Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 29 JANUARY 2002
PROFESSOR MARTIN
PARRY, PROFESSOR
NIGEL ARNELL,
PROFESSOR ROBERT
NICHOLLS, PROFESSOR
ANDY HAINES
AND MS
SARI KOVATS
Chairman
40. Good morning. Thank you all very much
for having agreed to come and give evidence today. Just for the
record, I know that you collectively have looked at the global
impact of climate change on food, water, coastal flooding and
health (particularly the incidence and prevalence of malaria);
and this work has been used to build data on estimated impacts
and to calculate the numbers of people at risk. The main projects,
called the global fast track studies, have been funded by DEFRA
over the past five years to show the implications of the Hadley
Centre modelling. The reports have been widely circulated and
influential in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
meetings of the Conference of Parties to the climate convention.
I think you have all been involved in writing the IPCC Working
Group II report in 2001 on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability,
so we are very grateful to you for coming and giving evidence
today. We are going to try and do something which is very difficult
for us in Parliament which is to listen! What I am going to do
is, I have two lots of questions I am going to put to you, and
perhaps you can use that as a peg between you to address us, and
we have got until quarter past eleven. At the end of these sessions
of lots of questions perhaps we could then ask you a question
you might like to start putting your minds to now, which is: are
there ways, as a consequence of all this, where you feel DFID's
policies should change? Are there areas of Government policy which
should be different from that which they are at the present moment?
The first group of questions we would like you to talk to us about
are: what are the main impacts of climate change at a global level,
with particular regard to developing countries; how easy is it
to identify the impacts that are specifically due to the human-induced
global warming that we have already experienced against a background
of natural climate variability and ongoing social change; and,
in relation to that, how reliable can any assessment of future
impacts be; how confident are you in projected impacts for specific
communities over the next 20 years, ie the planning horizon for
sustainable development; and, lastly, to what extent is vulnerability
about a lack of proper governance, structures and institutions
to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and to what extent
is it about a physical change that cannot be mitigated? Perhaps
you could collectively and individually address us on those issues.
Professor Parry, how you divide it up between you is for you,
and we will listen.
(Professor Parry) As you rightly said, Chairman, we
have been working as a group in different fields. Professor Arnell
has been working on water; Professor Nicholls on coastal flooding
and sea level rise; and Professor Haines and Ms Kovats on health,
particularly malaria. I can perhaps say one or two things generally
about how we brought our work together in terms of millions of
people at risk. In each of these fields we have been able to estimate,
in this instance only for the UK's Hadley model projections for
climate change, the additional millions of people that might be
at risk specifically from climate change over and above those
that are at risk now, and are projected by the United Nations
to be at risk in the future. Broadly speaking, without going into
details here, our estimate is that of hundreds of millions of
people likely to be additionally at risk either of hunger, water
shortage, coastal flooding or malaria. Secondly, as we look at
the particular geographic distribution of these additional millions
at risk in not all cases, but in most, a very great concentration
of those additions are in Africa, the Middle East and Southern
Asia. Specifically for the field of hunger that I work in, almost
all the global total of 50 million people we expect additionally
to be at risk from climate change occurs in Africa. That is partly
for reasons of the nature of climate change in already largely
arid areas, particularly sub-humid Africa, and also because of
essentially the high vulnerability of that region. We can go into
that later. That is a general statement about millions at risk
that comes from all our work. I have mentioned in one phrase those
at risk specifically due to hunger because that is a field I work
in, but it might be useful at this point to ask my colleagues
to add to that in terms of their own fields.
Chairman: Maybe it is easier to go along
the table, starting with Professor Nicholls on sea level rises,
then Professor Arnell on water, and Professor Haines and Ms Kovats
on health.
(Professor Nicholls) Within the DEFRA funded work
we have looked specifically at coastal flooding, as Professor
Parry has just described, and also some work on coastal ecosystems.
I think it is worth noting that sea level rise and climate change
in the coastal zone will have a number of effects, so these are
only a selection of the effects. It will also promote erosion,
and saltwater intrusion and other types of hazards will be exacerbated.
Many people will experience a number of different problems in
the coastal zone. Speaking specifically about the work on flooding,
there is a large increase in the number of people likely to experience
flooding under a situation of global sea level rise, particularly
by the Hadley Centre model, and no specific adaption to try to
do anything about it. The regions that seem to be most vulnerable
are quite similar to the ones Professor Parry mentioned. Africa
stands out, I think reflecting the adaptive capacity of that region,
and also South and South East Asia, because of the large number
of densely populated deltas that are found in that area. Also
another area which stands out very strongly in the work, not in
absolute terms but in relative terms, are the small island regions—the
Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. I think it
is well known already that the Maldives could disappear with a
metre rise in sea level. These regions all stand out as being
particularly exposed and, in various terms, more exposed than
any other part of the world. There are specific problems with
coastal areas.
