Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 74)
MONDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2008
RT HON
LORD DRAYSON,
JOAN RUDDOCK
AND PROFESSOR
BOB WATSON
Q60 Dr Gibson: Does that happen for
the DECC too, your department, Joan? Does it interact with other
departments across the world?
Joan Ruddock: Absolutely. We,
as DECC, obviously are involved in major discussions with the
IPCC on a sort of constant basis with the UNFCCC as well, because
all our work on climate change is clearly currently aimed in the
international sphere at getting an agreement at Copenhagen. So
there are constant discussions and one of the concerns we have
about geo-engineering is that those countries which are not so
keen on getting a global agreement in which every country has
to make its own efforts in relation to climate change, people
who do not want to enter into agreements which mean they have
to reduce their emissions, might see this as a means of doing
nothing and being able to say, "Science will provide. There
will be a way out. If we were just to look in this direction,
then ultimately something will come up." Our concern is that
although we do not want to dismiss this work, we do not want to
be unaware of it, it could be used politically in that way, which
would be extremely unfortunate because what we know about engineering
is that engineering can provide us with well-tried and trusted
solutions to reduce CO2 emissions from a huge range of activities
and it is those existing engineering solutions that we seek to
promote in the international arena and where we seek, of course,
to get technology transfer to those countries which at the moment
do not have that opportunity for themselves. So it could be a
means of deflecting engineers from the very best work which can
be done to help the world community to get such a deal.
Q61 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. Could I just briefly ask you, Joan, before I bring in
Gordon Marsden, whether in fact in your short time within the
new ministry there has been or are plans to have meetings of your
Department with DIUS and with Defra, because you all seem to play
a key role within this space? Is that work going on?
Lord Drayson: Absolutely, Chairman.
Joan Ruddock: Yes.
Lord Drayson: In fact it is, in
part, the purpose and role of the new Committee for Science Innovation,
which I will be chairing, to make sure that departmental coordination
for tackling these major challenges such as climate change are
better coordinated.
Q62 Chairman: Is this issue of geo-engineering
likely to be on your agenda?
Lord Drayson: Certainly the issue
of climate change and energy is on the agenda. I would think within
that carbon capture and storage is a very important theme, and
within that I would say the one geo-engineering area which looks
to have more relevance and does not cause the international treaty
problems which we have mentioned is this area of artificial trees.
Q63 Mr Marsden: I would like to ask
one or two questions about the implication of this particular
branch of geo-engineering for potential future skills provision
in universities and elsewhere. I wonder if I could start by asking
you, Lord Drayson, because I know that in September DIUS contacted
the Engineering Subject Centre to get a summary of the current
and proposed provision of university courses relevant to geo-engineering
and that was to look at issues such as delivering modules, research
interests, demand for subject development. We understand that
DIUS originally asked for that information to be provided by the
beginning of October and I would be interested to know what the
initial finding from that has been.
Lord Drayson: Our position is
that we do not see that there is a need for us to specifically
support the skills for geo-engineering because the feedback we
have had and the conclusions we have come to are that the skills
required for geo-engineering are common to many of the other areas
of science related to climate change, for which those skills within
all of the branches of engineering are going to be required. So
our focus is really to concentrate on developing the skills base
within engineering per se to make sure that the provision of courses
for those branches of engineering relevant to the aspects of research
and provision of solutions and infrastructure for addressing climate
change are properly addressed. That is part of the wider government
agenda in terms of encouraging an increase in the development
of, firstly, pupils studying those subjects at school and the
proportion of students going on to study those subjects at university.
In all of those areas we are seeing an uptake, so our policies
are working. We just need to see them working more quickly and
with greater effect.
Q64 Mr Marsden: I understand the
point you are making about the link between specific branches
of engineering and general awareness and general provision, and
of course that was an issue which we discussed previously in the
inquiry in relation to nuclear engineering. Given this is a cutting
edge area, and obviously you cannot be prescriptive and would
not want to be, but do you have any concerns about the current
status of what students in universities or schools may or may
not be being taught about geo-engineering?
Lord Drayson: I would say that
my concern is more that within this country we do not have enough
scientists, we do not have enough engineers, period, and therefore
what we need to be doing is addressing those issues with real
vigour, which is what we are doing. Our analysis of this sub-field
of climate change engineering and the particular focus which you
are asking me about around geo-engineering is that we have not
found that there are any particularly specialist skills for engineers
and scientists which are not common to other areas more generally,
for which we need to make specific provision. We clearly need
to monitor that, but we have not concluded that as yet.
