Who Said Debate Was Dead at the BBC?

I am not usually one for posting transcripts, mainly because they are such hard work. But I watched a net zero debate on BBC One last Sunday morning that was as entertaining as it was frustrating, and so I simply had to share with you all. And since I know a lot of you can’t bring yourselves to waste money on a TV license, I can’t just link to BBC iPlayer. So here it is in all its wondrous glory, so that you too can see what cutting-edge debate looks like on one of the BBC’s flagship programmes. To set the scene, presenter Sean Fletcher [SF] is hosting a debate between two climate campaigners and two climate sceptics, to determine whether net zero is being introduced too quickly. Enjoy:

[SF] Now, “The Government’s green policies are costing jobs and hollowing out working class communities”. That’s the warning from one of Britain’s largest unions this week. Gary Smith from the GMB trades union warns that the ambition of achieving net zero within six years could cost thousands of jobs as well as raise energy prices, hitting the poorest the hardest. Well, the target for removing fossil fuels from UK electricity production was brought forward five years by the new Labour government to 2030 after the previous Conservative government had vowed to do it by 2035. But with climate change an increasing concern do we all need to be prepared to make sacrifices or are we trying to reach net zero too quickly? Well to discuss this I am joined by Ross Clark [RC], author and journalist of Not Zero; Dr Kush Naker [KN] from the campaign group Just Stop Oil; Melanie Nazareth [MN], the campaigner from Christian Climate Action, and Inaya Folarin Iman [IFI], who is a broadcaster and journalist.

Good to see you all, thanks for coming in. Now, Kush, in his speech that I mentioned from Gary Smith, he added “We are going to see a huge reduction in our emissions but at what price?” So would thousands of jobs and higher bills be a price worth paying for you?

[KN] So I come at this from the health angle as a doctor, and what health leaders are saying is that we are addicted to fossil fuels, and that then comes with the biggest threat to human health of our generation. And the reason for that is that the fossil fuel industry has spent decades downplaying the risk of the climate crisis, and what that has meant is that people have been first frankly denying the effects of climate change but now are going towards delaying action on climate change.

[SF] So going back to my question, are lots of job losses a price worth paying?

[KN] Well, I think you have to look at what is the alternative. The alternative is that we delay action, that then leads to us hitting these tipping points that send us towards climate collapse.

[SF] So you are happy for us to lose lots of jobs?

[KN] Millions of people will die if we do not take action on the climate crisis, so I don’t see it as an either or, I see it as we need to take action. And we also need to look at the benefits of taking that climate action, we can’t just look at what the costs are. I see it as a health investment and saying that we are protecting people’s lives and that’s why we need to take action.

[SF turning to RC] Hearing Kush there, jobs are obviously important but actually this is much bigger than that, and actually when you look at the report from the Climate Change Committee, this is the Government’s independent energy advisory board, it says that more jobs will be created, Ross, rather than lost by the net zero transition; somewhere between 135,000 and – get this – 725,000. What are we waiting for? Let’s get on with it!

[RC] The green lobby has been telling us this for years, haven’t they? Net zero will create all these thousands of jobs. Well it is creating green jobs but most of them are in China, actually. On most matters of public policy it is accepted there is a trade-off, there are costs on the one side and benefits on the other side and, you know, you have to find a balance somewhere. But when it comes to net zero, or anything green really, all that seems to go out of the window, and if you listen to Ed Miliband, and many ministers from the previous government, it has to be said, they don’t seem to believe that. They think, oh if we go to net zero it’s going to create lots of jobs, it’s going to lower energy prices, it’s all benefit, benefit, benefit.

[SF] So what do you mean, create lots of jobs in China? I don’t…Will you explain that?

[RC] If you look at where are all the solar panels are manufactured, where an increasing proportion of the wind turbines are manufactured, it’s in China.

[KN] Well they don’t have to be, they could be jobs that we are creating here.

[RC laughs] And I’ll tell you the reason they are created in China, partly of course because labour costs are lower there, but also because energy costs are lower there. And why are energy costs lower in China? It’s because 60% of their energy is still generated by coal. So it’s not even…We are not even import…There’s a lot of embedded in those [inaudible].

[SF] Melanie, is this just an idea, a middle-class idea, a politician’s idea, and actually the working class communities are going to pay for it?

[MN] Absolutely not! I have seen with my own eyes that devastation that was wreaked in communities in County Durham and the Northeast of England by the mine closures. You can still see the devastation and depravation in those communities. It’s outrageous.

[SF] So this is going to be a repeat of that?