(Professor Arnell) In terms of water resources, the
two key water-related effects of climate change are on the supply
of water to a whole range of users in agriculture and the public,
and impacts on river flooding. There are other aspects which are
also important to do with power generation, health and agriculture
particularly, but I will not go into those at the moment. When
it comes to the more specifically water-related impacts—like
a change in the water supply and a change in floods—it is
important to distinguish between the hydrological changes which
are driven by the climate change, and the impacts of those changes
which are very much influenced by the way in which the exposure
to water shortage or to flood risk changes; whether it is due
to population growth, economic development, adaptation to climate
change or not, adaptation to current climatic variability. There
is an important distinction between the effects of the change
in the hydrology and the impacts of that on human societies. In
general terms, the hydrological changes are driven almost exclusively
by the changes in rainfall that the climate models project, which
vary; but there are some very strong consistent patterns. One
of the consistent patterns is that large parts of Southern Africa,
under virtually all the scenarios we have looked at, are likely
to get dryer with implications for stream flow and the amount
of water that is potentially available. That is a very consistent
pattern. A large part of Southern Africa is drier with reduced
water availability. Other developing region areas are less clear
at the moment. In West Africa and Southern Asia the signals are
dependent to an extent on the climate model projections. That
is important when we come to consider the potential implications
for climate change. What is also becoming clear is, the way society
and the economy manages water shortage and water excess influences
to a large extent the implications of the change in climate for
water resources and flood risk.
(Professor Haines) Health, of course, is downstream
of many of the impacts that my colleagues have talked about. The
relationship between health and climate is relatively complex,
because there are a number of pathways by which climate can affect
health. An obvious pathway is the direct effect of rises in temperature,
resulting in an increase in the frequency and intensity of heat
waves in summer months, particularly in urban centres. Some work
we have been doing at the London School shows that the relationship
between temperature and death rates is different for different
cities around the world. For example, in a city like Delhi there
is very little cold-related mortality in the winter months; it
is almost all related to an increase in temperature in the warmer
months. That suggests there would be very different responses
in a city like Delhi to climate change than in a city like London,
where there is high cold-related mortality, and there may be some
benefits of warming winters. The other direct effects, of course,
are related to extreme events which my colleagues have outlined.
There are a range of effects of flooding on health; the most obvious
ones are increases in communicable diseases—diarrhoeal diseases
and so on; but increasingly we are also beginning to understand
that flooding can have major impacts on mental health, which can
last for long periods; changes in behaviour amongst children;
increases in depression amongst people being flooded; increases
in suicide rates. Martin Parry alluded to the effects of reduced
crop yields. Our main concern is the impact of these on malnutrition
in vulnerable populations, as he said, particularly in Africa.
A topic, which of course many of you will know about from the
media, is the potential impact of climate change on so-called
vector-borne diseases; these are diseases which are carried by
mosquitoes and other vectors, and malaria is the most important
of these. Currently about 2.4 billion people are at risk of malaria
worldwide. The impact is largely, but not entirely, on children.
About 7 per cent of 11 million deaths a year, of children under
five, are due to malaria. It is therefore a very important disease
on a global scale. At the moment we are still at the early stages
of vaccine development. There is not an effective vaccine, and
there is not likely to be one in the next few years. The concerns
have to be changes in malaria distribution possibly at the latitudinal
edges but particularly at the altitudinal edges of distribution
in parts of Africa and other parts of the tropics. There are many
other vector-borne diseases which are likely to be climate-sensitive;
including some of the virus diseases which you may be less familiar
with, such as dengue. Probably about 3 billion people are currently
at risk of dengue; it does not cause as many deaths as malaria
but it is, nevertheless, an important infection in many parts
of the world. There are many other examples of viral diseases
transmitted by insect vectors that I do not have time to go into.
Many of the other "tropical" diseases, and particularly
their insect vectors, are climate sensitive but their incidence
and distribution may also depend on other environmental factors
and, in some cases, on the effectiveness of disease control programmes.
The estimates that we work on are related by and large to the
short-term relationships, by and large, between temperature, humidity
and disease. We obviously have to try and extrapolate those forward
into the future. That clearly does give some uncertainties to
the work; but, nevertheless, I think we are getting a much better
understanding now of the relationship between climate and disease;
and that is reflected, in some of the work that is being done
at the moment and will be done in the future. I will hand over
to my colleague, Sari Kovats, to say a few words about the malaria
work.
