On 9 November around 30,000 delegates were due to jet into Glasgow for COP26, the UN’s annual climate change conference.
In the same month, according to the epidemiologists at London University’s Imperial College whose work has heavily influenced the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK is set to be hit by a second wave of cases of the disease.
What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot was the clear judgement of the UK government and the UN body which oversees COP, when they announced last week that the showpiece global climate change event would be postponed.
It joins a swathe of sporting events, including Wimbledon and the Olympics, which have already bitten the dust for this year.
“COP is arguably as big as the Olympics in terms of the sheer number of people in one place,” says Ieuan Williams of the Nuclear Industry Association.
Given the highly infectious nature of the disease, the decision to postpone COP was unsurprising. The main preparatory meeting, which had been due to be held in Bonn next month was out of the question anyway, given how fast the pandemic is raging through Germany.
The diplomatic effort required to deliver a successful emissions reduction agreement, such as that achieved in Paris five years ago, involves a huge amount of face-to-face international meetings. With Gatwick airport completely out of action as of this week, international travel looks firmly off the agenda for the time being.
“Diplomacy is going to be very difficult in the short term”, says Theo Mitchell, head of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Renewable and Sustainable Energy (PRASEG).
Even amongst hardcore climate change campaigners, there was a realisation that COP26 could not have gone ahead in current circumstances.
“With governments focussed on safeguarding the health of their citizens and their economies through the Covid-19 crisis, bandwidth for international engagement and national policymaking on climate change was very clearly in short supply,” notes Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), in a blog.
The good news from last week’s announcement is that the Glasgow event has been postponed rather than cancelled, although a new date has not been specified.
Mitchell would be surprised if the event is delayed for a whole year, he says: “There is lots of pressure both on the negotiation side but also relating to progress on the Paris agreement that will be encouraging parties to get COP26 done.”
The most likely delay looks to be four or five months – until the spring of 2021, when Imperial’s modelling suggests that the UK’s potential second wave coronavirus infection will have abated.
Keeping up the pressure
Philip Dunne, chair of the House of Commons environment audit committee, has urged the department for business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) secretary Alok Sharma not to allow the climate crisis to slip down the list of the government’s priorities.
Climate change remains an “important” policy priority for the government, insists Mitchell, pointing to a virtual meeting between Sharma and his Indian counterparts about COP a fortnight ago when the UK was already in the grip of the coronavirus maelstrom.
“People like Alok Sharma are really focused on the day-to-day response to the crisis but at a policy level, climate change is still really high on the agenda,” he says.
And while there will “inevitably” be a resource crunch within BEIS, many of the department’s civil servants are still working on the same areas as before the crisis struck, Mitchell says.
“We will continue to see energy and climate change policy develop, perhaps not at the same rate and pace given that some people have been redeployed and political priorities have shifted, however this is still very high on the agenda.”
A delay could even play into the UK’s hands, given what one insider describes as the government’s “bungled” early COP preparations.
At the end of January, Claire O’Neill was sacked from her post as COP President.
In mid-February’s Cabinet reshuffle, the former energy minister was replaced by Alok Sharma, when he also was appointed secretary of state for BEIS.
“People were confident that they could claw it back but now there is a mountain of work to do,” says Williams.
The reason the COP delay matters for utilities companies is that so much of government policy in the area is driven by the agenda surrounding carbon reduction. And COP provides a crucial spur, given that the UK will be in no position to orchestrate a successful emissions reduction agreement unless its own house is in order.
The current delay could allow the UK to get up to speed in a number of areas, writes Black: “The government was already behind schedule in areas such as transport, land-use and above all home heating. If ministers stick to their original schedules they now have a chance to land all of this before COP26, and so ensure that the UK is demonstrably on track to its net-zero target.”
Activity is still taking place on the decarbonisation policy front. Last month saw the publication, albeit low profile, of the Department for Transport’s decarbonisation plan.
