Through universal essential services, we can ensure everyone gets what they need and deliver it in a way that reduces emissions
Universal basic services (UBS) can play key role in tackling climate emergency, say a report today From NEF and the Berlin-based Hot or Cool Institute. UBS provides a secure foundation for society by ensuring everyone has access to the essentials of life, and promotes equity by meeting the needs of everyone, regardless of income or status. They can be designed to curb harmful emissions and preserve natural resources. By placing human well-being and social justice at the center, they also help build democratic support for climate action.
the term of‘UBS is an acronym for a range of collective measures, including services, investments and regulation. It describes policy frameworks aimed at universally and adequately meeting human needs. Markets can provide some necessities, but they cannot ensure that everyone gets everything they really need now or in the future. This can only be achieved through collective action supported by public institutions – including services ranging from health care and education to housing, utilities, transportation and digital access.
Today’s report highlights UBS as an integral eco-social policy, central to all efforts to build a sustainable economy and Green New Deal in the UK and across Europe. It does this in three ways: by influencing public attitudes and consumption patterns; by transforming supply systems; and by supporting political programs for green transitions.
Influencing Attitudes and Consumption
UBS is not advocating free markets and unfettered consumption universal self-sufficiency: Enough for everyone so that everyone can be fed. It involves pooling resources, sharing risks and working together to ensure everyone’s needs are met. It actually expresses the idea that we are all interdependent and share responsibility for each other’s well-being. This helps build broad support for limiting consumption and limiting excess (SUVs, frequent flights, meaty diets, etc.) so everyone can live a good life.
Discussions about sustainable consumption tend to focus on what individuals buy in the marketplace—food, cars, clothes, vacations, home appliances, etc.—and how to change individual behavior. UBS shifted focus to public consumption outside the market through (partially or fully) tax-funded and democratically controlled services. Collectively provided services have a smaller ecological footprint than privately funded alternatives. Confirmed by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) That of‘Development that targets the basic needs and well-being of all is less carbon-intensive than growth that is centered on GDP.
Take transportation as an example.Greenhouse gas emissions from cars and taxis exceed seven times higher than from the bus. Accessible, coordinated public transport in metropolitan areas, even without free fares, Has been found to reduce car traffic, improve air quality and lower carbon emissions. Free bus fares would exacerbate this effect, especially if combined with measures to deter private cars, such as congestion charges and parking fees. Frequent, well-connected and affordable train services will reduce short-haul flights, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Transform configuration system
If supply systems (the combined processes of providing services) are democratically controlled and designed to serve the public interest, they are more likely to protect the environment than market-based systems.UBS agenda supports development of‘social license‘, by which state and non-state service providers are bound by a common set of public interest obligations. This can be used to ensure decent pay and conditions for service workers, as well as limit profit extraction, establish quality standards and coordinate sustainable practices across networks of staff, service users and suppliers. In this way, suppliers can promote active travel, resource-efficient construction and local food sourcing, avoid duplication and waste, minimize excess demand, and implement national strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For example, a well-regulated and securely funded childcare system would generate a large number of low-carbon jobs and help prevent harms that would otherwise require resource-intensive interventions by a range of public agencies. Through social license, it promotes sustainable practices, covering, for example, how childcare centers are built, equipped and maintained; how much energy and non-renewable resources they use; and how children travel to and from their homes. Child care can also encourage children to value, enjoy and protect the natural environment from an early age.
Support Green Transformation
UBS builds a secure foundation for everyone.It does this by providing a very valuable service of‘In-kind benefits that don’t require direct payments, and by helping to create jobs across the country at all skill levels. Public services that provide everyday necessities are more valuable to people on low incomes – and they would lose more disposable cash if they had to pay for these services directly. UBS therefore has a high degree of redistributive power, helping to ensure that the costs of climate change mitigation do not fall on the poorest. Crucially, it puts social justice at the heart of climate action—the only way to ensure electoral support for a Green New Deal.