[MN] No! That’s what we need to make sure doesn’t happen, and the Government absolutely has to commit to an investment programme that brings manufacturing back to the UK. So, at the moment, we could bring back wind power manufacturing to the UK. We could invest two billion — a small amount of the windfall profits that the energy made at the expense of people’s higher energy bills — and we could create jobs, we could create investment, we could create energy security by doing that. We just need to bring proper investment into the UK, and this is what this Government must commit to, and then it’s not a… It’s a false argument, net zero on one hand and jobs on the other. We should stop playing this political football and learn how to knit the two together. It is possible to join them together.

[SF turning to IFI] Listening to Melanie, that makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Let’s, erm, let’s make the wind turbines here. Let’s grasp it. Let’s go for it full throttle!

[IFI] Well, I mean, look, what Kush was saying really highlights the problem. We are talking about a very large and very complex policy challenge here, and anyone who doesn’t agree with the specific approach to it, which is net zero by 2030, necessarily means that you are going to, err, support the destruction of the planet, and I mean that’s just patently absurd. And any politician is going to have to triangulate factors – jobs, energy bills, and the transition, in terms of what’s appropriate. And the reality is actually that this push for net zero has actually made it much more difficult to transition to greener, cleaner energy sources. So, take something like nuclear. Because it wasn’t seen as pure enough by many of the green activists, we have kicked that issue into the long grass. And the reality is, wind and solar power, we have not solved the intermittency problem, so we are going to need fossil fuels for a very long time. And so rather than having a realistic conversation about a whole range of energy sources, we’ve just decided that these are the perfect ones, we should just push for that. And that’s just going to make bills much more expensive because we are still going to need other sources.

[RF] Let’s let Kush respond to this one.

[KN] We can’t kick this one into the long grass, because the effects of the climate crisis are here already. We are seeing the number of people who are suffering malnutrition and starving already increase by more than 300 million as a direct effect of the climate crisis.

[IFI] But I mean, this idea that Britain moving the deadline by a few years is going to be the very reason that’s going to cause this planet to destroy – it’s just not a sensible conversation.

[KN] It can’t be Britain doing this alone, and that’s why what Just Stop Oil are calling for is that Britain sign up to an international fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.

[IFI] What about North Sea oil? Would you be okay with losing thousands of jobs there which depends upon loads of communities for their livelihoods, for their family life, for high skilled jobs – you’re very happy to stop that, aren’t you?

[KN] I’m not happy to stop it, but…

[IFI] But you support it…

[RF] Can I just put a point to you Kush then, in terms of us, the UK, as global players, we are really a small nation, and the UK emits about one percent of the global CO2 emissions. That’s really small compared to the USA and China, so you can be forgiven for people who think – say they are working in a working class community, you said Durham earlier, Melanie — why are we paying the price for this when everyone else is saying they are going to do this by 2050? Because most countries are putting it off many years later.

[KN] Well first of all, we can’t do this alone, and therefore we don’t just want the UK going off on its own doing this. Just Stop Oil is saying that the UK needs to sign up to a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty saying that… Agreeing with the leading countries around the world that we need to have a clear plan to get everybody off oil and gas.

[RF] Let Melanie speak.

[MN] Can I just say that we manged to export the industrial revolution, we exported lots of things, and we are a small country. We can do this again. We can export a green revolution. We can be the leaders that show how it can be done. What’s more, if you are in a playground, and there are some big kids pushing the little kids around, sometimes you have to be brave and you have to get in there. You have to say, this isn’t right, you can intervene. We can do that, we are a nation that has a conscience.

[RF] Ross.

[RC] We are not going to be exporting any industrial revolution when we have industrial energy prices that are the highest in the developed world — and that’s a figure that came out last week. And why do we have…And yet we have the cleanest energy in the developed world, we’ve got the most wind farms, we got a lot of solar — and why are our energy prices so high?

[RF] So Ross, I’m hearing solutions from Melanie. What are the solutions from you then? What do you say if we are going to push net zero back?

[RC] I say invest in technology, and let those technologies…Give them space to prove themselves, otherwise you’ll just jump at the wrong technology. And, you know, fifty years ago, if we were having this conversation we would be talking about nuclear fusion and it was going to be the answer to everything. Erm, we are still here now and nuclear fusion is still, you know, not a viable option yet. But it may be in the future, and if it does become an option no one will ever want to build a windfarm again, or a solar farm. That will be the standard of electricity we use.

[RF] So Melanie, just looking at the Earth Trust — this is a charity aimed at preserving our natural spaces — has said, “To put it bluntly, what happens in the next five years will determine the world our children and their children will inhabit”. When you hear Ross speaking there, do we have time for that?