(Ms Kovats) To answer the question about how easy
it is to detect changes attributable to climate change, obviously
it is extremely difficult because human disease is caused by many
factors. Also, in developing countries there are very few data
series for the last 20 years of sufficient quality to answer those
questions. We have recently conducted a review to look at all
the information that is available; and three local studies do
indicate that climate change may have increased highland malaria
in areas of Rwanda, Ethiopia and Pakistan. Obviously we cannot
exclude all other alternative explanations and it is possible
that drug resistance has increased cases. The IPCC has reviewed
information on studies of changes in the distribution of insects.
We know that climate change has already affected distribution
of some insect species in certain areas. There is one study which
shows that ticks may be moving north in Sweden and that human
disease may have changed as a result.
Mr Robathan
41. In terms of development aid, if there
were a better infrastructure for delivering particularly mosquito
eradication programmes, would it be relatively easy to counter
this rise in malaria in developing countries?
(Professor Haines) About 30 per cent of the population
in low income countries have access to some form of treatment;
and probably only about 2 per cent actually have access to effective
preventive activities in relation to malaria according to a recent
WHO estimate. There are large areas of the world where there are
no effective preventive programmes, particularly vector-control
programmes. Of course the other issue which is relevant to prevention
is the provision of insecticide-treated bed nets, which does reduce
malaria appreciably but does not often reach many of the poorest
populations. To some extent, by providing improved effective vector-control
programmes and bed nets you could substantially reduce mortality
from malaria. Nevertheless, I think it has got to be seen as part
of an overall programme where we also provide more effective treatment
and perhaps, ultimately an effective vaccine which, as I have
said, is still some way away.
42. Could I ask you to home in on vector-control,
which has worked in various areas.
(Ms Kovats) It is not a question of vector-control
in hyper-endemic areas—where you use bed nets. The main
climate change effect will not be in the very endemic areas, in
sub-Saharan Africa, it will be at the fringes of distribution
where malaria is unstable, where they have not had malaria epidemics
very often and they are not very well prepared. Here, the population
has very little immunity and mortality during an epidemic is very
high in all age groups. It is those areas which are vulnerable
to climate change and they are mostly in the Highlands of East
Africa, Papua New Guinea, Laos and Vietnam. Activities there are
focussing on epidemic forecasting. There is very little research
at the moment on the use of climate information to forecast epidemics
and to target limited resources. If you just had an extra bit
of information about the risk over the coming year then you could
use your resources more efficiently by using climate information.
Chairman
43. You mentioned a lack of data in some
countries—is there enough research observation being done
in developing countries in this area in relation to your own respective
disciplines? Perhaps you could tell us what work is being done
in developing countries in your areas of study. Do you think it
is enough; and how could it be enhanced?
(Professor Nicholls) There is a lot of work going
on in a number of developing countries on the issue of potential
effects of sea level rise and, more broadly, climate change on
coastal areas. I think most of that work is looking at what might
be exposed to the impact of sea level rise and climate change.
I think an area where there is less work is what we might do in
terms of responding to it—we need focussed research to look
realistically at adaption—and I think we are going to hear
about that in the next session in a more general sense. That is
one area where a lot more work needs to be done. Another area
that handicaps us is just simple information about things like
where people actually live. Talking about the work I do broadscale,
we had information on where vulnerable populations are but that
data could be much, much better. We are working on a new project
right now to try and actually improve and bring some of that new
data in. There are a lot of different things that could be done
at a range of levels. I think in the developing world there is
a need to think not just about how climate change might affect
an area, but this issue of how we can respond, and how the local
population can respond; and what policies in addition therefore
need to be implemented to deal with these problems.
(Professor Arnell) With the area of water, the IPCC's
most recent assessment showed there were very, very few studies
of potential climate change on water in developing countries.
The vast majority of the work that is reported there is from Europe
and North America effectively; very little is done in developing
countries, and there is very little done in Africa particularly.
There are a number of reasons for that. One possible reason, and
this is widely acknowledged amongst hydrological organisations
and meteorological organisations, is the lack of data on hydrological
conditions, across large parts of Africa particularly, and the
situation is getting worse rather than better as records are more
and more collected, stored and so on. There are initiatives by
the Royal Meteorological Organisation and others to try and address
this; but this is a big problem in detecting a trend, looking
at the variations in stream flow, looking particularly at the
hydrology now, and looking at how unusual recent behaviour has
been in the context of the past. The records, in many cases, are
just not there. That is a big problem in many parts of Africa.
