Utility Week

18 | FEBRUARY 2022 | UTILITY WEEK Energy Changing the story to achieve net zero Tom Lowe discusses the challenge of encouraging the public to take "calculated risks" on the path to net zero. Comment D ecarbonising power, heat and transport to achieve net zero is humanity's greatest challenge and we have limited time. So now is the time to work together for the common good; to change the stories we tell ourselves; to change how we act. We need to build our way out of the mess we've cre- ated. There are big engineering challenges ahead. But net zero is not just the human race's greatest engineer- ing challenge. People across the world must change their minds about what is normal. To change decisions about how they live their lives. And for that we need storytellers. The brilliant Dr Rose Chard pointed me to an article by James Clear. This line particularly struck me: "You can't expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them some- where to go." That involves people developing a story of how they moved from "climate change is someone else's problem" to "I need to take action in the next 10 years". This means encouraging and then accepting people as they move from one camp to another. We should do this with our friends and family. Our neighbours. Our extended social group. Lots of small gentle nudges. Oh, and we should avoid talking about "consumers". No-one thinks of themselves as a "consumer". We're not economists. Stories are about people. Let's talk about people. Everyone needs to make calculated gambles over the next 15 years. That's what change is. And we need to start making those gambles now. This might mean buying an electric vehicle when we next change our car, or insulating our house as we prepare to buy a heat pump. It might mean flying less, or cycling more. Not everyone will act at the same time. Some will lead, others will follow. That's okay. We must act without knowing everything Acting now is an insurance policy against what we don't understand. Climate models are complicated, the inter- actions are probabilistic and the world is a big place. And accurately modelling the effect of billions of actions may always be beyond us. It is possible that a 1.5C increase in average tempera- tures will be more destructive than expected. A"er all, that average hides big temperature increases in places like the Arctic Circle. The feedback loops from melting ice could be more destructive than models predict. We buy insurance for the worst-case scenarios. To avoid colossal financial damage if our car is written off or our house burns down. That's what acting now is – insurance against the worst-case financial damage. In the next few years, people will start to get paid for when they use electricity. If they can adjust when they charge their car or heat their home, their energy will cost them less. When the so"ware and hardware work well, it will seem like magic. We must actively look at decarbonisation from the perspective of women, minorities and the disadvan- taged. Their stories are so important for the design of our energy systems. Able-bodied white men like me should seek out perspectives that are different to ours and listen openly and intently. It is not enough to look at data and think about "technology-neutral" solutions. Data is amazing and we need more of it. But aggregate data hides the stories of real people. No amount of data can show the benefit of women feeling safe when charging their car in a well-lit area. The solution will be messy and unpredictable Regulation is important for energy. We look to regulators to protect us and to make sure products are safe to use. But regulators – like all people – struggle to predict the future and keep up with technology change. And those who write energy rules rarely write code or build things. Innovators push boundaries, take risks – sometimes ignorant of the rules that exist. This is an important story for those designing systems to remember. Regula- tors need to embrace this messiness. They should set ambitious high-level outcomes, establish basic rules of the game and clamp down hard on rule-breakers. Be more kind It is easy to criticise others and to point out flaws in the other side. To draw up a big clear dividing line and say, "fossil fuel companies are evil" or "governments don't understand". It is harder to pause and consider that fossil fuel companies exist because we buy their products or that politicians respond to public opinion. And so we need to persuade the public first. I actively try to find ways to turn down the critical voice and consider how to have a more constructive conversation. To remind me, every so o"en I listen to the song "Be More Kind" by Frank Turner.  Tom Lowe is an energy policy expert who has worked on innovation and regula- tion at two British energy suppliers, Ofgem and Consumer Focus. 2022 is his twel•h year working in energy.

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