While it contained little new detail on the push to electrify the UK’s car and van fleets, transport secretary Grant Shapps’ declaration that we need to drive less provided some signal of intent.
White paper may still emerge
Surprisingly, given the pressures on BEIS’ time as the department seeks to plot a course for business through the current economic turmoil, Whitehall watchers aren’t writing off the prospect that the energy white paper will finally see light of day this spring.
Utility Week has been told that the white paper has been considered by the Cabinet, which would have to sign it off, “multiple times”.
The industry is keen for the white paper to finally appear, given that it has been delayed several times since its first mooted publication date last summer when Sharma’s predecessor but one Greg Clark was still at BEIS.
But the timing has to be right.
“Ordinarily you get frustrated but this time it’s fair play because everyone is in the same boat,” says Williams.
Simon Markall, head of public affairs and engagement at Energy UK, says that the industry currently has bigger fish to fry than the white paper.
“This is not the time for business as usual,” he says.
“Right now, it’s not our focus: right now that will be on responding to Covid.”
The concern would be that such a potentially far-reaching policy document would not receive the attention that it deserves in the current climate, and even worse, could prove a distraction from more immediately pressing matters.
Similar question marks exist over the fate of the National Infrastructure Strategy, which had been promised at the time of the Budget and can now be expected to have a very different shape.
The nuclear industry meanwhile is keenly awaiting the outcome of the government’s consultation on extending the regulated asset base (RAB) mechanism to finance nuclear power stations as well as long overdue decisions on the location of Small Modular Reactors.
It is important that the current hiatus doesn’t last forever, Williams says: “Even in a lockdown, there will have to be decisions not related to Covid.
Playing the long game
Doug Parr, head of policy at Greenpeace UK, says that if the current crisis carries on for another 12 months, it will be important to make progress on other issues.
“We have a ticking clock with respect to the atmosphere’s composition and we can’t go into suspension on the climate emergency even though there is a very pressing health emergency.”
Tim Yeo, former chairman of the House of Commons energy and climate change select committee, paints two potential strategies for how the UK could reinvigorate its economy post the Covid crash.
“The real risk is that because the oil price is so low, the temptation will be to go on a fossil fuel fuelled spree.”
The alternative could be to embed the net-zero goal in any recovery package, he says: “We could take advantage of the fantastic fall in emissions this year. The clock has been completely reset in 2020 and we’re going to see the biggest fall in carbon emissions year on year over the last 50 years.
“If we make sure the recovery plan has low carbon investment at its heart, we can get a benefit out of it and we might be able to exploit this big setback in a way that has one positive.
“The key is to use this to give the low carbon economy a real kickstart.”
Lord Turner, former chair of the Committee on Climate Change, agrees. “The pandemic will also reorder to an extent the priorities for COP26, as alongside the UN climate process countries will be devising stimulus packages for economies hard-hit by the crisis.
“Clearly, governments around the world have an opportunity to craft support for a range of sectors, from energy to industry and transport, that promotes the transition to a low-carbon economy that member states are already committed to.
“With low-carbon stimulus as a new priority for COP26, it should be seen as an opportunity to rebuild economies hit by coronavirus in ways that are healthier, more resilient to future shocks and fairer to a wider range of people
Giles Wilkes, who served as special adviser to prime minister Theresa May on business and energy issues, says the ramifications of the current crisis could prove double-edged.
“There will be all sorts of new constraints but we will have seen lots of ordinary constraints go down.
“It makes some problems seem lot more trivial and some things will become rather less prominent,” he says, providing energy bills as an example of a concern that may get less traction in a post-Covid world.
“We don’t have the biggest energy bills in the world so we may stop fussing about that now.”
For the time being though, the current crisis dwarfs other concerns, says Markall:“At one point things will normalise again and we will have to work on the white paper and how we meet net zero but to be honest at the moment we wouldn’t welcome the white paper.”
This issue will be discussed in a Utility Week webinar this Thursday (9 April). Pose your questions for our panel of experts and register for the webinar.