Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-191)
DR KEITH
ALLOTT, MR
DAVID TICKNER
AND MR
TOBY QUANTRILL
3 MARCH 2009
Q180 Richard Burden: We can look
at it the other way round and see the problem you are identifying,
that you try to do too much and therefore achieve nothing. If
so much of the international focus is going to be understandably
on development in low carbon technologies—technology transfer
in that context—are there not things we could be doing within
those programmes to try to ensure a much more pro-poor positive
development angle to them? What would they look like and from
DFID's point of view specifically are there any things that it
should be doing itself or pushing for internationally to try to
ensure that more poor people in the least developed countries
have got access to clean and affordable energy?
Mr Quantrill: Whilst saying it
is not about reducing carbon, at the same time there are very,
very strong development arguments for developing in a low carbon
way for a number of reasons. You do not want poor countries to
develop in the way that locks them in long term to a high carbon
path. Whilst you do not want them to be uncompetitive in a low
carbon global economy, you do not want them to become a dumping
ground for the dirty industries of other countries. There are
a lot of reasons why good development and staying competitive
in a global economy does make sense, but we must also remember
that the point here is reducing poverty and the long term development,
not necessarily contributing to the global carbon emission reduction.
In that sense I think there is a lot that can be done. I would
highlight certainly the scaling up renewable energy programme
that DFID is involved in discussing, under the World Bank. Obviously
we have talked previously in this committee about the Climate
Investment Fund under the World Bank and some of the governance
issues we may have with those, but I think in principle that Fund
offers a huge opportunity and we would certainly encourage increased
investment. We would like to make sure that it is linked in under
the UNFCCC as a primary governance mechanism. In principle that
kind of fund is where we should be going, so a strong investment
in localised renewable energy systems. One thing I think we find
a bit of a scarcity of is research that looks at the high capital
energy production versus small scale renewable and the extent
to which either of those has an impact on poverty. This ties back
into the adaptation discussion because good development in a climate
change context means increasingly looking to reduce the vulnerability
of poor people and so sort of focussing your efforts on that instead
of on the constant judgment of success through national economic
growth. But looking at it slightly differently and increasing
the emphasis on poverty reduction rather than just national growth,
you might find that you have actually got a far more efficient
way of decreasing poverty through investing in smaller scale energy
production and leapfrog some of the technologies that we have
put in place. That is a broad answer. I think those opportunities
are there but they have not yet been fully and reliably funded.
Q181 Mr Singh: One of the biggest
impacts of climate change is going to be in terms of water. Many,
many people in the developing world do not have access to clean
water. In terms of climate change what is going to happen or what
is already happening in developing countries in terms of water
security for the poorest of people?
Dr Tickner: The first thing I
would say in response to that is that water security is a critical
issue. It is going to underpin food security, energy security
and many of the other key challenges in the 21st century. Climate
change is going to be a factor in that, in fact in our view it
already is in many places. It is important to realise that it
is only one factor; there are a whole load of other issues which
are driving water insecurity at the moment in many parts of the
world to do with poor governance or inadequate frameworks for
allocating water between competing uses to do with inappropriate
infrastructure developments and so on and so forth. Sticking to
climate change for the time being, I am guessing that you guys
know that predicting the outcomes of climate change in terms of
changing precipitation patterns is a devilishly difficult business.
It is probably the area of climate modelling where there is most
uncertainty. What we do know is that there will be some direct
impacts on rainfall patterns, on river flows, on aquifer recharge.
It is important to realise that those direct impacts are not just
going to be in terms of the amount of water—there will be
some changes to that for sure—but there are other factors
which are important as well, particularly the timing of rainfall
and of river flows and also the type of precipitation. Just talking
about the timing for a second, there are some climate models which
are suggesting that potentially the Indian monsoon could shift
in terms of timing. If that is the case you have patterns of agriculture
which underpin whole communities and whole economies in South
Asia which have evolved over centuries to cope with the Indian
monsoon happening when it does. If that Indian monsoon suddenly
shifts a little bit later or a little bit earlier you potentially
get massive disruption: failure of crops, hunger, conflict and
so on and so forth. That timing issue is absolutely critical.