Q65 Mr Marsden: Professor Watson,
if I can just turn to you, in your position as Chief Scientific
Advisor at Defra you are, presumably, continually on the look
out for areas of interesting promising research which may then
have the sorts of broader implications we are talking about. What
analysis or what reports have you given to Defra so far as to
the potential implications of geo-engineering for university and
school provision?
Professor Watson: I would actually
agree with Lord Drayson. I do not see there are any special skills
needed for the types of geo-engineering we are talking about,
whether it is iron fertilization, adding tropospheric aerosols,
stratospheric aerosols, et cetera. So as we noted earlier, Defra
did indeed commission a paper which we then had peer reviewed
on the various types of geo-engineering. We did not in that paper
look at the skill set needed. We purely looked to see what were
the approaches which could be taken, what were the potential benefits,
what were the potential negative effects, basically, environmental,
and social. We did not do a good cost estimate either. So we raised
the issue and six months ago we actually sent our paper to the
Royal Society suggesting they might want a more in-depth study,
which they are now actually doing. We did not look at the skill
set, but as Lord Drayson said, I actually do not see that there
will be special skills needed at this moment for these types of
projects.
Q66 Mr Marsden: Just a final question,
if I may. I understand the way in which you have laid that out,
but are you aware of how that approach which you have outlined
and Lord Drayson has touched upon compares with the approaches
in governments elsewhere—and I am thinking of particularly
the evidence session we ad the other week from a couple of distinguished
scientists from the United States—for a comparison between
the way in which the US, Germany or France may be dealing with
these issues?
Professor Watson: To be honest,
I am not up to date with what the US is or is not doing on this.
I know what they are doing in general on climate research. I used
to be in the White House and I oversaw their programme of basically
a couple of billion dollars a year. I have not stayed in touch
with what the US is currently doing on geo-engineering though.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q67 Dr Iddon: Lord Drayson I think
I should address the first question to. The Tyndall Centre believes
that we should be seriously looking at geo-engineering projects,
admittedly as an emergency policy option, in other words plan
B, and they come under criticism then from the green organisations,
particularly Greenpeace, who believe that would be an admission
by Government that they supported geo-engineering of this kind,
that mitigation of and adaptation to climate change had actually
failed, and Joan Ruddock referred to the political sensitivities.
Is it these political sensitivities, under pressure from the green
organisations, which are preventing us from investing in any,
in this country, geo-engineering research?
Lord Drayson: No, I really do
not believe so. I think it is right for people to raise concerns
as to where the priorities lie and I think they are right to say
that the priority needs to be in addressing those aspects of science
which can most have the impact in terms of the risk/benefit equation
and make the most sense, but I do not subscribe to the view that
you should on purpose put all your eggs in one basket to make
sure that you look after that one basket really carefully. I think
that is not how sensible science policy should be implemented.
I think it is right for us to have a watching brief, as we have
described, on these areas of geo-engineering. I think they could
rightly be described as an emergency plan B. That does not mean
that we should not absolutely put full effort into focusing our
investments on plan A. But one never knows. That is the value
of pure research and that is why it is right for us to be putting
a moderate amount of money into this area, to be focusing on aspects
such as modelling where we can learn an awful lot without having
to invest too much.
Joan Ruddock: I think there is
another aspect to plan B and it is this: if we want the whole
of the world community to come together, as we do, to both mitigate
climate change and adapt to the climate change which is inevitable
then we have to engage and get a huge political consensus behind
this, and that is what all our efforts are going towards. We also
have to in certain ways produce vast sums of money, which I will
not even begin to go into. If plan A has failed, if all that has
failed, then there is very little reason to imagine plan B could
succeed because most of the sorts of geo-engineering solutions
which are being proposed would require international agreement.
They could not be done in one country without consequent effects
in other countries. Perhaps the simple chemical trees might be
in that category, but most of the others we require international
agreement. The sums of money which would be required are colossal.
