Professor Ian Walker:

I will begin by picking up on the question asked by Deputy Bríd Smith, who asked why anyone would want to persuade her. She is one of the most important individuals we could persuade because she is in a position of power and able to act upon some of these things we are hearing about.

I am, predictably, going to agree with Dr. Lunn about advertising. There is a precedent to some extent because France has begun to take some action in this regard. France tried to legislate for warnings on fossil fuel-related industries, such as car adverts. There has been a bit of backsliding on that recently. However, that is something from which the committee might be able to learn. Why are certain industries' advertisements exempt from health warnings when others are not? That is the way to phrase the question.

Another way to approach the issue that would pick up on the idea of commercial incentives might be to learn from the energy industry and, to a certain extent, the water industry, where performance rating certificates and performance ratings are used as a way to drive industry change. The energy ratings one sees on a light bulb, for example, running from A to F, might appear as if they are there to inform the consumer. In reality, they are more there to drive industry incentives and to incentivise the makers of the light bulb to produce more energy efficient light bulbs. Why are industries such as the car industry not subject to those kinds of rating scales that would reveal which models are unnecessarily energy intensive and which models are not in a visible and compulsory way?

The Deputy also said she was surprised or mystified that we keep focusing on individuals when that is clearly not a great way to solve these problems. I strongly recommend to the committee a paper published approximately two years ago by some European researchers and entitled Discourses of Climate Delay. I would be happy to share the details of that with the committee after the meeting. Those researchers identified 12 common arguments or narratives that are used to provide the status quo bias we talked about earlier. They are 12 common arguments or framings that are employed in order to avoid action on climate change. Emphasising the role of the individual and the importance of individual responsibility is second on the list of climate delay tactics.