In terms of the type of precipitation, I think probably the best
example of that is to look at high mountain environments, in particular
somewhere like the Tibetan plateau. Of course you know that so
many of the great rivers of the world flow off the Tibetan plateau
and water and feed billions of people. If some of the precipitation
that currently falls as snow on the Tibetan plateau instead falls
as rain then the impact of that combined with temperature increases
means that some of those glaciers which feed the rivers are not
going to be there for that much longer. That type of precipitation
is also critically important. That is about the direct impact
of climate change on water security. It is very important to talk
about indirect impacts as well. By indirect impacts what I mean
is water management responses. Perhaps the best example of that
is the drive that we are beginning to see now to build more water
infrastructure after a little bit of a downscale of dam building
since the 1980s. There will be a need for more water infrastructure—there
is no question about that—but it is important as we are
thinking about what water infrastructure needs to be built and
needs to be financed that two things are borne in mind. The first
thing is that historically we have made many mistakes around building
water infrastructure and around building dams in the past. I know
from your inquiry a couple years ago into sanitation and water
you did a bit of work on this and came up with some recommendations
for DFID to take some action. One of those recommendations was
about following up the World Commission on Dams Report in 2000.
There were an awful lot of lessons learned captured in that World
Commission on Dams Report around the previously largely poor planning,
the design, location and operation of dams. It is critical that
we take on board those lessons regardless of climate changes.
The second thing which is very specifically to do with climate
change is around a concept called hydro-stationarity. The way
water infrastructure has been built historically is either using
water monitoring data from river gauging stations to figure out
what the rainfall and river flow patterns have been for the last
decade and then build a dam that is designed to cope with that
or, where we do not have that monitoring data, to use modelling
data to figure out what hydrological patterns have been like over
the last few decades. That is what we call hydro-stationarity.
It is an assumption that hydrological conditions, with a bit of
inter-annual variation—will more or less stay the same from
decade to decade. Climate change completely undermines those assumptions.
So if infrastructure is going to be built on models based on past
hydrological conditions there is a real danger that it is going
to be completely inappropriate and the impact of that infrastructure
for people who rely on those river flows, especially as they become
a little more uncertain, could be magnified in terms of the negative
impacts.
Q182 Mr Singh: You have painted a
frightening picture there for the developing world, but what is
the impact on the developed world going to be or is there an impact
now, for example the droughts in Australia. Is that anything to
do with climate change?
Dr Tickner: The Australian example
is a bit of a classic example. Over the last 30 years of course
in many parts of Australia rainfall has fairly rapidly diminished
causing all sorts of problems. Originally people were thinking
about that as a series of droughts and just in the last few years
a number of scientists are beginning to suggest that perhaps it
is not a series of droughts; what you have is a new climatic norm.
There is just the beginnings of conversations in this part of
the world as well that some of the floods and droughts we have
seen in this country in recent years might be the beginnings of
a new climatic norm where ironically we see, as one Environment
Agency paper put it, both more water and less. Again it is about
the timing of when rain falls as much as actually how much there
is on an annual basis.
Mr Quantrill: There are very big
impacts in the developed world and we are actually seeing some
very interesting studies coming out in the US (where they now
have a more receptive audience with the new Administration) showing
some of the very alarming impacts, for instance in California
in terms of water resources and the location of cities. The rapidly
warming climate is creating real problems in very wealthy countries
such as the States, the contrast being a country with the capacity
and resources to deal with the impacts compared to the impacts
in the most vulnerable developing countries where you have neither
the capacity nor the existing institutions or government structures
to help cope with the impact, let alone the finance, which brings
us back to the obligations in terms of that transfer of resource
to help that adaptation response.
Q183 Mr Singh: Coming to the question
of what DFID should be doing, DFID did take on some of our recommendations.
Are there additional things that DFID could do? Some of the developing
countries will lack the institutional capacity in terms of water
resource management, how do we get round that and what should
DFID be doing now?
Dr Tickner: In terms of the DFID
water policy that was launched in October (I remember Mr Bruce
was at the launch), broadly speaking it is a good policy and the
fact that water resources is one of the three or four priorities
in that policy I think is a real step forward. You are asking,
I guess, for a critique of that policy. I would point to four
or maybe five things around that. The first thing is around infrastructure
and I have just talked about that a little bit. DFID officials—I
know from my conversations with them—are aware that they
need to engage with this topic; I do not think there is a major
policy issue that is lacking there. I think there is a need for
DFID to be right at the heart of discussions about what good water
infrastructure looks like in the light of climate change but also
in the light of lessons learned from the past. There are some
interesting initiatives going on and WWF is involved with the
International Hydropower Association and a range of other stakeholders
in something called the hydropower sustainability assessment programme.
