Climate change: the need for a global response

If ever there was a global problem needing a global response, then it is climate change. Concern about it has been steadily rising over the last 30 years, and in particular over the last 18 months. In this lecture, I plan to look at the background, to go briefly over the science, to examine the somewhat rickety bridge between the science and the politics and economics, and finally to discuss the international implications, especially for trans Atlantic relationships.

First I suggest that we stand back and see climate change as only one of the impacts which our small animal species is having on the surface of the Earth and all life within it. Most things have happened in the long history of the Earth, but our current circumstances are unique. In the words of a recent book, it is "Something New Under the Sun". To make sense of the scale and character of the impacts we have to bring in such issues as human population increase, degradation of soils, exploitation of resources, pollution of water, both salt and fresh, and destruction of other living species on which we wholly depend.

Those of us who live in industrial countries have to recognize that the last 200 years or so have been a bonanza of inventiveness, exploitation and consumption which may not continue. During that time humans have moved more rocks and soil, and lost and poisoned more top soils and freshwater than all volcanoes, glaciers and tectonic plates put together.

We are often reckoned as the most successful species ever known in the history of the Earth. But all successful species, whether bivalves, beetles swallows or humans, multiply until they come up against the environmental stops, reach some accommodation with the rest of the environment, and willy-nilly restore some balance.

In fact most of the solutions to the problems we are causing are well known. There is no need for despair. Take population increase. The overall rate is still rising, but in several parts of the world, including our own, it is levelling off. Nonetheless we face increasing pressure of people moving from one part of the world to another under the impact of environmental, in particular climatic, change.

Take degradation of land and water. We know how to look after them both if we try. We do not have to exhaust top soils, watch them erode into the sea, rely upon artificial aids to nature, eliminate the forests with their rich variety of ecological functions, or pollute the water, fresh and salt. We already accept the need for conservation and for better understanding of the complexity of living systems, well brought out in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment published last year. Some at least are aware of the risks of high technology, and are trying to cope with them.

Closely linked to all this comes climate change, what the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser has described as a bigger threat to society even than terrorism. The science is becoming ever clearer and more precise. For the last 11,000 years or so, we have been in a warm interlude in a succession of ice ages.

The driving forces of climate since the earliest days some 4.6 billion years ago have been a combination of factors of varying strength: they include the ever changing relationship between the Earth and the Sun (the Earth's elliptical orbit, its varying tilt and its propensity to wobble); the movement of tectonic plates on the Earth's surface; the quantity of the so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane) which retain some of the heat from the Sun; and, as has recently been established, the influence of living organisms. It is a sobering thought that, if the Earth were only a little further from the Sun or a little nearer to it, life as we know it could not have evolved.

There is now the new factor which is ourselves. It is for that reason that Paul Crutzen and his colleague Eugene Stoermer have suggested that a new geological epoch has followed the Holocene (which succeeded the Pleistocene at the end of the ice ages) and should be called the Anthropocene, in other words the epoch characterized by human influence.

Perhaps the central difficulty so far has been how to distinguish natural change from human-driven change. We now know far more about natural change. A new field of study has become tipping points, when one set of climatic circumstances can - sometimes rapidly - switch into another. Here are some examples:

• the state of the Amazonian rainforest
• the direction of the North Atlantic Conveyor current or Gulf Stream
• the wind-blown effects of Saharan sand on the Atlantic and Amazonia
• the release of methane clathrates from beneath the tundra and ocean bed, and release of methane from terrestrial sources, including peat bogs
• the frequency and intensity of El Nino and La Nina across the Pacific with worldwide consequences
• the state of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets

There are two jokers in the pack:

• sudden cooling effect (the Younger Dryas event some 12,500 years ago)
• runaway greenhouse effect (Palaeocene / Eocene 55 million years ago.

Then there are the human-driven effects. In the Third Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of 2001, one conclusion was that

"in the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the [human-induced] increase in greenhouse gas concentrations".

Yet more evidence is now available and will be set out in the Fourth Assessment of the Panel next year.

Let me list the main points of human-driven change:

• the rise in carbon emissions, now at their highest level for 740,000 years. The evidence suggests that we could be heading back to the conditions of 125,000 years ago, when the configuration of land and sea was very different
• this rise is well illustrated by figures relating to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The quantities were
  • 190 ppm (parts per million) in glacial times
  • 285 ppm in warm interludes
  • 381 ppm today and at present rising by around 2 ppm a year
• forest clearance between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago (when a reversion to colder conditions might have been expected);
• warming of the oceans with a rough 30 year time lag: see the increase in hurricane intensity: Brazil 2004, Katrina 2005, China 2006;
• the dimming paradox: less pollution may mean more warming.