(Professor Parry) Generally speaking, the case would
be across all of us, Chairman, that there are an inadequate number
of studies being done on impact and adaptation in developing countries
as a whole; and there is an incredible imbalance of information
available between the north and south in this respect. In addition
to that, my impression is that those studies being undertaken
and funded by different countries are not well coordinated. One
wonders how much agencies of wealthy countries, such as DFID,
are able to coordinate with their own equivalents in France and
Germany—simple things like establishing the same climatic
projections to work with, so that one can compare like with like
impacts and adaptations. I think it is very important to have
this coordination so that we have a set of impact studies so we
can then ask the question: what do we need to adapt to? We need
to get those impact studies first. The second area in which work,
to my mind, is lacking but beginning now is the effect on impacts
not of the climate change but of the different development pathways.
So much of the impacts, the magnitudes and differences in our
work stem from the different levels of exposure to the climate
change. A global population in a sustainable development pathway
shows up perhaps a third less of the impacts in terms of risk
of hunger than the business of usual globalised pathways; but
these studies have not yet been conducted: that is, of the differences
of impact to climate change and the different development pathways.
44. You made some predictions on food shortage
in your earlier comments: is there sufficient data in these predictions
in developing countries; and how certain are you about those predictions?
(Professor Parry) The number of studies that have
been done in this area are few, perhaps less than half a dozen.
There are three or four other research teams apart from ourselves.
There are certainly differences in the projected outcomes; but
the overall figure is the same—that is, an increased number
of people at risk of hunger; a reduction in global food production
leading to a rise in price, leading to the risk of hunger. I might
just add a little more detail to that. Broadly speaking, from
the IPCC, one can see something like a projected estimate of a
yield reduction, due to climate change, of between 5 and 10 per
cent worldwide, leading to something like the equivalent downturn
in global food production, from what it is projected by FAO otherwise
to be in a future without climate change. Indeed, in food production
it is not necessarily the case that the greatest yield reduction
in terms of million metric tonnes are in developing countries.
Most changes would be in the world's bread basket areas, Australia,
Central Europe, the United States and the Canadian Prairies. Saskatchewan,
for example, produced about a fifth of the world's traded wheat;
and changes here would greatly affect global wheat prices and
other food prices. Ultimately, risk of hunger depends on one's
ability to pay, as well as one's ability to grow. It is those
with low levels of ability to pay in poorer parts of the world
that experience the adverse effect of that global price rise.
It is a nice illustration of the importance of global studies
of climate change, which may be adverse on parts of the world
that are not the developing countries but knock-on through the
global food system, in this case, into poorer groups and communities.
(Professor Haines) There are a number of areas where
I think we still need quite substantially more research. One,
of course, is the interaction between climate change and other
environmental change. We are talking about climate change in isolation
here today, but of course it is really one of a number of changes,
including changes in land use. We know, for example, that deforestation
can cause quite dramatic changes locally in distribution of diseases.
The other areas would include the effects of extreme events like
floods. I did touch on some of the impacts of floods, but there
is still a lot we do not know about the full impact on health
of floods, particularly in terms of many of the low income countries.
What are the medium to long-term effects once the acute emergency
has gone away? These may be more pervasive than we originally
thought. We also need to get better data, particularly, as Sari
Kovats has said, at the edge of the distribution of diseases by
malaria, at the altitudinal fringes, for example, of disease distribution.
With a very few exceptions, we do not have good data on long-term
trends in the disease vectors, e.g. the mosquito or human disease
in a number of these areas. It would be very helpful if we could
set up longer term monitoring sites in potentially vulnerable
locations. Finally, two other points: early warning systems—again,
as Sari Kovats has pointed out—do show considerable promise,
particularly where malaria epidemics may occur; we need to evaluate
just how those can be operationalised and how they can actually
integrate with the local health system and any programmes to spray
for mosquitoes. Finally, perhaps slightly outside the remit today
but nevertheless very important, the near-term health benefits
of the greenhouse gas mitigation technologies, renewable energy
technologies and so on. We have got a major energy gap; 2 billion
people are without an adequate energy supply which has a very
big impact on their health; and we need to evaluate the effects
of providing renewable technologies to that population which will
have, in my view, quite substantial health benefits, in addition
to whatever other benefits it may have.
