Wales chooses #FutureGen architect to speed up Net Zero transition

Jane Davidson has been appointed to lead the Wales Net Zero 2035 group to help the country speed the transition to Net Zero. Jyoti Banerjee, appointed to the group, explores the challenges ahead to imagine a fairer, more sustainable Wales.

The climate emergency has reached the point where leading scientists recently issued “our final warning.” Is anyone paying attention? In Wales, the government is considering how to amend its net zero target from 2050 to 2035. But it needs help to explore exactly how the country can speed up its transition to net zero. Enter the Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group led by Jane Davidson.

As a sustainability mover and shaker, Jane Davidson, a former environment minister, has built considerable capital having led the development of the pioneering Wellbeing of Future Generations Act in 2015. 

Arguably, Jane is taking on a bigger challenge.

Without a speedy transition to Net Zero across the world, there is no prospect of wellbeing for future generations. Plus, this is not a “nice-to-have” optional activity, as some have interpreted the Future Gen Act.

Jane’s group is tasked with:

• finding the best examples of transformative change from Wales and around the world and bringing them to Wales;

• challenging the Welsh government and Senedd (Welsh Parliament) to go further and faster;

• imagining what a fairer, more sustainable future looks like for the Welsh nation.

When Jane approached me to become a member of the group, my immediate instinct was to say no: “I don’t live in Wales and I could not care less about Net Zero,” I heard myself say.

To be clear, I don’t care at all about Net Zero. Or, Net Zero without regard to anything else. Olivier Boutellis and I set up North Star Transition to tackle the climate emergency, and biodiversity loss, and the water crisis and the soil crisis and inequalities and and… All at the same time. We were tired of hearing people say that their grand Net Zero plan was going to right the wrongs of the past and get humanity back on track.

I did explain the context of my refusal to Jane.

“But that’s exactly why I am calling you,” was her response. Say what you like about politicians, and Jane is certainly a politician. But politicians know how to soft-soap when needed. “Wales Transition Lab has a bigger vision for Wales than anybody else and I want that thinking in the challenge group.”

I quietly put aside my net zero allergies and joined in.

According to Jane, “Setting up the challenge group shows that the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru ‘get’ the graveness of our global situation and are serious about how we can lessen the impacts and prepare for the future.”

Connecting on the ground

The Wales Net Zero group is looking for the most imaginative approaches to inform 10-year deliverable plans from 2025 to 2035. It will be seeking views from Wales and the world; making draft conclusions public to openly put them to the test in Wales and beyond, before making recommendations to the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru in summer 2024.

This is not an expert group pronouncing from on high. We want to hear from people and communities across Wales and the world to listen to their experiences and ideas, across a range of key challenges. The first challenge, already launched, is How could Wales feed itself by 2035?  Other challenges focus on energy, heating our buildings, connecting people and places, education and jobs.

Net zero allergies notwithstanding, the group does face some serious challenges in driving change at scale and pace:

• The challenges the group has put forward are shaped by opportunities to influence the legislative agenda in Wales. But politicians and legislators are comfortable in silos and their laws are usually conceived in silos. In this work, we need the various challenges to cross-fertilise and interoperate with each other. In other words, we should not cut-and-paste the solutions developed for complex problems to addressing the super-wicked problem we should be tackling.

• While the challenge groups are appropriate, we could easily miss another important area – what are the risks that Wales faces? I am not sure I have seen a risk assessment for Wales that explores what would happen for failing to achieve its Net Zero goals. Focusing on what politicians can do will be deeply incomplete if we leave out what might happen if politicians fail to act.

• The really wonderful part of being in this group is the opportunity to deploy the wellbeing of future generations legislation in the manner it should be deployed – to take on wicked problems, and conceive of systemic wholistic approaches that shift the direction of travel for all. If we don’t do that, I suspect we will be devaluing the pedigree of the #FutureGen Act – “if that lot could not do it, what do you expect me to do about it” etc etc. Frankly, I think this is where it could get quite personal for Jane, given her #FutureGen history. One way we can ensure we do our best on this is by exploring how the various challenges interplay with each other, and what the impacts of the possible solutions could look like in terms of multiple capitals.

• Finally, we must not be seduced by possible “solutions” to the climate crisis. Our friends at UCL’s Climate Action Unit have put a name to the obsession we keep coming across: Golden Bullet Syndrome. “If only we could trade nutrients, all our water quality problems on the Wye will go away.” There is no single answer that works in any of the areas we are looking at. Every possible intervention brings up a host of related, inter-related and semi-related consequences. Our group, of all groups, needs to be mindful of the dangers of being drawn to seductive solutions.

 LINKS

The Wales Net Zero 2035 Group’s website is now live at https://netzero2035.wales/

The work of the Group can also be followed on

https://twitter.com/WNZ2035 Twitter

https://toot.wales/@WNZ2035 Mastodon

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12830110/ Linked In

The Group members are:

1. Paul Allen, Centre for Alternative Technology

2. Jyoti Banerjee, North Star Transition

3. Prof. Gavin Bunting, Swansea University

4. Jane Davidson, Chair

5. Sarah Dickins, independent

6. Will Evans, The Oxford Farming Conference

7. Keith Jones, National Trust

8. Prof. Hillary Kennedy, University of Bangor

9. Matthew Knight, Siemens Energy

10. Prof. Karen Morrow, Swansea University

11. Dr Eurgain Powell, Public Health Wales

12. Ben Rawlence, Black Mountains College

13. Dr Jennifer Rudd, Swansea University

14. Rachel Sharp, Wildlife Trusts Wales

15. Dr Rhian Mari Thomas, Green Finance Institute

16. Dr Judith Thornton, Aberystwyth University

17. Prof. Lorraine Whitmarsh, University of Bath

18. Simon Wright, University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Observers include:

19. Ben Burgraaf, Net Zero Industry Wales (observer)

20. Dr David Clubb, National Infrastructure Commission Wales (observer)

21. Dr David Joffe, Committee on Climate Change (observer)

22. Jon Oates, Welsh Government (observer)

23. Andy Regan, Nesta Cymru (observer)

24. Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales (observer)

25. Wales Youth Parliament (observer)