Bring the Heat: Climate Policy, old school schools
Education, London schools seem somewhat old school. Climate Policy thoughts with Chris Stark, UK Climate Change Committee.
Education, London schools seem somewhat old school
Climate Policy thoughts with Chris Stark, UK Climate Change Committee
Links: Climate models, life writing, autism experiences, work from home, immigation.
I’ve been visiting a bunch of London schools over last few months. I was educated under an elite London system, and then Cambridge, Harvard. I’ve met and interviewed people now from a very wide range of backgrounds from drama schools, Chinese, US, India schools, Africa, Singapore and the like. I’ve sat in a class in a jungle village. Education is an interest of mine.
I’ve chatted to psychologist Naomi Fisher who advocates for child centred learning and would be supportive of home education. See interview\podcast here.
I’ve had a long conversation with Jade O’Brien who went from stock broker to state school primary teacher to private school teacher in London. Interview/Podcast here.
There is much to think on how we school and educate the way we do. While modern pedagogy now has some foundational learnings there is still much where we are not very sure how it works. (And the schools of philosophy such as constructionism or ideas from Piaget still being hotly contested).
It strikes me the challenges of schools are reflected in the businesses I meet and analyse. Or, perhaps, it's the other way round. Business challenges which are society challenges are also school challenges.
The internet and mobile phones have completely changed society and business, and of course schools. It strikes me that many schools have adapted less strongly and less well. Mobile phones are still mostly banned from many schools in the UK (though not, for instance, in Singapore, or some notable exceptions even in London). I don’t see business banning phones.
AI machine learning applications have started to impact business significantly. As I’ve commented on, I judge it will impact government, law and society and the like enormously. I sense AI will significantly impact schools. The obvious one is the standard essay format to a standard question in homework is going to be challenged. In fact, is already challenged.
But, more than this, I sense many schools - like most medium to big organisations perhaps - are slow to change. I can see businesses that are slow to change and mostly this goes badly for them.
Perhaps, it should not be surprising but quite a number of the schools I’ve visited do seem to cleaving to older traditions across many domains. I think many of these older traditions are already outdated and going to be outdated even more soon.
Chris Stark is, to my view, one of the leading thinkers on climate policy. I was super happy he agreed to come on to the podcast again chat through many of the debates on climate policy today.
Do listen, or watch or read if you are interested in what we should be thinking about in terms of climate policy, which really should be all of you reading this letter. Arguably policy is one of our biggest levers, if not the biggest lever, to pull for climate.
Chris Stark is the Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body which advises the UK and the devolved governments on emissions targets and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. I think he is one of the most important and thoughtful thinkers on climate change policy today. This is his second time on the podcast. We covered many topics in 2022 which you can check out here.
This time I ask on:
How does it matter that we will pass 1.5c ?
What did we learn after COP27 (climate conference in Egypt in 2022)
How do you think we should think about NetZero at the corporate level
How should we be thinking of adaptation and the CCCs latest report
the CCC work on UK domestic energy rating
Heating and building strategy
Some of the recent politics decisions and discussions such as the UK government decision on a Cumbria coal mine.
What the US IRA (inflation reduction act) might mean for climate policy:
“Now you asked me, has anything changed since last we spoke? And yes, it has. Something quite substantial has changed in the United States of America. So we have this inflation reduction act which is an unfortunate act in only one sense, really. It's the IRA. So in the UK of course it's very difficult to talk about the IRA being good. But it's just a kind of game changing piece of legislation. At the core of it I think is a fairly simple thing really which speaks to our last discussion about the difficulty of implementing carbon taxes. The economic logic of making dirty stuff more expensive than clean stuff is still there.
But it turns out that the effort of putting carbon tax on something that you actually need in the present society is enormous politically and maybe it's best at just to make the green stuff cheap. Broadly, that's what the Inflation Reduction Act has done. It has done so in quite a controversial way. We're having a discussion now about the protectionist elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. It is a very protectionist piece of legislation but it has lit a fire under some of these green technologies. It's because of that simple thing that people I think are more willing to move towards things that have been made cheaper and move away from things that are more expensive. But I feel I want to add a note of caution on that. That we can't walk away entirely from the need for carbon taxes. They're still very, very, very important. It's very, very important to send a signal about the need to use less of the dirty stuff.
I’ll give you one example of that back in the UK. We are on the way to having fully decarbonized power system and that's very exciting. We will shortly produce a report I think that will really help explain what that fully decarbonized power system looks like. Super pleased about the modeling that we're going to put into that report and use. But the challenge shifts a bit I think now on power to actually consuming it being the main challenge. So you've got to push people towards having devices and technologies that use that electricity more. Then when it comes to something like heat or when it comes to an industrial process, you're right up against the problem that gas is cheaper than electricity for the consumer.
So you've got this kind of incentive issue and that's really what carbon taxes are about. We do need to maintain the incentive to move towards electricity as a fuel. We will probably be able to do that if we can have a policy framework that is aimed at making electricity cheaper than gas for the consumer. “
Chris outlines some of the challenges of a carbon tax and why a carbon tax and dividend may also not work.
Chris ends on advice on to think about climate impact and future projects.
Links:
Greening Finance London conference.
On work from home
UK is more open to immigration than you might think:
Climate models
On the (small) role of hydrogen in the future, Liebriech’s arguments. (He has very constistently argued this position for a while now)
Life writing
Insights into a lived autistic experience:
On the costs of transit lines.