John Morrison on Normalising the Just Transition

This keynote speech was delivered during the SSE Conference - ‘Measuring progress against a just transition to net zero’ - hosted at the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA) in London on 20 April 2023. 

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Since the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce was founded in London in 1754, there have been many significant economic and energy transitions, both here and around the world. For example, the transition from timber as Britain’s main source of fuel to a coal and steam-powered economy was an economic revolution and a key facet of industrialisation. Whether this transition was just or fair or not, became the bread and butter of much political thinking across Europe and beyond.  During the nineteenth century, there was another energy transition, as gas gradually became the main source of light for London’s streets and then its homes. It was not until much more recently, still within living memory, that gas replaced coal as the main form of domestic heating. London’s smog was abated, although other forms of air pollution are still very much with us.

If there is a reason for why our next energy transition needs to be ‘just’ think no further than the 1980s - our transition out of much of our former coal industry divided communities and left regions of the UK economically stranded.

And now we face another transition, perhaps the biggest of all, ending use of fossils fuels and carbon-based energy almost completely. Everyone in this room knows the environmental reasons for why we need to do this. What we discuss much less are the social consequences of what we need to do.

Now the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce - the RSA seems to be a fitting place to try and mainstream the Just Transition debate. Although it appears in the preamble to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the Just Transition is a concept still in its adolescence if not infancy. Whilst Loss and Damage might be understood as addressing some of the social consequences of climate change itself, just transition should be understood as the steps we must take to fight climate change – in other words how to minimise the negative social consequences of climate action, and maximise the positive impacts of this process. And for many communities and workers, both effects will come at the same time – meaning the transition must come at a time when we are searching for strategies that ensure greater resilience and adaptation to the impacts of the changes already underway.

Those of us working in this nascent area are often asked whether attention to addressing adverse social impacts just obscures or delays the climate imperative. It is true that up until now, those most vocal on the social challenges of the transition away from fossil fuels are themselves climate deniers - those unwilling to develop a more sustainable energy system in the first place. However, I would contend that by not addressing these issues head on, we cede the narrative to the populists and the sceptics. So too, if we pretend that this transition will be all ‘upside’: green jobs for all with little or no social disruption. None of our energy transitions in the past have been easy, and there is no reason to believe that this will be the case over the next seven years – and I say that because forget 2050; we have to be halfway to the net zero goal by 2030 or we fail in our task.

So how do we get there in time? By ensuring just and equitable transitions at all levels. 

This is the key message I want to leave you with today: social disruption is now the greatest threat to achieving critical climate action. If we don’t discuss the social impacts of transitions in different countries and sectors, then we risk stoking the fires of social backlash, misinformation and populism. In any transition plan – national, local, or corporate – there will be a social opportunity, but there will also be a social cost that needs to be proactively identified and effectively addressed as much as possible. Scotland has significantly advanced its national Just Transition conversation. The rest of the UK now needs to catch up. With it, I believe, comes the great business and societal opportunity that a just transition can deliver.

So the challenge we face is to mainstream a Just Transition dialogue in the UK. My remaining comments focus on two key questions:

• What precisely are we talking about?
• What are the essential components of a just transition?

So far, it is the global trade union movement that has led the way. We look to this summer’s International Labour Conference at the ILO in Geneva to move global discussions on ‘Just Transition’ forward from the important foundations laid at the ILO focused on addressing worker rights, to a broader conception that other UN agencies, governments and civil society can contribute to and connect to related sustainable development and human rights objectives.

During this critical next phase, there are a number of key factors we must keep in mind.

We must recognise the fact that while workers and jobs are the central consideration of both the transition out of carbon intensive industry, and the transition into more environmentally sustainable forms of energy, workers are not the only affected group. The Just Transition framework that continues to be built, must also include focus on the rights of local communities, indigenous groups, and even consumers (in particular those most impacted by the current global energy and food crises). Leaving anyone behind not only  divides societies and undermines our  Sustainable Development Goals, it threatens the viability of achieving net-zero itself.  In the UK context, the distribution of 'who pays and when' is a key just transition consideration. Low carbon infrastructure (and other low carbon goods and services) must be paid for - ensuing a fair distribution of those costs is a key just transition outcome. 

Also, we need to consider not just the human rights impacts of leaving coal, oil and eventually methane gas, but also the human rights related consequences of transitions into renewables - solar, wind and green hydrogen – a world with more mining – in particular for transition minerals. With this comes the risk of a new wave of land grabs across all continents. Green jobs need to be good jobs, with workplace rights, and also opportunities for ‘local content’, co-ownership, and other ‘benefit sharing’. Our societies will achieve very little if we move from one global extractive model based on carbon, to a green economy that is equally as extractive and leaves poorer countries at the bottom of global value chains. Unsurprisingly, countries such as Nigeria (which has never been able to refine all of its own oil), Senegal which is about to start gas production for the first time, or the DRC (which refines only a small fraction of its own cobalt or copper) feel that richer countries are dictating the terms of a new economy in which Europe, China and North America are already at a competitive advantage.

Perhaps another key premise that has to be underlined, is that Just Transitions are – in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III terms -  acts of ‘mitigation’. In other words, they are mitigating the social consequences of necessary and urgent climate action. Just transitions must not be confused or co-opted into mitigating, or slowing, climate action itself. Put another way, the Just Transition is not an alternative to Climate Action, it is a consequence of Climate Action. Any Just Transition process that is not explicitly rooted in firm Net Zero and other climate targets is the start of what might be called ‘JT washing’.

