Climate change: People 'must consume less' says Ian Boyd
Sir Ian said polluting activities should incur more tax. He believes the Treasury should reform taxation policy to reward people with low-carbon lifestyles and nudge heavy consumers into more frugal patterns of behaviour.He also believes Net Zero won't happen unless the government creates a Net Zero ministry to vet the policies of all government departments in the way the Brexit ministry vets Brexit-related decisions.
Sir Ian, a polar expert with a chair in biology at St Andrews University, suggested that the UK was in a good position to show the world how to achieve Net Zero. But he agreed that similar radical action was ultimately needed by all nations. Sir Ian, who leaves Defra on Thursday after six years in post, said:"The way we live our lives is generally not good for the environment."That means we have to grow those resources or we have to mine them - and in doing that we generate waste. And consumption is going up all the time.
"We certainly won't be able to travel so much as we have in the past, so we have to get used to using modern communications methods.
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