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23
August
2024
|
14:33
Europe/London

New report - Navigating the Backlash: The Future of British Climate Strategy

A report by the University of SwagÖ±²¥ Sustainable Consumption Institute, co-authored by Matthew Paterson and Paul Tobin among others, documents the changing political dynamics of UK climate policy and suggests policy strategies.

Professor Matthew Paterson and Dr Paul Tobin

The report sets out strategies for navigating the UK’s political context on climate change, which were developed during a workshop at SwagÖ±²¥ with academics, practitioners from various political parties, as well as NGOs and social movements.

In a recent blog post, and argue on the basis of the report that there has been a breakdown of the ‘climate change consensus’ and a backlash against net zero. To overcome these issues, they strategies they suggest are:

  1. Mitigate the dilemmas that political parties face when navigating this new political context.

They suggest that parties may do so, for example, by ‘Designing policies that create irreversible effects, such as zero-carbon infrastructure investments in electricity, housing, or transport that would be too costly to dismantle.’

      2. Attack the backlash directly

This option entails promoting ‘net zero strategies that explicitly address social justice and inequality. Examples include policies that benefit low-income households, such as investment in public transport, and using the language of ‘energy security’ when promoting renewable energy.

The following report and blog post are available to read below:

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