Examination of Witness (Questions 338-339)
PROFESSOR STEVE
RAYNER
15 DECEMBER 2004
Q338 Chairman: Professor Rayner, thank
you very much for your patience and welcome to the Committee.
I know that most of us have other commitments at five o'clock
so we are very constrained for time, and I apologise to you for
that. I can only repeat that if we keep our questions short and
the answers brief we will get through far more quickly than otherwise.
Do you have any opening remarks that you would like to make to
us?
Professor Rayner: I think probably
in the interests of time I should forego my planned introductory
remarks and merely say that I think there are four main areas
that I do address in my written submissions to you. One is the
issue of the realism and effectiveness of the Global Emissions
Trading Programme under the Kyoto Framework; the second one I
think is the importance of Energy R & D, which I think is
the missing part here. We are talking about pushing up the price
of carbon, but if we are not creating the technologies at an affordable
price that can come in underneath there then all we are doing
is putting up the price of energy, and that is a significant issue.
Thirdly, to emphasise the importance of addressing the whole issue
of adaptation to Climate Change, both in order to protect vulnerable
human and natural populations, also as a mechanism to mobilise
public values around the climate issue, adaptation being a much
more tractable and accessible way into the climate problem for
many people than emissions mitigation. Finally, if I have any
single message it is, "for heaven's sake let us stop fetishising
the single political instrument of the Kyoto Protocol and get
on with the real job of thinking about how we move towards dealing
both with the adaptation to the Climate Change, to which we are
committed, and to the longer-term challenge of moving effectively
away from a carbon based economy."
Chairman: Thank you very much, and thank
you also for your written evidence, which was certainly pugnacious!
Sue Doughty.
Q339 Sue Doughty: Thank you very much
for that crisp introduction. In the point you are making there,
where you talk about fetishising the Kyoto Process and also the
point you are making about investment in R & D Energy, those
points are very strong points; but do you think that there is
anything else that a broader approach could cover beyond that?
Professor Rayner: Yes. Where do
I begin? I think there are two areas here which we often do not
clearly demarcate to address. One is the whole question of emissions
mitigation and the pathway in terms of carbon emissions. The other
is the problem of adaptation and actually meeting with the challenges
of the Climate Change to which we are already committed. I think
they require quite different approaches. Emissions mitigation
does not, quite honestly, require the engagement of much more
than about 10 countries, the ones that really matter. Having an
international agreement with 185 signatories is a very clumsy
arrangement in fact, a very dysfunctional arrangement which inevitably
leads to the lowest common denominator in terms of policy. On
the other hand, I think that dealing with adaptation is going
to require a much broader framework within which to act.
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