Let’s be honest about the upheaval to come
President Kennedy’s famous “we choose to go to the Moon” speech is remembered now as a powerful, pivotal moment which was successful in rallying the American people to get behind the moon landing mission [1]. What is less remembered is that, at the time, there was widespread disquiet about the enormous cost of the project, with many people unsure about what value it would bring.
A difficult, enormously expensive mission, which hopes to deliver in the future, but which funnels government funding away from other areas which need funding right now, and with no guarantee of success…sound familiar?
Tackling climate change has been described as this century’s version of the moon-shot — an “earth-shot”, to keep with the metaphor. It is difficult, costly, will take time and will fundamentally change everything about society, the economy and our lifestyles. It’s not hard to see why people might ask the question: is it worth it?
To try to answer this question policy makers, climate scientists, activists have, rightly so, pointed to the enormous benefits which come from mitigating climate change. Not just a habitable planet (is that not reason enough…?!), but also a chance to rebuild the economy in a way which is more equitable and fair, to fix other environmental issues like waste pollution, to make our cities nicer places to live, to exploit the innovation that comes with the transition to benefit other aspects of our lives (in much the way the space-race did), and of course — green jobs.
It’s this last opportunity which has captured the attention of governments, and understandably so — growing the economy, reducing unemployment and improving productivity have always been the mainstays of any government’s policy-making, left, right or centre.
Undoubtedly, there are huge opportunities here. I work in a field — circular economy — that didn’t exist when I was at school. New skills and jobs that we can’t even imagine yet will be required to transition our economic systems to reach net-zero carbon.
But to focus only on the opportunities from tackling climate change fails to acknowledge the huge, short-term costs. It will be disruptive — far more so than the Covid-19 pandemic — it will require an enormous amount of public spending, it will almost certainly make our lives less convenient and, for some of us, more expensive. It will come with significant short term pain which, given the nature of climate change, most people won’t be around to reap the benefits of.
We cannot hide from these costs. In the coming decades, action on climate change is going to get personal. In the UK, we have mostly been sheltered from the decarbonisation of our economy so far. The most significant changes have been in shutting down coal power and expanding renewable energy — as long as you keep getting electricity in your home, you’re unlikely to pay attention to where it comes from.
But by the 2030s, every new car and van must be zero-carbon; every building must have near-zero greenhouse gas emissions [2]. The fight to mitigate climate will, quite literally, come home — and it will be disruptive and expensive.
The economist Mariana Mazzucato has argued that we need to create a ‘mission economy’ to coordinate public and private sector services and finance, to tackle ‘moon-shot’ challenges, like climate change [3]. We — scientists, policy makers, activists — have been quite successful, especially in the last few years, about creating that vision for our “earth-shot” mission, of what a post-carbon world could look like. But alongside this, we need to be honest about the costs involved.
Ultimately, Kennedy and his administration were able to prove why it was worth it and excite the American population about the moon-shot ahead of them. It’s hard to imagine now why any country wouldn’t have wanted to put the first human on the moon. Mitigating climate change — delivering our “earth-shot” — is worth it too. But we need to be honest about the reality of the mission to come.