So if we have entirely failed to bring the world community together
to do the rather simpler things which we already understand very
well and we could not get political consensus around them, then
it seems to me rather unlikely that plan B offers you the "Get
out of jail" card. I think that is a narrow dimension which
has not been well explored, perhaps, on geo-engineering solutions,
just what an international effort would be required to make the
majority of these potential plans come into being.
Q68 Chairman: They are global issues
and I suppose that leads me to my next question, which is, is
geo-engineering high up on the agenda for world discussions or
do we never discuss it at international conferences between politicians?
Joan Ruddock: I am not aware that
I am so new in this job that my testimony should not be taken,
perhaps, too seriously. I am not aware of politicians discussing
these matters at length, although I do know that there have been
many meetings at which there have been scientific discussions,
working groups, groups of officials, and I, in my limited experience,
have heard that such discussions have dealt with ocean seeding
for example, for fertilization, which I know has certainly been
on the international agenda, but the extent to which politicians
have been involved I suspect is limited. I also think that given
the absolute necessity to come to some global agreement on climate
change, that is probably correct, that scientists should probably
not be looking to what I regard as being somewhere down the list
of priorities and potentially the plan B, because we need all
our energies directed at the plan A, but perhaps Professor Watson
will have more knowledge than I do and can tell you rather more.
Professor Watson: I have not taken
part in the recent negotiations but when I was the chair of the
IPCC, so until six years ago, most of the negotiators looked to
the IPCC not only to say what was the state of knowledge with
respect to climate change, what the impacts could be, but they
would also look to the IPCC to talk about mitigation approaches
and the economic cost. The IPCC, in the fourth assessment report,
basically said that the geo-engineering options put forward to
date remain largely speculative with little known about their
effectiveness and cost, with the risk of unknown side-effects.
They looked at ocean fertilization, they looked at reflectors
in outer space between the earth and the sun, they looked at reflecting
aerosols in the atmosphere, and changing the albedo of clouds,
et cetera. They did not, by the look of it, look at artificial
trees, but they looked at most of it and clearly with that relatively
negative report and at the same time, their statement that we
do have cost-effective technologies in both production and use
of energy to try to get on a pathway to 450, 500 parts per million
and the need, which they analysed in great length, of what technologies
could you bring to the marketplace within, say, the next decade
(i.e. carbon capture and storage, future generation biofuels),
so with that sort of statement by the IPCC it is not likely it
would have been a major discussion point by the politicians of
the world. They will have put their effort, in my opinion where
they should, on how to transform to a low carbon economy.
Joan Ruddock: I have been passed
a note, so if you like I can tell you that apparently there have
been no discussions in the UNFCCC on geo-engineering, for the
record.
Q69 Chairman: That is very helpful.
Thank you very much. There is little commercial activity in this
area at the moment, but four companies the Committee is aware
of Planktos, a Californian company, has actually gone under, but
Climos is still in existence in California, Atmocean in Sante
Fe, also in the United States, and a company in Australia called
Ocean Nourishment Corporation appears to be active in this area,
all operating in a marine sense. If there were companies like
that about to spin out in Britain, I guess the question is, would
we (i.e. the Government) support them because I know that Linda
Gilroy, who is the Member of Parliament for Plymouth and is aware
of the marine scientists efforts to use algae to accelerate the
carbon cycle in the sea and they would very much, I think, like
to break out as a spin-off company in the not too distant future.
Would the Government support any companies which want to spin
out in that way?
Lord Drayson: Yes, particularly
because Plymouth in that region has shown a really excellent track
record both in the area of marine research but also the way in
which a cluster of marine research-related spin outs and commercial
enterprises have been developed. We also recognise that there
is overlap between different types of marine research with this
area. So although we would not see at the moment that the commercial
opportunity for geo-engineering projects is well-established,
we do see that there would be a sound commercial business plan
based around a general research area, which would include geo-engineering
as part of a number of different areas within marine science.
Providing that was done in an area where you had the benefits
of the cluster effect, good intellectual property and a sound
infrastructure to support it, then we would be supportive of such
a development.
Q70 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Could I stay with you, Lord Drayson? In terms of the research
community, we did have a very interesting session last week. I
think my colleague, Brian Iddon, made the point earlier this afternoon
that I think for all of us this was an area we had not really
engaged with before. I think we say that quite openly and honestly,
but we were quite excited last week on hearing particularly from
the United States but also from our own scientists here in the
UK, very, very committed scientists who were looking at geo-engineering
not as a bridging technology but also as a genuine technology
aimed to deal with this whole issue of climate change. I wonder
what relationship you have as the Science Minister with this emerging
scientific community, who do feel a little beleaguered and not
listened to. What is your pathway to be able to discuss with them
some of these ideas so that they do not feel they are just banging
their heads against a brick wall or an artificial tree?
