In Discussion with Chris Stark: a greener pandemic recovery

The coronavirus pandemic has profoundly impacted our economic and social systems. As we re-build and re-open, people are rightly asking how we can use this moment of renewal as an opportunity to make our economy and wider society more resilient and sustainable to future shocks. The CBI, along with many other organisations has called for a green recovery to be at the centre of plans to ‘build back better’ as there is building evidence that such an approach can offer hundreds of thousands jobs around the country and can recharge our supply chains, while getting us on a net-zero trajectory.

In the closing session on the first day of the CBI’s Achieving net-zero conference, we heard from Chris Stark, Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change, alongside the CBI’s Dame Carolyn Fairbairn and Lord Karan Bilimoria, on how the UK can reach its long-term, ambitious climate change targets in the wake of coronavirus.

There was clear agreement between speakers from the outset that businesses and society alike should see climate action as an opportunity to live healthier and more sustainable lives and be better prepared for future economic and societal crises.

There was further agreement that in order for progress to be made, not just in recovering from coronavirus but in pursuit of net-zero emissions by 2050, the government has a big role to play to set a clear trajectory and roadmap for each sector, which will open the doors for the considerable sums of private sector investment ready to be delivered.  

Chris Stark remarked the transition to net-zero emissions would be ‘capital intensive’ which puts much more pressure on the need for a long-term plan to enable such investment and give business the confidence to act. Carolyn Fairbairn gave her vision on what she would like to see achieved by 2030, including hitting the UK’s target for a quadrupling offshore wind capacity, mass uptake of electric vehicles, and perhaps even the first short-haul flight using electric power.  

Three key takeaways resulted from the session

The coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity to spur on action to tackle climate change 

• Lessons from how governments have responded to the coronavirus pandemic can be applied to the climate crisis, particularly in terms of why it is important to be resilient, efficient, and sustainable 
• Climate change is already happening, with the impacts felt both at home in the UK and abroad. We can see it and we know how to tackle it. Getting out in front and setting the ambition early on is key and as such, the UK is at an advantage already 
• The UK needs a plan detailing how it will get to net-zero emissions, a plan which reflects what we have learned from the pandemic about the need for economic resilience, and our ability as a society to act quickly and decisively in the face of a major threat.

There is a major role for business action to help reduce emissions across sectors 

• Businesses are more committed than ever to reducing their impact on the environment with many going further by setting their own targets to reduce emissions to near zero in the coming decades, including some major emitting firms. Others are making good progress by measuring and reporting on their emissions as a first step. 
• There is a need to marry the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) frameworks. Businesses are now using these frameworks more and more to measure sustainability and societal impacts of investment and corporate strategies. Integration of the SDGs with ESG frameworks will be critical 
• Businesses will benefit from long-term policy and regulatory trajectories set by governments which will de-risk investment. Having long-term, ambitious targets will enable private sector investment to flow into necessary technology, infrastructure, and services. 

The UK must use COP26 and the G7 Presidency in 2021 to signal global leadership in tackling climate change 

• The UK must set an example to those countries which have yet to act on their climate impacts, by demonstrating a credible plan to deliver on its net-zero emissions target  
• The road to COP26 should be highlighted for the opportunity it is – to bring world leaders together with businesses, academics, and decision makers to agree on a unified and ambitious global approach to reducing emissions. This will involve coordinated plans to decarbonise our energy supply, transport and heavy industrial sectors and transform how we use our land 
• The UK government has already committed to publishing a myriad of plans to decarbonise these sectors, but they are not yet published. The UK must use the next 12 months not just to publish these plans and strategies but to publish an ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to show intent and ambition at the G7 and COP26 summits.