Worker engagement is critical to achieving net zero

 Listening, engaging empathetically and widely, and giving places and sectors the time, cash and power they need to get decent outcomes: these take time and they are difficult. It requires money and local capacity, because often we’re talking about the end result being compensating people for jobs that simply can’t be smoothly replaced like for like, or as the CCC notes investing in the regeneration of places like Aberdeen where high carbon industry is woven into the fabric of the whole city.   

But mostly it’s hard because it’s about trust, and as our Britain Talks Climate research found, trust is in very short supply. Many people have little faith that governments of any hue are a net force for good in their lives. They feel that the UK has a pretty dismal track record in delivering economic transitions that are, in practice, just. 

So what should we do instead? In 2018 Climate Outreach spent time talking with communities in the Canadian province of Alberta, where entire communities have been directly dependent on oil and gas for employment for generations.  We found great pride in the contribution that these fuels have made to the prosperity and identity not just of Alberta but the whole nation, and a desire for this to be recognised and valued. 

The story we heard about what activists call ‘fossil fuels’ is one enmeshed with local culture and identity. There’s certainly an awareness that the world is transitioning and this is to an extent necessary, and climate concern was definitely present – but pride in a local, shared heritage trumps it pretty much every time. We found a sincere willingness to have conversations about what might come next for the province, but based on dialogue, not hectoring. 

This kind of listening and dialogue works, although it’s important that there’s a headline objective, and that everyone believes that agreeing a way forward will actually change things. An often cited example of this is the negotiated settlement in 2018 between the Spanish government and its coal unions – driven by unambiguity that the coal mines would close, but with the space to build consensus between workers, communities and those with the money on how to deal positively with the impacts.  Trust follows evidence of action, not the other way round: one of the lessons from various climate assemblies, including the UK’s, is that participants need to feel that they aren’t just talking shops.  

The benefits of getting this critical part of the process right would be huge. The greatest positive messengers for the broader pros of climate action are ‘normal people’ who’ve themselves benefited from it.  The new army of heat pump installers, retrofitters, sustainable farmers and the like alluded to by the CCC’s analysis could be powerful advocates for getting on with net zero among people who trust them – both at work, and in their personal lives. 

All of this underlines the case for a concerted focus on public engagement to be at the heart of the government’s net zero programme. And for this work to really focus on people, places and jobs that currently feel like they stand to lose from the net zero transition. That all helps build that wider, ‘common sense’ drumbeat of both concern and demand behind action that helps turn best-case economic forecasts into living, breathing reality.

This piece was originally published in BusinessGreen on 25 May 2023.