(Ms Kovats) There have been very few studies that
have looked at climate change and health in developing countries,
and those all tend to be localised and disease-specific. I think
what is needed is a proper impact and adaption assessment—at
a regional or a national population level. Some of these have
been done in developing countries sponsored by UNEP for their
national communications to the UNFCCC. A good example of a research
project that is setting up long-term monitoring in the East African
Highlands is the DFID supported programme at the London School,
which is looking at Highland malaria. They are in the process
of setting up monitoring and forecasting systems in Uganda and
Kenya so they can take into account the impact of the change in
climate as well as all the other factors that affect malaria.
Tony Worthington: Our interest in this
is in terms of how after investigation we would recommend DFID
should change its policy. Let me tell you what I have taken out
so far. There is nothing in climate change that would make me
change DFID's policy by and large, because it is an additional
reason for doing what you are doing. What I have taken out of
this so far is that I would put a lot of money into reproductive
health, so that everybody in the world has got the choice of having
children, because numbers affect adversely all you are talking
about. I would put a lot of money into basic education and the
health service in general to give a sense of control; and I would
intensify agricultural research and water distribution research
in those countries. Would you agree with all of that, or disagree;
or what have I missed out?
Chairman
45. I think the question really is: what
changes in policy would you make both here and in developing countries?
(Professor Nicholls) One thing that was said, I think
we are talking about a 20-year timescale—I think with climate
change I tend to think of slightly longer timescales, maybe 50
years. Just reflecting back, I think that is one thing I noticed,
that I would be thinking about longer term changes. In the coastal
arena, there are certainly vulnerable regions, and I mentioned
some of them a moment ago. I think it would be useful for an organisation
like DFID to ask: where are the places where sea level rise and
a climate change on the coast could matter? It would be nice to
have some hot spot map which would help policymakers from a top
down perspective think, Sea level and climate change are going
to be an issue here.
Tony Worthington
46. That is not a DFID job, is it?
(Professor Nicholls) True, no, but that information
would be useful for DFID to do its job.
47. Then to do what?
(Professor Nicholls) In terms of identifying those
regions, those are the regions where, if one goes in and invests
in something, one needs to ask the question: is climate change
going to have an impact on this? Should we do it differently because
of the risk of climate change?
48. It does not tell me what DFID should
do in terms of its development policies?
(Professor Nicholls) The other thing one wants to
focus on is also the capacity to manage the coast over these long
timescales. I wonder if there is a tendency to think rather shorter
term than longer term. I think one wants to bring in this notion
of the 50-year timescale when you are thinking about an issue
like developing coastal management.
Chairman
49. Is there an extent to which countries
that are vulnerable are not wishing nor wanting to face up to
that vulnerability; and is there an area there for DFID to help?
(Professor Nicholls) I would not say not face up to
that. I think my view would be that often they have not got the
capacity too. DFID could help with increasing that capacity, yes.
I think I would reflect it be a little differently. I think DFID
could help with that increasing capacity. I think that is all
the way through as some of the other speakers have spoken, all
the way from the science, to climate change scenarios, to what
those impacts might be, to understanding the vulnerabilities and
what we might do about it—a whole suite of areas, rather
than just the climate change science. We have to go through all
the actions that might be taken.
(Professor Arnell) I think the main thing that climate
change challenges is really the assumption that the natural resource
base we have got to work with is constant. That has been a long
assumption—that the population may change and what is there
in the environment is fixed. Climate change has challenged that
really quite fundamentally. This is probably more appropriate
at specific scheme levels or maybe strategy levels, but I think
what DFID could encourage is an approach which considers the effect
of different possible climate and, indeed, other futures on the
viability of a strategy scheme (and there are some big questions
there as to how you go about it), but considering what would happen
if things were different with the climate, with the land use,
whatever. Would that effect the viability of a particular scheme
or strategy? The other thing which climate change has done, rather
strangely, is led people to understand much more clearly the way
climate varies naturally. Trying to unpick the climate change
signal from climate vulnerability has triggered a lot of research
into the nature of climatic variability. We are increasingly understanding
the way that operates. We are increasingly recognising the additional
assumption that one year is very much like another, whichever
one comes out of the hat, and that assumption is not really appropriate
any more. It is understanding there are several periods of unusual
weather, even without climate change, which may be important for
the way a particular scheme and a particular strategy operates.
Not assuming that the resource base you are working with is constant
is one of the big lessons of climate change. Running through different
possibilities, and that may open a series of issues as to how
do you choose then what to do, given that you do not know what
the future might be like—that seems to me to be one of the
big challenges, which may challenge fundamentally the way some
things are done, particularly the non-investment strategies and
schemes.
