Interview Transcript

When you say we have a need to re-write the social contract, could you elaborate a little on that?

Yes. If you take the classic example. I’m very skeptical about the economics of this, but there’s a lot of people assume that a carbon price is the way you solve climate change as a problem. A carbon price that would significantly really help you is very socially regressive because it will hurt people who can least afford to pay the price. You’ve got, as we saw, a movement when the French government tried to increase our vehicle taxes, it created the Gilets Jaunes movement of very aggressive opposition to that. If you want to get rid of the coal industry, which we need to do if we are to solve the climate change problem, you have to be able to say something more than platitudes about what you’re going to do with the people who’s not only employment and salaries, but also dignity you’ve taken away. We’ve not been very good at addressing that. That’s what I mean by re-writing the social contract, so that you don’t leave people behind as you move from a world that is unsustainable to a world that is more sustainable.

In which parts of the movement are we seeing the most effective approach to this or if I could put it differently, on this re-writing of the social contract, which actors out there do you see doing really good work?

Well, all of the various organizations involved in the just transition movement, for instance, on climate change. I think a lot of the conservation organizations, not so much in the public policy realm, but actually on the ground have been very good at making sure that you don’t preserve nature at the expense of people’s livelihoods. There are very good examples that there are people who’ve managed to get this balance right between natural wellbeing and human wellbeing. Let me add a point to that, that in a sense helps. Once upon a time, as I explained, I don’t like the term movement, as that campaigning part of the environmental community grew, it was very oppositional. It was natural to think the corporate world was the enemy, that your other environmental organizations were your friends and it was a sort of war. Lots of the people inside corporate bodies now, and I don’t just mean business bodies, all kinds of corporate organizations, institutions, if you like. There are loads of people who share the same values. You need to find a much more sophisticated interaction between the outside world and the inside world in big institutions. Its always going to have an oppositional component, but it shouldn’t be only an oppositional component.

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