What have been the effects so far? They can be seen in

• changes in weather everywhere with particular vulnerabilities in India, China, Africa and South America;
• changes in ecosystems, including insects and micro organisms of all kinds;
• melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, and of Himalayan glaciers (with their effects on the river systems of China and India);
• availability of fresh water;
• agriculture;
• human health;
• the obvious but poorly recognised threats to current social, and in particular, urban infrastructure: sewage, reservoirs, buildings, public services;
• movement of people within and between countries, in particular environmental refugees: witness the waves of them reaching the Canary Islands in 2006;
• the growing implications for business / industry / transport / insurance / banking / planning;
• increasing competition for resources.

And more of all this to come.

You may wonder what the effects are likely to be in this country. According to the work of such institutions as the Hadley Centre within the Met Office, the UK Climate Impacts Programme and the Tyndall Centre, the prospects are for substantial and ever accelerating changes in this century. In general terms Britain can be divided by a line running north west to south east. There will be warmer summers in both, with more rainfall in the north west and much less, even drought conditions, in the south east. For winters both will be warmer and wetter. Sea level rise will be coupled with isostatic sinking in the south and south east. Together these changes could have major impacts on the whole economy. Let me summarize the more obvious impacts, and the questions arising from them.

Water

• What will be the effects on reservoirs, storage capacity, sewage systems: are they in the right place, will supply match demand?

Agriculture

• What should be our choice of crops?
• What new plant and animal diseases should we expect?

Energy

• What restrictions should be placed on carbon emissions?
• How should we move towards renewable sources (wind, tide, geothermal, solar, biofuels etc), and possibly new nuclear technology?
• How much should we move from macro to micro energy systems?
• How should we best promote energy saving and greater efficiency?
• What new technologies should be applied to transport (cars, ships, aircraft)?

Cities and towns

As a member of the Government's Urban Task Force, I worked on the future character of all British cities (at present urban areas in England alone account for 90 percent of the population, 91 percent of economic output, and 89 percent of jobs). Throughout we took good account of environmental, in particular climatic factors. What more should be done? How should town planning, such as it is, be adapted to take account of

• urban breakdown of all kinds?
• buildings, architecture and future design?
• new configurations of business and industry?
• waste disposal?

Coastlines

• What should governments do? Fortifying sea defences has to be selective. Where should the priorities be, and at whose expense?
• how should we cope with salt water pollution of wetlands and aquifers?

This huge range of issues can be raised in all countries of the world. Our own predicament may look alarming to us, but that of other countries, particularly the poorest in the Equatorial belt around the Earth, could be much worse.

I now turn to the problems of public understanding, and of what I described earlier as the rickety bridge between the science and the politics and economics. I am sure you have often noticed how difficult scientists have found it to express themselves in language politicians and economists can follow, and even more difficult to get them to take the necessary action.

For that reason the publication of the review by Sir Nicholas Stern on The Economics of Climate Change on 30 October was particularly important. Having surveyed the scientific evidence as an economist, he concluded that it was overwhelming, and demanded "an urgent global response". His most quoted recommendation was that:

" ... if we don't act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5 percent of global GDP each year, now and for ever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20 percent of GDP or more. In contrast the costs of action - reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change - can be limited to around 1 percent of global GDP each year."

It is fair to say that the Stern review has changed the character of the debate, not only in this country but throughout the world. It was even being quoted in China where I was last week. A huge impulse has been given to the international debate, reinforced by comparable demands for action from the International Energy Agency and the OECD.

This is not the occasion for going over the history of international discussions of climate change, but I record the key events as they illustrate what is now in train:

• 1972 the Stockholm conference on the environment
• 1987 the report of the Brundtland Commission
• 1988 creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• 1990 the second World Climate Change Conference,
• 1992 the Framework Convention on Climate Change at Rio
• 1997 the Kyoto Protocol & successive meetings of the parties
• 2005 the G8 meeting at Gleneagles
• 2006 the meeting of the G8 + 5 + 8 at Monterrey
• 2006 agreement at Nairobi to negotiate the follow up to Kyoto post 2012.

In effect there are now two processes at work. That of Kyoto and its aftermath; and that of Gleneagles and its aftermath. The recent meetings of both were encouragingly positive, and recognized the need for early practical action, particularly in settings targets and moving towards a low carbon society. As David Miliband said afterwards, this transition "will involve the biggest restructuring in how we live and work since the industrial revolution." In both processes the positions of Europe and the United States are key.

Since the days of Margaret Thatcher, Britain has given leadership on climate change. The Europeans have worked together to give effect to the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, and without them it might well not have been ratified. The EU Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme has had its up and downs, and is now under revision. Some EU countries including Britain will meet their Kyoto obligations, but others will fall short. All now seem to realize the gravity of the threats caused by climate change. This attitude was evident in the recent meetings at Nairobi (for the Kyoto process) and Monterrey (for the Gleneagles process).