(Professor Parry) Perhaps I could add to that, by
saying I believe (and I think my colleagues' works shows this
also in their fields) that there are a number of what we would
call "win-win" strategies that DFID and its parallel
agencies in other countries could adopt; which is to meet the
challenge of short-term climate shocks, whether it is building
resilience in agriculture, providing for efficient water availability,
defending coasts near-term, which is largely its job; but, at
the same time, that incidentally builds in resilience to long-term
climate change, but not in every case. It makes sense to drought-proof
agriculture in Africa short-term in ways that make it less drought-prone
under long-term climate change. You could target near-term challenges,
and also meet the long-term, and that targeting is now possible.
Secondly, I have mentioned, I think there could be a good deal
more successful coordination between different countries in the
impact and adaptation studies that they are promoting. For example,
DEFRA is funding studies in China and India, you heard on January
9 and I was reading about. I would be surprised if there were
not other studies being funded in those countries, or in Pakistan
and Sri Lanka, for example. I would be surprised if they were
based upon the same assumptions but we would gain a lot from them
being. Finally, I think there is an important realisation growing
in the research community that needs to be translated through
you and others to DFID and like-minded agencies that adaptation
is going to be essential; that mitigation is not going to avoid
the problem. It will take 10 or 20 times the current Kyoto level
of emissions draw down to avoid significant impact, and this scale
of mitigation simply is not going to be feasible. Looking at how
climate is going to change sustainable development is, to my mind,
not the whole issue. From our point of view it is clear that,
unless there is a sustainable pathway there are going to be millions
at risk. Sustainable development is an imperative pathway if we
are to avoid those. Climate change policies, to be effective,
need to be part of a sustainable development pathway. It seems
to me that that thinking of this kind needs to begin and start
to make itself felt in policies of DFID.
(Professor Haines) Yes, I endorse obviously what my
colleagues have said. I would like to make three points: firstly
just to re-emphasise the importance of capacity building particularly
in the south, either by south-south collaboration, or by north-south
collaboration. I think one of the messages that comes through
today is that it has to be multi-disciplinary. You have seen the
spectrum of the disciplines here this morning, and they need to
be linked in with climatological research; that, I think, is a
very important area. That will allow much better long-term planning;
but also, as Martin has said, near-term benefits in terms of improving
our capacity to adapt to climate variability. One specific example
of that is the El Niño phenomenon, which of course is a
natural phenomenon which may well be affected and perhaps is already
affected by climate change. We know from studies around the world
that this has a major impact on health in all sorts of ways, by
increasing the rate of disasters, by changing malaria incidence
and so on. If we could strengthen the capacity of low income countries
to respond to the El Niño by more proactive planning within
the public health sector, that could have major benefits for long-term
adaptation to climate change. That is just one specific example.
The third area I would talk about is surveillance. As we have
mentioned, surveillance of climate-sensitive diseases and health
indicators, particularly on the edge of current distribution,
in my view would be well worth investing in to give us early warning
of whether disease distribution is changing and, if so, whether
it is likely to be due to climate. The long-term collection of
data, in my view, is a good investment.
Mr Battle
50. In all of this what is coming across
strongly is the need for more accurate data. Who would collect
it? Would it be institutes, universities, professors from the
north who may take an interest in the country and go out and do
some research there; or are there real efforts within the developing
countries, if not within their own universities, is there work
to do to strengthen that capacity? Are there alliances between
north and south universities, as it were? Where will the money
come from to collect the data and to put that capacity in at the
first stage?
(Ms Kovats) That is already happening. DFID supports
demographic and disease surveillance activities; there are several
demographic and household surveys going on in Tanzania, for example.
All that information (which is not specifically to address vector-borne
diseases) is used to target the health services in that country
and it is done through the ministry of health and is seen as a
capacity-building activity. Some of that work could then be additionally
targeted to more climatic-sensitive diseases.
51. At the lower levels?
(Ms Kovats) Yes, through the national ministry of
health, but supported by DFID and in collaboration with universities
in the north.
52. At that level of ministries of health
or universities and institutes is there the capacity and is work
being done on actually analysing the impact, given the future,
the timescale possibilities? Are people being as realistic as
they can, using the international information; are people doing
real impact and risk assessments at the local level?
(Ms Kovats) Specifically on climate change and health
impact assessment in developing countries, there have been very
very few. That is something we think should be done.
