Recently, I was listening to the final episode of my favourite podcast, Talking Politics, which is ending after six educational years. As the team of Professor David Runciman and the incomparable Helen Thompson neared the end of the recording, they listed the things they hadn’t been able to cover in that last episode. Remarkably, this included the future of the UK, the stability of American democracy and climate change. From the COVID pandemic to war in Ukraine, plus the spiralling cost of living and the climate emergency our politicans are not short of challenges although unfortunately we can sometimes find them short of solutions.
Climate change has been discussed routinely on the show and both hosts believe it will shape global politics of the next decades. But when politicians shaping policy try asking, “what will this mean for the climate?” the discussion becomes impossibly complex very quickly. On a geopolitical level, we seem to be pursuing a strategy of managed decline and praying for a miracle in the form of new technology. That isn’t good enough.
Politicians like to keep total control of issues like climate change, following a fallacy that large problems need large solutions. I would suggest large problems need large scaffolding but millions of small pieces of variety to complete the building. The latest research from the Fabians Talking Green shows that the public are supportive of climate action but the language of “net zero” and “green industrial revolution” do not resonate, with working class people and older people particularly less convinced of the economic benefits of taking action and more likely to prioritise protecting jobs over taking action on climate change.
So, instead of starting tackling climate change from the almost incomprehensible and unreachable concepts of a global problem, let’s start local.
President Joe Biden said, when he thinks “climate change” he hears “jobs.” Political shorthand to be sure but he is right. There are a few fringe voices suggesting we must choose between a prosperous economy and saving the planet but it is not a view I subscribe to. The job for progressives is to build a broad coaliton of support for climate action and talk about how we can improve peoples lives and job prospects.
In the ward where I am a candidate in May, West Fife & Coastal Villages, we have as clear a footprint of Scotland’s industrial heritage as you will find anywhere. From coal-mining communities like Oakley, Blairhall and Valleyfield, to Longannet, once the largest coal-fired power station in Europe, now being slowly demolished, with no firm plan for the future of the massive site.
This part of Fife quite literally powered the economy of Scotland and the UK for almost 40 years. From people to skills to raw material, to energy to supply chain, to the UK and European economy. Energy was what they did.
I know from speaking to people while campaigning that two things feature at the top of their priorities now. Their local economy and their local environment. If an area like this is seized by those two issues, surely the Venn Diagram of using local economies to improve climate is already there?
If we are to tackle climate change and hear “jobs” as President Biden does, we will need values like sustainable development and international cooperation but implemented in a way that begins to equalise power, wealth and opportunity. That takes it from the global scaffolding to the local rendering.
To do this, we must not only build trust but trust communities to shape their own local economies and local environments. Trust that they already share basic values of wanting better for their children, in both jobs and climate.
We must allow communities a greater say through more active, participatory democracy. We must demand better and fairer distribution of power and money to councils and on to communities.
Trusting in that fashion is difficult and, let’s be honest, risky, with no guarantees of success. But is focussing on local economies to meet a global environmental challenge really any riskier than the situation we find ourselves in, daunted by complexity and hoping for technology to save the day?
This piece initially appeared on the Scottish Fabian website: