You're listening to the Decarbonization Dialogue,
a podcast from Salix. Welcome to the Decarbonization
Dialogue. I'm Hannah Walker and I believe that
the best way to communicate a message is by being
passionate about what you are talking about.
My guest today is Pancho Lewis. Hancho has completed
his postdoctoral fellow at Durham University
and is a PhD researcher at Lancaster University.
He is currently Assistant Professor, Department
of Geography, and his most recent publications
include Fluid Hope in a Climate Emergency and
Reattaching to Coal in a Climate Emergency. He
has also written papers on citizens' assemblies.
Pancho's research looks at the politics of net
zero transitions, focusing on people's effective
experiences in the midst of a climate emergency.
He is also a public engagement specialist and
with a focus on environmental politics. He has
been involved in climate change campaigning,
including at an elected local authority representative
with responsibilities for climate action. For
a number of years, he has also worked for the
food waste platform Too Good To Go, including
as a UK head of partnerships. Outside of academia,
he remains an environmental advisor and is politically
active. Thank you for joining us, Pancho. Thanks
so much for having me, Hannah. Now Pancho, can
you tell us a little bit about your background
and how your interest in people and planet start,
where that all starts and what led you to academia,
politics and research? Yeah, so I think actually
maybe sort of the way to start is by explaining
that the sort of planet that came later, my interest
in planet and environmental issues. It was really
the people that kind of got me going at the beginning.
From a young age, I lived in the UK a bit, but
also grew up in Peru. I'm a half Peruvian, that's
where my name Pancho comes from. And sort of
living in Peru really kind of exposed me to inequalities
within and between countries. and a real sense
of like the kind of injustices that arise when
we look at people's levels of kind of material
well -being and consumption and so on. Kind of
got me interested in politics. I was a local
authority councillor in central London as you
as you mentioned in the introduction and it was
only really when I was a councillor in Westminster
that I became interested in sort of the planet
bit if you like. I was councillor during sort
of 2019 when there was this big wave of climate
emergency declarations, lots of people getting
out on the streets. It was the sort of birth
of Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg's
Fridays for the Future movement. and that got
me kind of really interested in environmental
and climate issues. So eventually I sort of took
that on board and became an academic researcher
who specialises on net zero transitions and how
people emotionally engage with climate as a problem.
Now moving on to your research, so that's a really
good background and a really interesting mix
of cultures there that you've talked about and
I know that we'll kind of allude to all of that
later. It's very important when we're talking
about climate change and who's most impacted
of course by climate change and the climate crisis
we're facing. So in your research and on the
politics of net zero transitions, what do you
think some of the common misconceptions policymakers
have about the public attitudes towards climate
action? Because before you start, I read a figure,
and I think it's a government figure, it's spring
2023. 82 % of UK adults reported being fairly
or very concerned about climate change, but about
13 % of that are politically active in advancing
the cause of climate mitigation. So hence there's
a gap between people being concerned about it
and people using their voice or being active
around this. That's such an important statistic
to look at. You said 82 % of people are either
fairly or very concerned about climate change.
There's been a lot of stuff in the news recently
about a tax on net zero, different policies.
ranging from renewables to decarbonising people's
homes. There's a big kind of media campaign to
try and undermine public support in these really
important initiatives and that's really what's
really important to bear in mind and for any
policymaker and any politician to bear in mind
is that whilst those attacks have had some impact,
by and large people's concern for climate change
remains really really very high and at the same
time people want to see the government take pretty
dramatic action. So I think that's really important
to sort of like foreground and bear in mind.
The other thing I think that is really worth
considering and remembering is that there's this
kind of myth that sort of circulates amongst
policymakers, national politicians, and so on.
And that myth is that people only ever accept
changes to their lifestyle if they're kind of
marginal, if they just don't notice those changes
happening. But that's, again, not true. I mean,
if policies and changes are enacted in a way
which are considered to be sort of fair by people,
people can see they're being carried through
in a way that doesn't kind of detrimentally impact
a certain group of people. If they see that these
changes being done in consultation with people
in genuine consultation in a kind of genuine
two -way dialogue then they're much more likely
to be supportive and then finally people really
need to see that changes are happening in a way
they're effective there's a lot to be said about
making sure that government makes these changes
in a way which are really thought through carefully
planned and so on and if those three elements
that I've just outlined now, if those aren't
things that government are doing, then it's likely
that the sort of conditions for a kind of backlash
or resistance will emerge. But there's nothing
inevitable about that and it's entirely possible
to really make those big dramatic changes. So
let's talk about citizens and climate citizenship,
because I alluded to this when I introduced you,
because I know that you've written papers on
citizens' assemblies, for example. How do you
really see that role of the kind of grassroots
activism, if you like? I know citizens' assemblies
were something that was set up by local authorities.
And I think, and you have to correct me, it's
all about individual choices, whether it's consumption
choices, or is it also about the way that's used
as kind of collective act? as a collective action,
but how do you see the role of social movements
and grassroots activism shaping national or local
climate policies? And do you think there's an
issue around whether people have faith or trust
in authorities to do the right thing? Yeah, I
think I'll take that question in two parts. So
first I'll talk a little bit about climate assemblies
and climate juries. And then I'll talk about
the role of social movements and sort of community
organizing. The reason I separate them out is
because they come from quite different places.
Climate juries and climate assemblies are things
that local governments, usually your national
governments, bring forward. On the other hand,
movements and campaigning, these are things that
emerge from the grassroots. So in terms of climate
assemblies and juries, I mean, I think they can
play a really big role in helping government
devise policies which are going to kind of work
and cut through with people. And the reason really
climate assemblies and juries are so important
is because we are talking about big changes to
people's lives if net zero policies are being
put into practice. We're talking about changes
in regards to people's diets, potentially, how
people get about, how people heat their homes,
and so on and so forth. So you can't make these
changes in a top -down way without hoping that
no one's going to notice. You've got to make
these changes in a way which are in dialogue
with people. So I think they can play a really
big role. What I would say is that I think that
probably during the period of sort of 2019, 2020,
there was lots of sort of of hope invested in
climate assemblies and juries as a mechanism
for delivering quite big, transformative change
and that maybe some people... almost approached
it as a silver bullet. It's not a silver bullet.
It's one thing that needs to be done alongside
a series of other things if we're going to tackle
the climate crisis. In regards to the second
part of your question about community organizing,
campaigning, and so on, I think I see grassroots
activism playing a really important role, again,
going back to those latter years in the 2010s.
we really did see a big increase in awareness
and political action around climate issues when
XR, when Schools for the Future were... doing
that amazing work they were doing. The UK Parliament
declared a climate emergency after we saw this
big swell in grassroots movements, so it really
did affect significant change. What I would say
is that it's important always to think about
how grassroots organizing campaigns, how they
sort of either converge or collide with broader
kind of social political. economic factors on
their own, they won't produce the changes we
need to see. I really need to be kind of operating
alongside the opportunities that exist in the
in broader kind of societal dynamics. And I think
one of the things that's happened recently is
that the conditions that we saw in the in those
years in the latter stages, the 2010s, they've
shifted quite considerably in the period we're
living in now. And that that then means that
campaigners need to reimagine their tactics and
think a bit differently about how to do climate
campaigning nowadays. It would be nice to be
able to explain exactly what those citizen -led,
you know, the citizen, climate citizen workshops
are that are being set up by local authorities.
But of course you have this balance and you've
been able to create this kind of, you've seen
it from both sides already because you're working
very much on the research. and the academic side
of it, which involves presumably a lot of data
as well coming in. But you've also been, as we
said earlier, a local representative on a council.
What did you learn from your experience as a
local authority representative? And did you see
the power of community mobilising for climate
action in action when you were on that council?
And I'd like to know what lessons you learned
from that experience for yourself and that you
can actually use in your academic work. It was
really interesting because I was sitting there
as a newly elected counselor. I was elected in
May 2018. I remember sitting in a council meeting
in February 2019, so nearly a year in, and I
was looking around in one of these council meetings
with people standing up and giving all these
grandiose speeches, et cetera, et cetera. And
I noticed that no one was mentioning anything
about climate change. And this is kind of possibly
one of the most important councils in the country,
Westminster Council, that's where you've got
UK Parliament, it's where you've got Buckingham
Palace and so on. It was extraordinary that there
was such a big disconnect between what elected
representatives were saying and what was going
on on the streets. So I was a Labour councillor
and at the time it was a Conservative controlled
council. And so I said, well, we have to do something
about this. It's extraordinary. How come we're
not picking up on all this movement that's happening
outside of Westminster Council walls? I worked
with a bunch of different stakeholders, politicians
from different parties, residents, community
groups, and so on, and adopted a whole series
of tactics to try and get the council to declare
a climate emergency and commit to net zero by
2040, I think it was. At the beginning, it was
a huge amount of resistance. The response I received
was, we don't do things like this. Why would
a local authority declare an emergency over something
it doesn't have full control over? The sense
in the room was really like, this is not something
that we could possibly do, kind of thing. We
just kept at it. We kept going. We kept going.
And four or five months later, they were passing
a climate emergency declaration. Things have
shifted. They felt the pressure. They knew the
time had come to start recognizing this as a
problem. And very, very, very, I think this is
the key point to sort of underscore, very, very
rapidly attitudes changed. So things can change
very, very quickly. We aren't all stuck in one
way of operating. That's an opportunity, but
it's also a risk because we can also see things
backslide in the other direction. Arguably, that's
what's happening. with climate and net zero politics
today. And that's interesting you mentioned Westminster
because we also work at SELIX, we have worked
with Westminster on some very big decarbonisation
projects and big public buildings, town halls
etc and they've made huge strides over the last
few years and exactly after the period that you're
talking about so quite incredible that things
can change so quickly but perhaps things aren't
going fast enough. We could all argue things
aren't going fast enough. Moving back to your
research at Lancaster, what lessons from your
doctoral research at Lancaster are most relevant
for policymakers? And I know there's a lot there
and I'm asking you a big question and we've got
limited time, but what lessons do you think are
most relevant for policymakers and politicians
trying to implement sustainable practices today?
Very briefly, I'll provide just a little bit
of context. I carried out my research in West
Cumbria, so a very different context to Westminster.
Talking about the most urban part of London,
in the case of Westminster, shifting out to the
northwest of England right alongside the Scottish
border, a really remote rural disconnected area.
And the place had become a bit of a hotbed of
energy politics during the period I was doing
my PhD and there was a really simple reason for
that and that's that there were plans to open
up a new coal mine in the area where I was conducting
my field work. This would have been kind of the
first coal mine that the UK would have opened
in something like 20 or 30 years. So really controversial
but I was trying to understand why residents
in the area by and large seemed to support the
coal mine. And I found sort of two things. First,
in line with what we've been discussing earlier,
people in the area in West Cumbria were very
concerned about climate change. They were concerned
about its impacts on their kids, its impacts
on them today. They could see that weather events
were changing. And at the same time, there was
strong local support for this coal mine to open.
Just to really cut a long story short, it really
just came down to the promise of the delivery
of new jobs in the area. Whilst people wanted
to see the government do more to reduce emissions,
they couldn't see any clean industries being
delivered in their area. So they got behind that
coal mine. There was also an important part.
of the story here which is about the kind of
cultural heritage of coal and how it connects
with people's identities and the sort of Australian
mining company who were seeking to open up the
coal mine did a really good kind of PR job of
connecting up that past with the promise of future
economic development. So the lesson for government,
kind of like really simple on one level, is you've
got to deliver those alternative industries.
if you're going to get people behind net zero.
I think one of the reasons why we're seeing this
slightly strange situation where the levels of
concern about climate remain very high and yet.
kind of backing for the net zero as a project
is slightly declining is because people are seeing
that the net zero project itself in some ways
has not been worked through as carefully as it
should have been. We're not seeing all the policies
being delivered in the way they should. And people
also don't fully trust the capacity of government
to make these more transformative changes. That's
a real problem. We'd have to spend a lot longer
talking about exactly what's going on with net
zero. I don't want to come across as if I were
like being overly critical of the project because
it is what we've got at the moment and it is
what's helping us move forward and good things
are happening but there are things we need to
work through at the moment we haven't actually
quite precisely worked out. Yeah that's interesting
and it is that storytelling so and that was when
you talk about that coal mine and then you talk
about the green jobs and the alternatives. yeah
everybody knows from what we're saying and what
you're saying is we know that climate we need
to take climate action but we need to know where
we're going don't we so it's the way we're telling
that story and the emotional storytelling as
well because obviously people need to put food
on the table but we need to it is also something
that comes from the heart as well. How do you
think that we can encourage because the more
information we have I suppose that we see climate
on our news, some kind of climate story on our
news most days. Do you think that the more awareness
of climate then perhaps can lead to the greater
pessimism about what's happening? Is that, do
you think, an issue? Well I think the simple
answer is yes because I don't think we should
underestimate the scale of problems that exist
in the future. We are talking about a huge huge
issue and there's no a simple solution to very,
very rapidly decarbonizing. Having said that,
I don't think we do necessarily all need to sort
of fall into a pattern of thinking, which is
all about despair, because there are lots of
things to be hopeful about. We are seeing some
good policies come through. We are seeing a rapid
increase in renewables, certainly in places like
the UK and elsewhere. There are changes on the
ground that are happening, but also people are
affecting change. We were talking about community
organizing and grassroots campaigns earlier on.
These things are having a real kind of... big
impacts, I really wouldn't underestimate that.