(Professor Parry) At a guess, there are perhaps two
or three dozen country-level studies underway that are either
funded by the World Bank, or by agencies such as DFID that we
know about and are, in a sense, modelled on quality controlled
and comparable yardsticks which the IPCC tries to put out. In
addition, no doubt there are many, many hundreds of studies being
conducted at the local level. When these studies are formulated
they are not placed in the global context; they do not have similar
sets of assumptions; they are not measuring the same things; their
researchers are not in touch with their colleagues in neighbouring
countries, or vertically with the IPCC. Consequently, a lot of
the value of those studies is potentially being lost, and it is
difficult to draw together an international picture. Although
the impacts are local, and the adaptations indeed have to be devised
locally, it is the international picture which affects a lot of
this local pattern.
53. You surprise me there, and I know a
shortage of energy means you cannot plug in, but with new technology,
with internet connections and the scientific world sharing data
and coordinating data, is it the lack of gear, as it were, hardware
and software, or is it the lack of will to do it and organisation?
(Professor Haines) I think from the health point of
view it is a combination of factors. One is that collecting data
is obviously a lower priority for many countries than trying to
struggle with the every day realities of the health system; so
it is way down the priority list; which is one reason why DFID,
for example, might put some resources into making sure that long-term
data collection is occurring and people are availing themselves
of the opportunity to connect with the internet, for example.
That seems to me to be a very good potential investment for DFID.
The other thing is, as we mentioned before, the capacity issue.
We know there is a tremendous brain drain of scientists, say,
from Africa. The majority of African scientists are not working
in Africa. We do need to strengthen capacity by helping to make
it possible for African scientists to stay in Africa with adequate
resources and adequate infrastructure. That, again, seems to me
to be the important message.
54. Universities are very young, but are
the key scientists here (because environmental study is very popular
in our universities now) keen to go to Africa and South East Asia
as a place to do their work because they see it as a priority,
to collaborate that way?
(Professor Haines) At the London School we have a
number of people who doing PhDs or Masters projects who are going
out to Africa, and to parts of East Africa in particular and doing
this kind of work, but what is really essential is the long-term
commitment. One can certainly learn something from short-term
studies, but it is the long-term that counts.
Chairman
55. The impression is that quite a lot of
work is being done internationally and nationally but no-one is
actually putting it together. Who should be doing that? Should
that be done, so far as health is concerned, by the WHO, and coastal
defence and water in relation to UNEC? Who do you see as the natural
agencies for drawing that work together?
(Professor Parry) There is a natural agency which
draws together the results and conclusions of those studies, which
is the IPCC. I think more the major issue is formulating these
sets of studies and developing the data sets or, more specifically,
making them available in a coordinated way. In other words, the
front end of the research issue. At the moment a lot of the effort
devolves upon the World Climate Research Programme, WCRP, the
International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, the IGBP, and the
International Human Dimensions Global Change Programme, IHDP.
Those are the three international research groupings that have
developed in their own right as a result of the scientists' interests
that attempt to coordinate this research. They are funded at an
extremely low level, with small grants from the Royal Society
and their equivalent bodies in other countries. There is no UN
funding input and, as far as I know, there is no major country
level DFID-type input. In a sense, there is this quite loose and
rather leisurely structure, but it is not being funded urgently
at the international or government level; it is rather being funded
and pushed along by the researchers themselves and their own network.
(Professor Haines) Could I just add to that? The WHO
European Centre for Environment and Health in Rome has done some
very useful work in coordinating climate and health researchers
in Europe; but if you look globally the situation is not as good
because the Geneva headquarters of WHO has one part-time person
on climate and health. That is inadequate to coordinate the surveillance
and research programmes that are needed.
(Ms Kovats) WHO at the moment (and I am involved with
this) is specifically trying to develop guidelines for developing
countries to undertake health and climate change impact assessments.
The WHO would not have the capacity to support individual assessments
in individual countries, and that is what DFID would be able to
do.
Mr Robathan
56. Just relating to Professor Parry's comments,
you particularly stress in your paper headed `Climate Change and
Sustainable Development'[19]
that, "A world with . . . lower population levels will experience
much smaller levels of negative impact from climate change . .
.", and you stress the importance of population levels. DFID
has a very good programme on reproductive health assistance, and
I know various members of the Committee are concerned about that
matter. Also, we all understand that it is quite a sensitive area,
but you stress it. What do you think we could do in policy terms
to encourage what is globally, in your opinion, extraordinarily
important?
(Professor Parry) Perhaps by way of a
bit more on that, because this group is just now beginning to
calculate those millions at risk for different world futures.
The IPCC has developed a set of characterisations of world futures.
One is, in a sense, a sustainable development plan and they have
called it B2, and one can read about it at length in this report;
and the other is a sort of business as usual pathway, as you or
I would call it, with the global population in 2050 at about 50
per cent again as much as in the sustainable development future.