One very specific thing that DFID could do is engage in that particular
forum and support it in some way. We are quite hopeful that that
will come out with potentially even some kind of certification
scheme for good hydropower dams. There is, I think, a shortcoming
in the policy around its treatment of two of the priorities it
points up—on governance and finance. It very much talks
about governance and finance in terms of provision of water supply
services of drinking water. Of course that is critically important
and I would not want to undermine that, but some of the major
issues we see in terms of broader water security for agriculture,
energy, industry, economic growth, poverty reduction, they are
equally issues of governance and finance. I thought the DFID policy
was a little too narrow in its focus there. There is a third issue
around what we call the international architecture for water management,
particularly around trans-boundary river basins. There are 263
trans-boundary river basins in the world—most of Africa
is covered by trans-boundary river basins—and WWF and DFID
are actually doing a very interesting and promising piece of joint
work to assess the state of this international architecture—the
policy, the legislation, the institutions. WWF remains of the
opinion that really DFID should be leading the UK Government to
accede to a piece of UN legislation, the UN Watercourses Convention.
At the moment the Government seems slightly reluctant to do that.
Q184 Mr Singh: Is there a reason
for that reluctance?
Dr Tickner: At the moment DFID
seems to be saying two or three things—one is that it does
not believe the Convention will ever come into force because not
enough countries have ratified it. That is a little bit of a circular
argument, perhaps used as a reason for non-ratification; of course
it is never going to come into force if no-one ratifies it. Secondly
there is a little bit of new momentum behind this convention,
especially this year. World Water Day in three weeks' time is
going to be around the theme of trans-boundary waters. I am hearing
talk from a lot of governments that they are looking afresh at
this Convention partly because of climate change concerns. I am
not convinced by their argument around that. They also say that
they are not convinced that there is a development case behind
it. You could equally make the case for any UN convention whether
it is a convention on sustainable development or on desertification,
and yet the UK Government has been quite enthusiastic supporters
of those. I think perhaps there is some inconsistency on their
part. The other critique of DFID's water policy is that perhaps
it is light on the value of ecosystem services. It very much talks
about water without really thinking about where the water comes
from and the need to maintain those ecosystems so they continue
to provide more water but also that they provide other ecosystem
services which are particularly important for the poorest people.
If you think about the Mekong Basin, for example, in South East
Asia, freshwater fisheries are the major source of protein for
poor communities there. If you dam the Mekong too much those fisheries
are going to be affected.
Mr Quantrill: To come back a little
bit to some of the previous discussions to emphasise that one
of the cautions we have had with regard to DFID is its single-minded
focus on carbon and low carbon development. Important as that
is, climate change is one example of an environmental service
that is being over stretched beyond its limits and we have put
the numbers to that. However, there are others. We have had the
discussion about water but as WWF we would also highlight forests,
marines, marine resources and so on. What we are looking for really
is not development policies that address carbon and only carbon
emissions, not policies that address only water, but policies
and approaches that actually look at the sustainability and the
social impact across the board and take into account the fact
that there are these ecosystems. We know from the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment from some time ago that many of these were under pressure
and were going to have a very bad impact. So it is getting back
to the concept of sustainable development I am afraid; it is a
clichéd term but rather than move to low carbon development
why can we not go back to where we were and really re-think it
in those terms.
Q185 Mr Singh: Is what you are suggesting
difficult to do?
Mr Quantrill: We have not done
it yet. I do not know whether it is too difficult or not, but
we have to otherwise we do not know where we are going and climate
change is a bit of an indicator for us that going down the path
we were on is, in the long term, going to bite us.
Q186 Andrew Stunell: WWF has done
a very good job with its One World campaign and so on and has
focussed on a lot of these things. We have just been talking about
the importance of the sustainability of water and you have introduced,
perhaps single-handedly, the idea of water footprinting which
is an interesting one but is it anything more than a campaigning
slogan? Does it have absolute relevance to policy makers about
how we should set about looking at this particular aspect?
Dr Tickner: The short answer to
that is yes, it does have policy relevance; we are just not quite
sure what policy relevance yet. Let me expand on that a little
bit. It is important to say at the outset that the whole science
of water footprinting and the whole approach is very new. It is
very kind of you to say that we almost single-handedly brought
it forward; I think there have been a few other organisations
involved but I am happy to take the credit. We have been working
on it for two to three years. In the last 12 months in particular
there has been a real explosion of interest in it but it is very
embryonic at the moment. We have gone from the stage of thinking
how much water is embedded in this cotton shirt I am wearing and
is that relevant, to coming up with or nearly finalising a standard
tool that companies and governments can use to assess their water
footprint. We sent you a report that came out last year on the
UK's water footprint and that was really the first time that that
tool had been used. A couple of companies have now picked it up
and are using it as well. There are going to be a couple of new
pieces that WWF will be bringing out for the World Water Forum
in Istanbul taking this stage a little bit further saying, "Okay,
you've done your water footprint, you know where you are having
an impact and you know where your risk as a company or as a government
is from your water footprint; what do you do about that?"
