Open Minds: Turning green into gold

The path to riches — and happiness — is a bustling new eco-economy

If a foreigner reviewed all the statements made by our recent government leaders on the environmental crisis, they would assume we are at the very forefront of action. “Building a low-carbon global economy,” Gordon Brown said, demands a “worldwide commitment” on a comparable financial scale to the post-war Marshall plan. Tony Blair described climate change as “the greatest long-term threat to our planet”, warning that inaction would be “literally disastrous”.
Yet despite both presiding over this country for over a decade, we are neither less polluting, nor more prepared for environmental change. Therein lies a problem. The gulf between what our leaders want us to believe they are doing and what they are actually doing is huge. But, whether they like it or not, we will see dramatic change, if only because resources will grow scarcer and commodity prices will soar. By refusing to properly engage, Britain is taking an unnecessary risk and missing an extraordinary opportunity.
We will emerge from the current recession, and, when we do, we can choose something different. Instead of re-creating conditions that delivered the economic crisis and systematically trashed our environment, we can build an economy that’s cleaner, greener and much less wasteful, where valuable things are valued, pollution has a cost and green choices — currently available only to the committed or wealthy — become mainstream.
This transition is already happening. In the US, President Obama has promised to spend $150 billion over 10 years on green investment, creating 5m “green collar” jobs. South Korea, Japan and Spain are making similar moves, and in the private sector blue-chip companies have accepted that disregarding the environment is increasingly a financial risk. It’s not just about preparing for the worst, or doing “the right thing”. The transition itself will open windows of unprecedented opportunity. Who can doubt that, in the years to come, clean technology success stories will dominate The Sunday Times Rich list?
In most sectors, we can already see the alternatives, and they work: microgeneration of energy in Germany; combined heat and power plants in Copenhagen; zero-waste policies in Japan and New Zealand; regeneration of fish stocks in Central America; our own Eurostar. In the future, we will see “smart meters” that save money by letting customers know when electricity is cheaper in the day. These meters will be part of a “smart grid” to intelligently co-ordinate how we use new renewable power sources, to regulate supply and demand, and to help reduce greenhouse emissions. If we took the best of today in every sector and made it the norm tomorrow, we’d be halfway or further to our goal.
There has been some progress in Britain, such as ambitious targets to reduce CO2 emissions, but little to inspire excitement in those paying attention. They are set so far into the distance that few of today’s politicians will be held responsible when they’re missed, and the mechanisms for realising those targets are yet to be identified. Unlike plans to treble airport capacity and build more polluting coal plants.
More than that, the government’s purely carbon-related approach does little to address our rapid shift from an era of abundance towards one of scarcity — a situation caused by a combination of huge population growth, insatiable human appetite for consumption, and an ever-shrinking resource base. Rational people know that, without a big shift, we are going to hit a wall. Yet that terrifying truth has almost no bearing on actual policy decisions. Why?
No politician wants to present voters with a choice between the economy and the environment. But inasmuch as it’s a choice at all, it’s a false one, because if we’re to create a sustainable, steady economy, we will have to find a way to marry the two. Sceptics worry about money but confuse cost with investment. Energy efficiency is already cost-effective. Nor do we need “new” money. We need to change the direction in which today’s money flows.
If pollution and waste are properly costed, clean companies will have the edge and polluting companies will be left behind. By shifting taxes, removing perverse subsidies and creating clear signals, whole sectors will flip. Car companies will make cars that cost less to run, manufacturers will make products designed to last, jobs will be created, and the market — so long an engine of destruction — will be reconciled with the environment.
When trust in politicians is at an all-time low, we need to see that a green initiative is just that, not merely a stealth tax dressed in green clothes. Some things will necessarily become more expensive, but the money raised must be used to bring down the cost of alternatives. There shouldn’t be retrospective “green taxes”, punishing people for decisions they have already made.
We won’t get the leadership we need unless we send our politicians a clear message. For doing the right thing, they will be rewarded. For doing the wrong thing, they will be sacked. It’s up to them to act, but we must make them act.
Zac Goldsmith’s The Constant Economy: How to Create a Stable Society (Atlantic, £16.99) is out now