British Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Says No To Net-Zero Fear Messaging

Britain's Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance speaks at Downing Street on Oct. 16, 2020. Eddie Mulholland/WPA Pool/Getty Images

Sir Patrick Vallance has told a committee that “we should not aim to frighten people” into changing behaviour over climate change.

During a House of Lords committee called Mobilising action on climate change and environment: behaviour change on Tuesday, the UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance faced questions about how policy actions taken during the COVID-19 crisis could support the government in meeting its 2050 net-zero goal.

Fear Not Necessary for Climate

“It’s important that the messaging [on climate change] isn’t designed to cause fear or upset,“ said Vallance. ”It should be about making sure people understand what the situation is.”

Vallance said that he didn’t think replicating the (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) SAGE  Model, which helped to craft COVID-19 policies, and the  SPI-B (Members of Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour) model was necessary for this kind of issue.

In March 2020, SPI-B pushed for tactics that warned ministers they needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from COVID-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened” and that it needed to be increased among those who are “complacent.”>

‘Individuals Need to Know What Is Expected’

In terms of net-zero, nudge techniques ie to “nudge” people into making better decisions are already embedded in UK media and government.

Last year, the broadcaster Sky commissioned a report from the Behavioural Insights Team, established in the Cabinet Office in 2010 by former Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, to apply behavioural science to public policy on “nudging viewers to decarbonise their lifestyles.”

Furthermore, the Telegraph reported that in December 2020, the government had set up a “green nudge unit” inside the Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy department to persuade Britons to install smart meters, drive less, and cut down on meat.

The secret unit’s existence was revealed in a report from the National Audit Office at the time.

Vallance said that looking ahead “we should not aim to frighten people because that’s not helpful, but we should aim to enable people to understand what actions they can take.”

“I’m eating less meat, I cycle to work, and I fly less than I used to,“ he said. ”I haven’t said I stopped flying or I don’t eat meat—I do. I think it’s about reduction and appropriate reduction across society.”

“Individuals need to know what is expected of them, as well as making that easy for them,” he added.

Many on the Lords committee questioned ways to use behavioural science and nudge to help accomplish the UK’s legally binding targets as a method to move the population towards everyday decisions to spur environmental action.

‘No Such Peer-Reviewed Science’

However, life peer and former Margaret Thatcher cabinet minister Lord Peter Lilley asked, “is it the job of scientists to tell the truth when it is alarming but to keep quiet when it’s not?”

“I put down a question asking the government whether they knew of any peer-reviewed science that suggested that the human race would be rendered extinct in the next couple of centuries if we did nothing, and they said no, we have no such peer-reviewed science,” he said.

Lilley, who has registered declared interests in the oil and gas industry and is known for his critical views on climate and net-zero energy policy, said that “no club of scientists will ever criticize Extinction Rebellion whose very name implies that we will be going extinct if we don’t do anything.” He asked Vallance if it is “the job of scientists to tell part of the truth but not the whole truth?”

“Absolutely not. The job is to try and make the data and the evidence as clear as you can,” replied Vallance. “Science is not an immutable set of facts, it is an assessment of the current state of knowledge,” he added.