Lord Drayson: I would encourage
them to make full use of the Government's existing programmes
in the area of climate change.
Q71 Chairman: But how do they do
that?
Lord Drayson: They can firstly
make themselves known to the Technology Strategy Board, which
is a key mechanism the Government has implemented to allow an
independent assessment to be made of the technology investment
priorities. Within that, climate change is a key challenge which
the Government has identified. I would encourage them to not see
their area defined as geo-engineering but to define themselves
more broadly within that space and I would recommend that the
Technology Strategy Board will be the first port of call for them.
Q72 Chairman: Okay. In its submission
DIUS report that sulphate aerosols have a residence in the atmosphere
for around about five years and yet Defra had a similar report
based on Nobel Laureate Professor Crutzen's work, which says that
they stay in the atmosphere for one to two years. Why do we get
such differences of opinion?
Professor Watson: It simply depends
at what altitude and at what latitude you actually inject the
aerosols. When Mount Pinatubo exploded it put the sulphate aerosols
into the lower stratosphere and it had what we call a half residence
time of about one and a half to two years. If you could inject
them much higher, they would indeed stay in the atmosphere longer.
So it really depends where you inject them, both in altitude and
in latitude because there is only a few parts of the world where
you get an exchange of air across what we call a tropopause.
Q73 Chairman: If I can come back
again then particularly to you, Lord Drayson, and also to you,
Joan, how do your departments intend to really spread this message
about geo-engineering, albeit that it is on the periphery of your
main policy areas? How do we get particularly young people, young
scientists, to engage with research groups? We heard last week
that there is not a single grant which is coming directly from
the research councils for a particular project in terms of geo-engineering.
How do we get tomorrow's scientists, tomorrow's young engineers
to actually engage with this if in fact there is no research funding
coming through at all either from the Department or indeed from
the research councils?
Lord Drayson: Chairman, I think
this speaks really directly to the point I made just a moment
ago about the importance of the way in which scientists in this
field and people looking to commercial the science define the
field they are in, because within the area of climate change we
are currently spending within the NERC £66 million on fundamental
research, so it would very much depend upon the specifics of the
type of research, so that is research into the effects of climate
change. In terms of total research investment by the research
councils in the area of energy it is approximately £300 million.
So there is investment at the moment going into the areas of which
you could possibly argue that some of these geo-engineering projects
would fall. I think that decision relating to the balance of investment
within the particular areas of science is rightly not a decision
which is made by politicians under the Haldane Principle. We see
that these decisions about which projects are supported is left
through the peer review process into the research councils and
that is, of course, the way it should be.
Q74 Chairman: Do you share that view,
Joan?
Joan Ruddock: Yes. I have nothing
to add directly to that. I do not think it would be the job of
my Department to be trying to enthuse young people about a particular
branch of science or engineering. What I do think is the job of
my Department is to engage our population at large in working
with us, working with industry, working right across the piece
to tackle climate change because we know that 40% of the emissions
that concern us come from the individual actions of human beings
directly in their own lives. We can influence them and so we want
young people to understand that that is the case and that there
are things they can do. It is my belief—and I hope this
will prove to be right—that the great challenge of climate
change and the degree of interest young people have shown in climate
change and the fact that it is their lives which will be constantly
threatened by climate change will actually, I hope, lead to all
of young people to want to be scientists, to want to be engineers
and to see that they can not only change things in their own lives
but they could actually do something which could make a very big
difference. So I think it can be a source of inspiration for young
people. We certainly have climate change champions who are drawn
from young people in competition around the whole country and
in the work they do and the work which is done in the eco schools,
for example, people become very innovative, they become very interested
in science as a result of joining this popular movement of people
who want to address climate change. So I think tangentially we
come at this, but of course we would not be promoting a particular
branch of science to young people as a department.
Chairman: Okay. On that note could we
thank you very much indeed, Joan Ruddock, Professor Bob Watson
and Lord Drayson. Thank you very much indeed for your evidence
this afternoon.
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