By contrast the attitude of the current US Administration has been negative, and has aroused strong resentment elsewhere. The United States accounts for 4 percent of the world's population, yet emits more than 20 percent of its greenhouse gases.

There is a marked contrast:

• On the one hand is the US scientific community which has been - and still is - to the fore in much of the research on climate change and its likely impacts worldwide. The same goes many in the US business community and some US states, especially in the North East and the West. These state initiatives are important not only because they can help pave the way for federal action but also because U.S. states are themselves large emitters of greenhouse gases. California's emissions exceed those of Brazil. Ohio's emissions exceed those of Turkey, and emissions in Illinois exceed those from the Netherlands.
• On the other hand is the Administration with its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and negative attitude on climatic as well as other environmental issues. It has even undermined its own government advisors and experts on the subject, and has applied unpleasant forms of pressure within the international community. As was written last year by the editor of Science magazine,

  "the non-participation of the United States in the global effort on climate change is more than a national embarrassment. It's dangerous."

Yet things are now changing fast, and were doing so even before the mid-term elections this month. I was struck during a recent visit to Svalbard to look at glacial melt on the spot to find that I had been preceded there by two possible US presidential candidates in 2008: Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Perhaps we should worry more about the position of Canada which, although it ratified the Koto Protocol, now shows distinct signs of wobble. But in the last resort it will be judgement of national interest which will prevail. Both the United States and Canada are vulnerable in different ways to climate change which will give opportunities as well as risks, and we may expect different conclusions to be drawn.

Throughout I have been talking about the need for global solutions to global problems. Your particular interest is in European and trans Atlantic relationships, and I have not attempted to bring in the many other aspects of climate change that concern the rest of the world. Let me simply underline that no solution to the problems of climate change can be envisaged without the United States.

As I used to say at the United Nations in New York, we do not necessarily ask for US leadership, but we do need US cooperation. At all events we must learn to think and behave differently. Even those who accept the premise of the need for change have very different priorities. It is easy to bleat about the problems but more difficult to set priorities for action.

My own are as follows:

• Obviously we need urgent action on climate change, and clearly this means action on energy policy, and the switch to a low carbon society. So much has been said on this that I will not repeat it.
• We need to do far more to understand the Earth system. We are often ignorant of our own ignorance. The recent report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment will help. But the complexity of all living things and their mutual dependencies at present passes human understanding. Yet we damage it at our peril.
• We need to look again at economics and the way we measure wealth, welfare and the human condition in terms of the Earth's good health. Because of our current preoccupation with material wealth and prosperity, many, usually with the best intentions, want to find means of attaching monetary value to almost everything. But how do we give a monetary value to the loss of a species or a natural service? The GNP/GDP system gives a deeply misleading impression of value, and many people, including I am sorry to say politicians, rarely seem to know what they mean by 'economic growth'. The key question is how to establish true costs. As has been well said, the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. Governments have a particular responsibility to determine what is in the public interest, and to use fiscal instruments to promote it. Here the Chinese government has recently taken the lead. It has actually applied the principles of "clean green growth", and is trying to introduce new methodologies of economics. They fit surprisingly well with the analysis in the Stern review. Neither state-directed economics nor market economics can alone supply the right framework.
• Nowhere is this more true than in the field of technology. We need to make much better use of it and its myriad applications. We also need to understand the hazards, particularly over pollution. Risks are hard to assess. The short term must not be allowed to defeat the long term.
• We need to apply the principles of common but differentiated responsibility, accepting that industrial countries have much bigger responsibilities for what has gone wrong as well as what has gone right, and should give the example in their domestic policies. Both Europe and the United States are guilty of talking development and market access in one breath, and defending subsidies to the hilt with the other.
• We need a multiplicity of ideas and a multiplicity of responses and there must be some form of global forum, where all these opinions can be heard. This is why the United Nations is key. The good health of its institutions, and respect for them are vital. Governments often blame the United Nations for failures. More legitimately the United Nations blames governments.
• We need closer partnerships at all levels between governments, universities, business and local communities. We need to understand the dynamics and impact of change; initiate and lead informed debate; encourage and apply new thinking; promote innovation and social justice; energize people to find their voice and to fulfil their potential.

The British Astronomer Royal has rated the chances of our civilization surviving until the end of the century as no more than 50 percent. All over the world people have to change their ways and remodel their thinking. How will these changes come about? Change usually takes place for three main reasons. First through leadership from above by institutions or individuals; secondly through public pressure from below; and thirdly - however regrettably - through some useful catastrophes to jerk us out of our inertia into more sensible courses. Otherwise Nature will do what she has done to over 99 percent of species that have ever lived, and do the job for us.