A blueprint for a net zero emission economy

In his forthcoming book What We Need To Do Now, renewable energy expert Chris Goodall lays out the case for a Green New Deal for the UK. Writing for mega, he explains what it takes to become a net zero emissions economy.

Many countries are committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to zero by mid-century. What sets the UK apart is that it was among the first to set this ambition into law.

Still the routes which the country, or any other, will use to achieve this objective are unspecified. Although the UK has made good progress on cutting emissions from electricity production and reducing CO2 output by almost 60 per cent since 2010, most other parts of the economy show no signs of improvement. Oil and gas consumption are not falling, while emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases remain high.

My book What We Need To Do Now puts forward a plan for reducing greenhouse gases to zero over the next couple of decades. It looks at more than 10 different parts of our modern economy, ranging from energy supply to food and clothing. It proposes a ‘green new deal’ - a series of radical measures to eradicate all emissions.

Any plan that seeks to get the country to net zero needs to win wide democratic support. So, alongside the drive to reduce the country’s contribution to climate change, the proposals in the book also seek to redistribute income towards the less well-off, particularly in the peripheral regions of the UK. The assumption that emissions reduction will always come at the expense of the poor needs to be discarded. 

Carbon emissions per capit

Inevitably, the first chapter focuses on energy supply. It proposes that the country continues to expand wind and solar power, looking to get 20 times as much electricity from these sources than what is the case today. Much of this expansion will come from offshore wind, but I suggest we can also dramatically increase locally-owned wind and solar power. The huge expansion of renewables means that for the vast majority of hours of the year, the UK will have far more power than it currently needs.

Yes, electrifying home heating and the transition to electric cars will increase electricity demand, perhaps almost doubling our requirements. But, most of the time, the country will have large surpluses. There is a logic to this: it means that we will not need to have a large fleet of gas-fired power stations standing ready to back up our electricity supplies. We will have largely got rid of the problem of intermittency. Just as importantly, a power surplus will give us the capacity, using electrolysis of water, to make huge quantities of renewable hydrogen. This hydrogen can function as our long-term storage medium, available for use to regenerate electricity at times of shortage, for insertion into the gas grid, as a replacement for methane, or for conversion to synthetic liquid fuels to replace oil.

This idea is being increasingly discussed by energy experts across Europe but has gained little attention yet in the UK. My book is an attempt to start a wider discussion of this apparently eccentric plan. Although ‘green’ hydrogen is currently more expensive than it would be if made from fossil fuels, the continuing fall in the price of renewable electricity means that it will not be long before the cost position is reversed. A second feature of the proposed approach to energy system re-design is what I call the municipalisation of supply.

I argue that local generation, principally using solar farms or onshore wind, should be carried out by public entities run by local councils. These bodies should also control the distribution networks for electricity and gas. These ideas may seem radical but are directly copied from the successful model used by towns and cities in Germany. In the book's discussion on housing, I focus on the need to properly refurbish much of the UK's housing stock.

The country has the oldest and worst insulated housing in northern Europe. This imposes high heating costs on the most vulnerable in society, and is a cause of ill-health among the older segments of the population. Almost 20 per cent of UK emissions is caused by domestic heating. I propose a solution that involves deep refurbishment of entire properties, using new insulation panels made in factories that can be quickly and conveniently installed in older houses. These home improvements are expensive but will, among many other benefits, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. 

The food industry generates more greenhouse gases than any other apart from energy. Beef cultivation alone is responsible for 10 per cent of UK emissions.

The uncomfortable fact is achieving net zero probably requires us to almost entirely abandon meat. I look at different means of obtaining a healthy diet without meat, including substantial changes to grain cultivation.

In the case of transport, we all understand the need to move to electric vehicles, including some or all commercial vans and trucks. But the carbon footprint of making these vehicles is probably substantially higher than for internal combustion engine equivalents. I argue that policy making needs to emphasise the desirability of use of shared vehicles as well as substantial improvements in pedestrian and cycling access.

As well as the carbon benefits, taking cars out of cities and towns improves public health and revitalises urban centres. This is another example of a green new deal improving living standards for the majority of the population.

The book also examines other high carbon-emitting industries, such as steel, fertiliser and cement, and in the main concludes that hydrogen made from renewable electricity can replace the fossil fuels used to produce these commodities.

This is another important reason to base our economy on massive investment in wind and solar, using the temporary surpluses to make zero-carbon hydrogen. In the case of clothing, I argue that we need to move to a society which restores and repairs, rather than replaces. Many aspects of the transition to a 100 per cent fossil free economy already make good financial sense. Onshore wind is almost certainly the cheapest way of generating electricity, for example. But I also argue that a USD100 per tonne carbon tax will make all forms of fossil fuel use uneconomic and trigger a rapid transition away from gas and oil in the UK. Properly managed, it can also be used to redistribute income from the wealthy to the less well-off.

I believe that the eventual move to a low carbon society will cause far more economic disruption than is currently expected.

No sector will remain unaffected and huge changes in the stock market values of UK companies are inevitable.

The growing recognition of the dangers linked to climate change may well produce rapid changes in policy and in financial incentives. What We Need To Do Now will give policymakers and investors an easy-to-read introduction to a possible route to rapid de-carbonisation. It also provides a sense of how the entire structure of the economy might be transformed by the move away from fossil fuels.