Eat less meat. Stop flying. Use public transport. Buy an electric vehicle (EV). Start walking. These are just some of the edicts the left-wing UK Labour Government’s main “climate-change” advisers insisted Wednesday are needed to impose on the general public to hit Net Zero goals.
Leading members of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) spelled out that hitting the Net Zero target would involve widespread public “behaviour change” while speaking in Westminster before s government inquiry, the Daily Mail reports.
New targets demand the UK’s emissions be cut to 81 percent of 1990 levels by 2035.
Asked at the Commons environmental audit committee “to what extent will individual behavioural change be needed” to achieve that goal, James Richardson, director of analysis at the CCC, said:
In terms of the analysis we’ve done, about 10 percent of emissions reduction to 2035 comes from what we would think of as behaviour change. That’s predominantly around diets, flying and modal shifting [to] public transport.
Detailing the “key behavioural changes people would notice” if the UK follows the CCC’s advice, Richardson continued: “It’s not about telling people you must stop flying, but it’s the rate of growth of flights that we think would happen if we didn’t take any action… When we talk to citizens, people seem willing to accept there must be some degree of constraint.”
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Regarding changes in diet, Richardson said: “We think about half the change you’d need to get to by 2035 is a continuation of the existing trends of people changing what they eat.”
The Mail reports Richardson said he supported the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate which imposes stiff fines if car-makers miss their sales targets for EVs.
The policy has been blamed by auto giant Stellantis for it deciding to close its Vauxhall van-making plant in Luton after 120 years while Europe continues to turn on its back on EVs, as Breitbart News reported.
But Richardson said he sees that as natural industrial attrition: “We know from previous transitions between technologies that incumbent firms can get left behind – we all remember Blockbuster Video or Kodak.
“When these new technologies come in, it can be easy for incumbents to think they have more time to change than they do.
“The ZEV mandate is actually a way of saying to industry, as much as anything, ‘look, actually you have less time than you think’.”
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The stipulations outlined to MPs on Wednesday directly contradict promises by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer earlier this month that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would not involve people in Britain having to change their lifestyles.
Speaking after flying to the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan a fortnight ago, Starmer promised he would not be “telling people how to live their lives’ by reducing air travel or changing their diets.”
As those talks opened, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell told countries: “Now is the time to show that global cooperation is not down for the count.”
And he warned wealthy countries who are struggling to agree a new funding target to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity” and fall into line with directives from organizations like the U.N. and its associated committees.
“An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest,” the career U.N. bureaucrat warned.