It's not fair shouted fish, allegedly (1,3,4) 26 Grand pocketed by a builder that could flatten the place (1-4) 27 Escalate row (4) 28 Having split ends makes folk irate (4-6)

4 O ver-flashy American guys (7) 5 Criminal kind fitted extremely limited police equipment (6-3) 6 Surrey opener's cutting anything at Headingley this bowler's worn out! (4,4) 7 American character in remission (6) 14 A thousand engulfed by New Forest fire (6,3) 16 What potter makes of failure to set green up (8) 18 Spontaneous performer laid off ahead of upsetting decline (2-6) 19 Rum lad's mad for filthy bird? (7) 21 Get on loan or steal from all around (6) 23 Rambling pensioner rules out Luxembourg, heads to Italy (6) 24 Strictly routine disney character (5) Clean Slate 111 Solution

Phone: The first correct entry pulled from a hat on 1st July 2019. wins a £20 voucher for the CAT EcoStore – store.cat.org.uk.

Please send your completed crossword entry to Clean Slate Crossword, Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ. Solution will be published in the next issue of Clean Slate.

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Leave a gift to CAT What will your legacy be to future generations? Help ensure the future of humanity and the diversity of life on our planet by leaving a gift to CAT in your will. commitment to solving the most pressing of environmental problems. We are in Wales, one of the first countries to develop a national environmental policy with intergenerational issues at its heart: The Future Generations Act. CAT is a space where school pupils meet lecturers on our Masters courses: CAT is a true learning organisation for all generations. In all ways it represents the cycle of life.

When we built the WISE education and conference centre – a building with its own cradle to grave low carbon life cycle – we offered rooms and garden areas as places to remember loved ones or to celebrate people or occasions. We have plaques around the CAT site to commemorate the hard work of past staff members like Dianna Brass and Gerard MorganGrenville, and to celebrate the lives of people who have helped us by leaving a gift to CAT in their will to enable us to continue to tackle climate change and other environmental problems.

Dedications at CAT

A

lmost two decades ago we asked ‘What will the world be like when you are pushing up the daisies?’ It was a question to bring a gentle humour into a sometimes emotional and difficult subject: what happens after we pass away, and how might we have left the world for future generations? We were bowled over by the response we received. Many people decided to help tackle complex environmental issues by leaving a gift to CAT in their will, or dedicated a space at CAT to a loved one.

That question is still very poignant: What will we leave to the next generations and

36 Clean Slate

how can we tread as lightly as possible upon the earth that we inherited?

CAT represents the cycle of life

We know that the seven acre site at CAT means a lot to many people. It is a historical site: the cottages and waterwheel a testament to the slate workers who toiled in the quarry a century ago. It’s a site of biodiversity, where human development has evolved in harmony with the woodlands and wildlife that thrive here. It’s a place where people can contemplate their connection with nature and the Earth, and their

In 2019 we are extending the same offer, but with a dedications option. We’d like to offer people the chance to celebrate their loved ones with a marker at CAT. We have a limited amount of space for some engraved markers, benches or plaques to mark something or someone special.

Perhaps you’d like to remember a beloved companion animal, or mark someone’s birthday or a special anniversary. We’d love to give you the opportunity to use the beautiful gardens and woodlands of CAT. If you would like to talk to someone in person, or by phone about leaving a gift to CAT in your will, or ‘In Memoriam’ and dedication ideas for loved ones, please contact us on 01654 704950 or tanya. hawkes@cat.org.uk It’s a good idea to talk to a solicitor about making a will to ensure it’s accurate and can be executed exactly how you wish.

If you decide to leave CAT a gift in your will, it’s very helpful to let us know. Legacy income is one of the key ways that CAT is able to continue its work on tackling climate change. CS

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