Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 66)
MONDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2008
PROFESSOR BRIAN
LAUNDER, DR
DAN LUNT
AND DR
DAVID SANTILLO
Q60 Mr Marsden: You think that, relatively
soon, we are going to have a critical mass of evidence of argument
that government departments, like Defra and DIUS, will have to
take notice of?
Professor Launder: Partly I would
say we do not have all the evidence but we cannot afford to wait.
We must get involved in field trials and experiments that will
enable us to discriminate between the techniques that do not really
work as effectively as others.
Q61 Mr Marsden: Dr Santillo, does
not what Professor Launder has just said sound to you like a reasonable
basis upon which to proceed? I have read the evidence submission
you have made and I have heard what you have said today. Some
might say that, 20 or 30 years ago, your ideas might have been
regarded as fairly off the wall, so why today are you being so
down on geo-engineers? Is it not perhaps because you are the new
orthodoxy?
Dr Santillo: I think if any of
our ideas were considered to be off the wall 20 or 30 years ago,
they are certainly not now.
Q62 Mr Marsden: That is exactly the
point that I am making.
Dr Santillo: Perhaps we shall
need to see where some of this research goes. The critical mass
that we have at the moment is simply a reflection of the fact
that more people are talking about geo-engineering techniques.
It is not in itself an indication that we have greater evidence
that these techniques are actually going to do anything productive
and I think that is a very important distinction to make to come
back to your earlier question on known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
We are dealing clearly with a spread here but I think there are
rather a lot more unknown unknowns than there are known. When
we talk about something as complex as planetary systems—my
expertise is mainly in the area of ocean systems—I think
the fact that we have better models of the way in which these
things will happen is sometimes misinterpreted as being filling
in all of the gaps, that a model somehow fills in the gaps in
our knowledge that we have. Of course, models will always be limited.
We are dealing with systems where we are not simply going to answer
all of the questions with further and further research. At some
point it needs to be a policy decision as to whether this is an
appropriate way to go or not.
Q63 Mr Marsden: You do not even think
they should get started, do you?
Dr Santillo: What I have said
is that if there are proposals that people wish to bring forward
for research into geo-engineering techniques, what we need is
a globally harmonised system for evaluating those to make sure
that they are actually legitimate proposals and that they will
not in themselves have a negative impact on the very planetary
systems that they are studying.
Q64 Dr Harris: You have set that
out in your evidence, which we have read. Do you think the British
Government agrees with you or does it agree with the enthusiasts,
or do you think its view is somewhere in the middle from what
you know of government opinion from innovation or Defra or the
new climate change department?
Dr Santillo: I think it is difficult
to say. I suspect the view is somewhere in the middle. My feeling
is that from policy-makers they can see a huge scepticism and
understand that scepticism around geo-engineering techniques.
I do not think there is a lot of appetite for them at the moment,
but there is a danger that the more the commercial community,
and to some extent the research community, talks up geo-engineering
as a solution, some of those assumptions will begin to be set
in policy that it is only a matter of time before these things
will work.
Q65 Dr Harris: If one of these solutions
looks viable, the logic of your position is that you will be even
more opposed to it because it will look even more tempting for
policy-makers to shelve the action that is needed to, for example,
reduce emissions because one of these is looking viable. You have
an interest in this not working.
Dr Santillo: Not at all. The position
that we put forward is that at this point, given the huge uncertainties
and unknowns regarding even the effectiveness of some of these
proposals, that at this point none of them are a viable option
and we should focus our efforts where we need to put them.
Q66 Dr Harris: You do not think people
will start wrecking field trials of this technology like some
people did for GM? I know with your formal backing you would never
back illegal vandalism, but some people identified with your cause
there. You are not envisaging that sort of reaction to this technology,
are you?
Dr Santillo: I have no idea how
people other than myself will respond to these issues, but I do
not think we are in that same sort of debate. In this situation
we are talking about something that could possibly happen 20 or
30 years from now that people are talking about researching at
this stage. All I am saying in our evidence is that we need to
not provide a barrier to that research but it has to be done in
a legitimate, transparent way and in a way which follows a set
of very clear and precautionary rules.
Chairman: I think Dr Harris would agree
with that. Can I thank Professor Brian Launder, Dr Dan Lunt and
Dr David Santillo for being our first set of witnesses on this
particular inquiry; thank you all very much indeed.
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