A rose by any other name

Names have held power for as long as we have told stories. In The Conjuring 2, Lorraine Warren gains power over the demon Valak when she discovers its name. Rumpelstiltskin loses his claim on the Queen’s child when she discovers his.

The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee published a new report concluding that ‘net zero’ has become a distraction from the purpose of the energy transition and a lightning rod for opposition. It recommended using the term less and removing it from the department’s name.

Scientist Myles Allen, who helped popularise ‘net zero’, told Times Radio the name was largely irrelevant. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” claims Juliet Capulet. But Romeo’s name helps get both of them killed, and parties polling at nearly 50% want to scrap net zero targets. So something’s up.

The idea of balancing greenhouse gas emissions with removals became embedded in the Paris COP21 settlement and increasingly expressed as ‘net zero’. The error was allowing the phrase to move from technical language into the political mainstream, until the target became the name of the whole endeavour.

There are three failings with the term Net Zero which should inform any organisation’s communications.

It disguises the intent

‘Net zero’ describes a means. It does not explain why anyone should care. A technical end state with no emotional meaning has become the public-facing explanation for why people are being asked to change behaviour and accept costs.

‘Climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ was focus-grouped by pollster Frank Luntz for the Republican Party: it sounded less frightening. But ‘tackling climate change’ at least states the intention and invites scrutiny: does this policy help, is the cost justified and could the same objective be achieved another way?

Net zero displaces that honesty. Higher bills become the cost of net zero. Infrastructure is imposed for net zero. Electric vehicles mean binning your petrol car in service of net zero. Each dispute accumulates under the same label until the label itself becomes the thing opposed.

It weakens understanding and attachment

The Committee found broad support for addressing climate change alongside limited understanding of net zero. Claire Chappell told the inquiry that “the public do not understand in detail what net zero is”, and Chris Stark recalled that UK Climate Assembly participants were often turned off by the language but excited by some of what was required to achieve climate objectives.

A person can care about climate change, support measures to address it and still feel no attachment to an emissions accounting target. The label asks people to connect an abstract end state with the purpose and costs attached to it.

This is what happens when a technical term is expected to generate public consent. Precision inside government does not automatically produce meaning outside it.

It turns a shared objective into a political position

People can disagree profoundly about the cost, pace or method of tackling climate change without rejecting the objective. “Net Zero” creates a cleaner binary: for the programme or against it.

That risks converting a shared objective into an identifiable political proposition.

Brexit is a useful example in the other direction. The thing to achieve was Brexit: to thumb a nose at metropolitan elites, reduce immigration or regain sovereignty. There was no single outcome, but Brexit held the truth of all of these.

Net zero does the reverse. It has an exact technical definition and an increasingly diffuse political meaning. It names the mechanism more clearly than the reason for pursuing it.

Just say what you mean

The Committee’s answer is to talk more about tangible benefits, including cheaper energy and greater energy security. There is sense in making policy relevant to people’s lives.

But replacing one wrapper with another risks repeating the mistake.

If the purpose of reducing emissions is to limit climate change, government should say so. If a policy improves energy security, explain that benefit on its merits. Where the transition imposes costs, make the case against the outcome being sought.

Good communications begins with honesty of intent. Technical language is useful for defining and measuring policy. It is a poor substitute for explaining why anybody should want to achieve it.

Juliet Capulet desperately yearned for a name to have no power. Government is learning to its cost that wishing doesn’t make it so.