I would agree also that Just Transitions are only meaningful within a specific context, a particular place and a particular time. The issues for coastal communities in Scotland will not be same as tin mining in Cornwall, or social housing in London, or the many changes in British farming that lie ahead. Nor can these be compared with windfarms in Kenya or the 20 million workers connected to India’s domestic coal economy. We must guard against over generalisations or any false comparisons between any two transition processes. But what I do think we can say with confidence is that there are four key components to any transition process, the presence of which does not guarantee that a process is itself viewed by all actors as being ‘just’, but the absence of an element would raise significant questions.

First, that every transition process has clear beneficial outcomes for those involved.

Second that social and human rights risks are identified through due diligence and are minimised, or prevented completely, through social mitigations.

Third, that procedural rights are respected throughout, whether that be the collective bargaining of workers, the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples or access to adequate remedies when required. Just Transition processes need to be accountable to people they affect and to embody the principles of distributive, procedural and restorative justice.

The fourth and final consideration is perhaps the most fundamental – that the transition is also transformative in terms of economic justice and does not blindly replicate the unequal power relationships of extractive economies.

These four components for just transitions were informed by the 55 experts who we brought together for three days at Wilton Park late last year (including some of today’s speakers) and I would recommend reading the outcomes report from this meeting if you would like to learn more.

These four components might sound like a tall order. But if you agree we should consider justice elements in any transition strategy – how else could we define and frame these objectives other than in terms of the international standards we already have? Put very simply, just transitions are processes that give voice and agency to those most affected by a transition itself. Easy to say, harder to do, and that is why I think we must all congratulate SSE for bringing us together today, and for the ongoing work of Scotland’s Just Transition Commission.

The good news is that most of the standards we need to shape an inclusive way forwarx are already out there. From the ILO Core Conventions to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, to the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises to the Performance Standards of the International Finance Corporation. I am sometimes asked by responsible companies, what is new about a Just Transition approach – aren’t we doing it already through our supply chain management or human rights due diligence? Well, as Michelle Yeoh or the UN Secretary General might put it, one key difference is that it is “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”. Our Net Zero transitions will affect every business sector, and every community within a very concentrated period of time. It is the aggregate and cumulative nature of the risks and impacts we face that perhaps represents our greatest challenge, and makes pre-competitive collective action essential.

Internationally, the UK government is relatively active at the International Labour Organisation and through the initial financing of specific ‘Just Energy Transition Partnerships’ in countries such as South Africa, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal. Understanding how sovereign finance, bonds and guarantees can help ‘crowd in’ the huge amounts of private investment needed for the move away from coal – and then other hydrocarbons – is one of the biggest opportunities to realise the just transition.

But domestically, I worry that the UK is slipping in terms of its own climate commitments in general, including the absence of a national Just Transition dialogue beyond Scotland. Perhaps the Transition Plan Taskforce represents a valuable opportunity here.

Finally, to end on a note of optimism. Whilst the need for a just energy transition is clear and present, so too is the need for similar partnerships in the built environment, agriculture, transport and all forms of infrastructure. If I have one ask to the businesses in the room here today, it is to join the discussion now – to help ensure that the UK’s just transition is pre-competitive and is based on a foundation of trust. Ultimately, ending reliance on fossil fuels is a question of national industrial strategy and we look to central, regional and local governments to set the national framework. But business can do much to enable this process and to ensure that all opportunities are fully realised. Something we did at COP26 in Glasgow and again at COP27 in Egypt was to bring representatives of the ‘supply’, ‘demand’ and ‘financing’ aspects of energy transitions together– both public and private – to understand what incentives and disincentives already exist to drive  attention to the social aspects of transitions.

There are also practical things UK companies can start doing now.  Net Zero Transition Plans are about *how* a company will achieve net zero.  Incorporating action to predict and pre-empt future injustice must be an important component of those plans. And - doing the thinking, considering the social consequences, using agency of influence - setting out principles, plans - and then being accountable for those plans - is all part of the 'normalisation process'.  It's perfectly normal to incorporate the human consequences of the net zero transition into net zero transition plans!  In fact, not doing so, will be counter-productive to the achievement of the plan.

We all need to work on the UK’s Just Transition ecosystem. Many existing standards – such as TCFD for example – have no social quotient at all at present, and where social standards do exist, businesses and government are often not incentivising each other to act.  As I stated already, internationally recognised business and human rights standards are already in place that should be harnessed within Just Transition processes to avoid reinventing the wheel and to ensure the fastest, most efficient climate action possible.

Much could be done quickly to better align existing standards to help create the beginnings of a virtuous cycle. 

By trying to mean everything to everyone, concepts can easily become meaningless to everyone. Alongside  better incentives and disincentives, we  need  to hold each other accountable – to  start the process of ‘quality control’ – so that Just Transition does not slide down the slippery slope of greenwashing or social-washing and quickly become meaningless.

I look forward to our discussions today, and perhaps the RSA and others can help us all  maintain a focus on the lives of all impacted by rapid change through the UK’s next industrial transition, as previous generations have done before.

Thank you.
 

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Read more about the four components of a Just Transition.