These are well characterised now in quantitative and narrative
terms. We are just beginning to complete, as it were, the first
set of studies. There are millions at risk of water and coastal
flooding and at risk of hunger. The numbers adversely affected
are potentially much, much lower in a sustainable developed world
with a population a few thousand million less, let us say, than
in the business as usual world. It is not so surprising when you
think those extra 2,000 to 3,000 millions are in Africa and South
East Asia; they are the exposed population. Which is why I said,
without asking my colleagues here, that the policies of climate
change, as is emerging from our and others work, have to be (to
be successful) placed in the context of an integrated strategy
for sustainable development. They will not work otherwise, because
impacts are all about exposure, as much as anything else. You
ask me, what can we do about it, and there I begin to get lost
because it is not really my field. I hope, having said that, that
there are enough people in DFID to look at the ways in which sustainable
development can be promoted in order to reduce that exposure.
I know I have not been able to answer your question properly because
I do not feel qualified; what I have tried to do is to put the
issue out there in ways that others can answer it more effectively.
57. It is terribly important. You give it
priority. Sustainable development means many things to many people;
but you would say that sustainable development is very closely
tied into the need to limit population growth?
(Professor Parry) No, not just that by any means.
These characterisations of a sustainable world by the IPCC, specifically
the B2 world, are ones in which one has a much more resilient
drought-proof agriculture which is using water in a much more
efficient way. Income is spent on defending its coasts; which
has lower levels of population, which have much higher levels
of income, which incidentally do not use fossil fuels at the same
rates. It is a whole package which makes a population not only
lower, but much more resilient to those knocks that would come
from climate change. I do not think, by any means, it is simply
a case of fewer numbers of people. I may have used that as an
example to characterise these different worlds; but there are
very many characterisations that make for that world and make
for its increased resilience over and above the business as usual
world.
Ann Clwyd
58. Professor Haines, I think you said that
the majority of African scientists are working outside Africa.
Where are they working? Is the same true of South East Asia?
(Professor Haines) I do not have figures for South
East Asia. In terms of African scientists, many of them work in
North America, and to a lesser extent in Europe. There is a real
problem of how to stem this brain drain. It is not just a question
of scientists, but also the health profession; there are many
doctors and nurses working outside their country of origin. It
is a real problem and I do not think the world has yet got a regulatory
system to allow us to deal with that. The fact is that we and
particularly the US benefit greatly from the import of professionals
trained at very low cost to ourselves and themselves, yet there
is no system by which we can pay that back.
Chris McCafferty
59. I have a question for Professor Parry,
just taking you further on Andrew's point about population and
sustainability, because obviously we are looking at the impact
on DFID's policy: would you agree, and perhaps I could open this
up to other members, that it would be a useful tool in developing
a sustainable policy and helping people defend against climate
change if DFID was to increase its percentage of ODA it spends
on sexual and reproductive health? Obviously that is an issue,
but would you agree that that would be a good way of DFID's spending
its money overseas?
(Professor Parry) I am sorry, I am not really equipped
to answer that.
(Professor Haines) I think there are good reasons
for doing that anyway, irrespective of climate change. As Martin
said, population is one element and the other element, of course,
is the excessive, in many people's eyes, use of fossil fuels by
the industrialised countries. If you look at the relative contribution,
it is the very high per capita emissions of greenhouse gases in
industrialised countries which is even more important in driving
climate change than the emissions from a much larger population
in low income countries at this stage. Of course, as the population
in low and middle income counties starts to develop and require
more fossil fuels then unless renewable energy sources are widely
used their contribution to climate change goes up, so ultimately
both population and per capita emissions are important. I suppose
it is another argument really for investing more in reproductive
health. We need to put it in context. The recent WHO Commission
on Macroeconomics and Health, has tried to chart a path for the
future in terms of developing sustainable health services. It
has pointed out that the average low income country spends very
little per capita on health[20];
but you cannot provide adequate primary care, including reproductive
health, for that kind of money. They have suggested maybe $30-45
per capita per year would be necessary for a sustainable very
basic health system. That is what we have to move towards. We
have to mobilise money internationally and, as much as we can,
within the country to develop that basic primary care system which
will provide sexual reproductive health as well as the other basic
primary care.
Chairman: Thank you very much for coming
to give evidence today, and making plain to us areas of policy
and science which is actually quite complex. We are very, very
grateful to you.
19 Ev 39. Back
20
For example, the 48 least developed countries on average spend
only $6 per capita annually from their budgets (with another $5
per capita or so coming out of pocket expenses). Back
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