And what that tells people who are listening
to this podcast and also listening to other podcasts
and thinking about this issue is that what we
do as individuals and what we do in our communities
really, really matters. You know, it might seem
like climate is a huge global problem, but change
that starts at the individual level and the community
level can kind of scale up. to the regional level,
the national level and then the international
level. I truly believe that as well, that the
power is really at the grassroots level and it's
how we use that and how all of the groups and
concerns are connected within that. Apologies,
I interrupted you. The only other thing I was
going to say is that what I also think is that
if people feel apathy or people feel despair,
that these aren't things that we necessarily
need to associate as being negative, that these
emotions have an important role in the politics
of net zero transitions and climate. So despair,
for example, can be quite a productive feeling.
So if you think, for example, about some of the
greenwashing that we hear about, corporate greenwashing,
for example, oil and gas companies saying, oh,
we're going to develop all these magical solutions
which are going to suck out carbon from the atmosphere.
Don't get me wrong, there is a role for CCS,
it's just more limited than it's usually acknowledged.
When people hear this stuff they sometimes feel
despair and it's right to feel despair because
often these are just things that are not true.
So despair can have its own kind of political
momentum and energy and that's important to recognise.
And then finally, even when people feel a sense
of apathy or disconnection or they lose inspiration,
again that's an important part of any political
cycle. Campaigners and activists aren't out on
the streets all the time 24 -7 for 80 years or
however long they live. They go through cycles
of being inspired and then kind of withdrawing,
regaining kind of the energies that they need,
rethinking their strategies, becoming creative,
and then reconnecting. And so apathy, you know,
it can be an important part of that process.
It's easy to rush and say, okay, well, these
feelings they're not quite right, we should judge
them, but actually they all play, I think they
all can play a pretty productive role in environmental
politics. So not to stand back from that and
to realise that those emotions of despair, whether
it's apathy, whether it's despair, can be used
to create action at some point and be used in
a positive way. Can I just ask, my final question
really, is what next for you then? Because you've
had a really interesting background. You've got
your teeth stuck in some incredible research
having an impact on policy. What next for you
in your career? Well at the moment I'm really
continuing to be sort of focused on my academic
stuff. Going back to the answer I just gave earlier,
things go in cycles, changes more circular than
linear sometimes. At the moment, I'm doing my
academia. Later on, I might foreground or spend
more time doing campaigning like I did earlier.
But the immediate next step is to think about
some research proposals to access new grants,
to carry out more research, probably like a three
or four year project. The thing that I'm really
interested in at the moment is thinking critically
about some of the kind of growth mantras that
we hear. You know, the Labour government, I was
a Labour councillor, so you know, that's where
my party allegiances historically lay. But at
the moment, with the Labour government, we just
hear them talking about growth the whole time,
right? And of course, improving people's material,
that stance of living is important. But the problem
with the growth, growth, growth, growth, growth
mantra is that it kind of suggests that that's
the the only way we can move forward and that's
the only desirable future but actually people
are capable and i think i've sort of hinted at
this earlier people are capable of living in
lots of different ways you know we haven't always
lived these really high carbon energy intensive
lifestyles we've lived in lots of ways And people
nowadays living under kind of modern economic
conditions, not everyone chooses to live such
a fossil fuels and energy intensive lifestyle.
So I'm interested in really tracking and tracing
those people who kind of challenge sometimes
in quite subtle ways growth mantras. The interesting
thing is that if you speak to a lot of people,
I was in the pub the other day with a friend
of mine, a guy who works in the city of London,
he's not someone who's like a hippie living in
a commune just eating lentils, this is this guy
who lives a certain lifestyle, and he turned
around and told me that he thought the growth
imperative was at odds with environmental sustainability,
and that really got me thinking, it's like this
guy who... you know we would imagine as someone
who might be very very attached to sort of energy
intensive living flying everywhere etc even he's
beginning to see sort of that maybe the two things
don't quite add up i'm interested in thinking
about these you know these kind of fissures these
tensions these things that signal that maybe
there are other ways of living Thank you to Pancho
Lewis for spending time with us today and providing
such insight. There can be no doubt that climate
change is the biggest challenge of our time.
Today we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions
to slow global warming. Today we must act for
tomorrow, adjusting our lifestyles to current
and future impacts of climate change. Today we
must use our collective wisdom to deliver on
our climate commitments. Today we work for tomorrow's
world. Thank you once again to Pancho and don't
forget to subscribe to our podcast channels and
tell us what you think. Email us at podcast at
salixfinance .co .uk. Thank you once again to
Pancho. Thanks, Anna. Thank you. You've been
listening to the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a
podcast from Salix. For more information about
our work and to find more content, please visit
salixfinance .co .uk forward slash podcasts.