[MN] We don’t have time, and what is more important is that we have solutions that are available to us now. We have to invest in them, and maybe nuclear fusion will be something we will look at in the future, but there are solutions we can use now that address this problem that is so, so important. Because what we are facing is not just global warming but the possibility that we are approaching tipping points which will cause global systems to shut down.

[RC] Now — now this is leading to exaggeration.

[RF wagging finger at RC] But no!

[MN] No, it’s a possibility. These things are what climate scientists are saying.

[RF] Inaya, that quote that I had there, “To put it bluntly, what happens in the next five years will determine what will happen to our children and our children’s children”, I mean, that’s pretty scary stuff, isn’t it?

[IFI] You know, look, this is what’s been said for decades. When Boris Johnson was Prime Minister it was five minutes to midnight, and, you know, it’s constantly ramping up this kind of existential crisis so we don’t actually have a level-headed conversation about the realities and the trade-offs and all of the different impacts. It becomes, we must do this now, and if anyone disagrees you’re a climate denier, you’re a climate sceptic and you should be pushed out of the conversation. I don’t think that’s the right way of approaching it.

[RF] Is that fair Kush, is that fair. Because people do have different concerns and it’s not that they are climate change deniers, they just want to do it a different way and they’re just labelled.

[KN] We need to be honest about the threat that we face, and actually even very reasonable people like David Attenborough are saying we see the end of cities and societies and shortly after that civilisation breaking down because of the effects of the climate crisis. So I think unless you are honest about the threat that you face you cannot motivate the necessary action. Erm, and when you [meaning RC] talked about the cost of energy being cheaper with coal, oil or gas, that’s only because you are not actually looking at the real costs that burning all of that will have. Once you factor those things in, it’s without a doubt making far more sense to rely upon renewables.

[RC] You see, what you are doing is what climate campaigners have done over and over again, trying to close down the debate saying, oh, you know, the costs of climate change are so enormous we can’t afford not to do it. And, erm, you get into this sort of hyperbole situation where you are claiming we’ve got five minutes to save the world then, you know. The number of times I have heard that deadline put forward; it’s simply not true.

[KN] Within the IPCC the consensus of scientists…

[RC] If you actually want to read the climate science…

[KN] …is that action needs to be taken this decade…

[RC] When you actually read the climate science you find that the changes are, you know, some are beneficial, some are, you know, very much the other way, and you cannot…

[RF] Let Ross finish.

[RC] The number of times I have heard this figure that billions of people are going to die, and you say, what are these people going to die of? And they say, oh the heat, and when you look at the actual data you see that the number of people dying of heat…

Producer cuts to KN smirking and shaking his head.

[RC] …is rising a little bit and the number of dying of cold…

[RF interrupts] Okay, let’s let Kush respond.

[KN, still visibly amused] You can’t compare a milder temperature in Scotland as a benefit when the trade-off is billions of people dying.

[RC] Even in Africa more people die of the cold than die of the heat and that, the trend, you know, the trend…

[RF interrupts again] Okay. Melanie.

[MN] Flooding and disease and all these things that are on the rise. What about the impact of…

[RC] Did you just say flooding is on the rise? Where’s your data for saying that?

[MN] If you…

[RC] No, no. I’ll tell you, go to the IPCC report…

[MN] People can see it with their own eyes.

[MN] No, no, go to the IPCC report…

[MN] I have.

[RC] No, the one study…

[RF, stopping RC from coming back in] Okay, okay, I want to finish it there and round off with a question — actually with you Melanie. Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said, “God is green and he calls us all to be green”. Do you see this as part of your faith to be environmentally focused and should all Christians be like that?

[MN] I think the question of integrity of creation, which is what we call it, is fundamental to Christian belief. God created this wonderful gift to humanity. God created the richness and biodiversity and we are destroying that. The incredible hubris that makes human beings stand against God who created these wonderful things just floors me, and yes we have a duty to preserve what God loves, and God loves the Earth.

[RF] Kush, I know you are chomping at the bit, and Inaya definitely, but I’m afraid that’s all we have got time for.

My Summary:

[RF] Welcome everyone. Kush, it’s really bad, isn’t it?

[KN] Millions will die.

[RF] That’s true. Ross, what do you have to say for yourself?

[RC] Well, if you actually look at the data…

[RF] Shut up! Kush, what did you say?

[KN] Billions will die.

[RF] Melanie, what’s the answer.

[MN] Invest in dreams.

[RF] Wow! Such insight. Ross?

[RC] Well, there’s nuclear fusion…