The UK government unveiled new research on Monday heavily focusing on promoting “green” behavioural change, with a prominent campaigner labelling the policy proposals “undemocratic.”
The document, titled “Enabling green choices for net zero” and released via the government’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) platform, is intended to complement “Powering Up Britain: Net Zero Growth Plan,” a strategic blueprint released last April, which was designed to spearhead the government’s ambitious goal of achieving a 60 percent reduction in consumer emissions by 2050.
At the heart of this initiative is the promotion of “green choices” across high-emission sectors, including transport, the built environment, and the consumption of goods and services.
The latest document suggests that, “Governments, businesses, and organisations can minimise the effort or cost to individuals of taking green choices by adapting physical and regulatory environments,” an approach that has raised eyebrows over the potential for covert methods of consumer coercion.
Lois Perry, director of CAR26, a pressure group dedicated to scrutinising the efficacy of green policies, told The Epoch Times, “This disreputable quango’s report highlights all that is wrong with the undemocratic way that the business of government takes place in modern Britain.”
Education Initiatives Seek to Target Youth
Education emerges as a cornerstone in the architecture of POST’s briefing, designated as a fertile ground for sowing the seeds of environmental stewardship among the younger generations.
The document suggests that “spill-over can be encouraged through, for example: ... disseminating green careers information and helping young people to identify misinformation in media,” underscoring a consistent theme throughout the policy agenda to cultivate alignment with the government’s net zero ambitions from an early age.
This directive, which supports the government’s priority of raising awareness over sustainability issues, potentially marginalises alternative viewpoints, with critics warning it could stifle a holistic educational discourse.
Elsewhere in POST’s document, potential for censorship over the efficacy of net zero policy direction is introduced via a proposal for “Legislation to prevent misinformation,” ostensibly to bolster public confidence in government, media, and science.
Director of the Free Speech Union, Toby Young, told The Epoch Times via text message: “Legislating against misinformation and disinformation does the opposite of boosting public confidence in politicians, scientists, and mainstream news publishers. It sends a message that there’s so little evidence to support their positions they cannot rely on winning arguments in the public square and instead have to resort to censorship.”
Behavioural Change Model ‘Counterproductive’
“We can see how counterproductive this approach is in the recent measles outbreaks, which have occurred in spite of the huge effort by the authorities to suppress vaccine scepticism,” added Mr. Young. “Silencing the critics of vaccines doesn’t reduce vaccine hesitancy, it increases it because people think, ‘If you’ve got nothing to hide, why are you trying to silence your critics?’”The comprehensive approach of the government’s latest green policy report has garnered endorsements from the powerful Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the House of Lords, both of which are advocating for a shift towards greater societal and behavioural change policies.
POST’s latest contribution is a collaboration including interviews with a board of behavioural change experts, academics, and energy industry leaders, whose guidance shapes the plan’s direction and implementation.
Among them are prominent figures in the field of behaviour change such as Professor Susan Michie, a renowned figure in the field of behavioural change and a member of the Communist Party of Britain, and David Hall, founder and executive director of Behaviour Change, a leading adviser to governmental projects.
Principles Aimed to Encourage ‘Green Choices’
The plan delineates six principles aimed at facilitating these “green choices,” which range from clear and consistent policy direction from central government to the use of “trusted voices” in communicating public messaging. The report claims such strategies will make sustainable options more accessible, affordable, attractive, and straightforward. By addressing the sectors with the highest emissions first, the initiative anticipates a domino effect, inspiring green choices to spill over into other areas of society.The CCC, which is tasked with monitoring the UK’s decarbonisation progress, has highlighted a gap between current and planned policies and the ambitious targets set for the sixth carbon budget covering 2033–2037. Achieving these targets, according to the CCC, will necessitate a 60 percent reduction in consumer emissions through a systemic approach that facilitates “green choices” for individuals.
Ms. Perry, who is also a frontrunner in UKIP’s ongoing leadership contest, added, “There are a lot of politicians and civil servants lapping at the overflowing cup of the green agenda and will recoup their rewards once ’retired.'”
Ms. Perry suggested that new policy proposals may be disingenuous and not truly aimed at “saving the planet.”