A couple of things came out that will perhaps kick start those
sorts of conversations. In terms of actual hard policy responses,
that is something we have only recently started talking to government
about. Defra invited one of my colleagues to a meeting about three
weeks ago (and I think someone from DFID was present there as
well along with a range of other stakeholders) to actually start
thinking about this in a slightly more concrete sense. I know
the Welsh Assembly Government have also shown a little bit of
interest in this. We would very much like to see DFID engage in
this discussion quite strongly, even though we are not quite sure
what our policy is. There are a couple of good reasons why we
would like to ask them to engage, one is because water footprinting
is a complex beast and is slightly different from the outcomes
of carbon footprinting. You can work out your carbon footprint
and you know what the response is: it can be quite difficult to
do but somehow you have to reduce your carbon footprint. Water
footprinting is slightly more complex. It is best illustrated
with an example. If I buy a loaf of bread which is made with wheat
from Canada and that loaf of bread somehow or another has had
100 litres of virtual water embedded in it, that sounds pretty
scary. Then I might think I will look for a loaf of bread that
has less water and I find one that is made with wheat from Australia,
for example; it might only have 20 litres of embedded water in
it. The thing is, water in Australia is a much scarcer resource
than it is in Canada so the impact of your 20 litre loaf of bread
from Australia on ecosystems and on people could be far greater
than your 100 litre load of bread from Canada. So location is
much more important with water than it is with any other type
of footprint. That ties directly to development arguments and
to the need to focus on poor countries. I think that lends itself
to DFID getting involved and saying, "Well, if we are interested
in Pakistan, if we are interested in India, if we are interested
in some of the really dry areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the
poorest communities are incredibly dependent on freshwater ecosystems,
how can we mobilise different forces from across the world using
water footprinting to inform our knowledge of who those stakeholders
are to actually make a difference." The second reason why
I think DFID is well placed to be involved is really around ethical
dilemmas that come with various different types of footprinting
and the development argument. I suspect people have talked to
you about this before, but there is something called the Zambian
green bean conundrum. You can imagine going to a supermarket at
this time of year, you fancy some green beans to have with your
Sunday lunch, you see some and they come from Zambia. You are
a reasonably intelligent, educated, ethically minded consumer
so you think, "Hang on a second, let's think about this.
They come from Zambia; they've been flown in." You are worried
about carbon but then you think, "Hang on, if I buy the Dutch
ones they've probably been grown in greenhouses, so what do I
do about that?" If you know about water footprinting you
are also thinking, "Well, there are parts of Zambia which
are pretty dry so if these beans are irrigated then I've got to
start thinking about water footprinting." If, after thinking
about it, you decide, "No, I'm not going to buy these beans
from Zambia" then that has an impact on the poor Zambian
farmers who rely on income from growing green beans. What do they
do instead and how do you know that is not going to be even worse
for the environment? There are profound ethical dilemmas in this
and I do not think anybody has any easy answers. WWF and other
NGOs are deeply engaged in these discussions but I absolutely
think it is the role for government in some places to lead those
conversations, to convene them, certainly to be engaged in them.
I think what we see from DFID at the moment is that perhaps they
are slightly behind the curve on some of those discussions. I
do not think it is through lack of interest; it might be a little
bit through lack of capacity. We would very much like to see them
heavily engaged in those discussions to help us find the answers.
Q187 Andrew Stunell: Basically you
are saying that the concept is a useful searchlight to shine on
the thing but it is not actually leading us toward direct policy
conclusions.
Dr Tickner: Where it can be very
useful is to help you target your policy effort, so using my loaf
of bread example you may not want to work on bread per se as a
product that people buy in this country that has an impact on
developing countries. You might instead want to think about where
in particular is the growing of wheat leading to water shortages
and that is where footprinting can help. Then you can start thinking
about how to respond to that—is it by improving water management
in that country? Or is it by working with consumers in this country
to change their consumption patterns? It can help you to really
sharpen your focus.
Q188 Andrew Stunell: I think I will
look forward to the development of those ideas.
Dr Tickner: I am very happy to
share with the Committee the papers that we will be publishing
in Istanbul.
Q189 Chairman: We are specifically
looking at flower growing in Kenya, just as an example, and of
course the water as well as the carbon footprint is part of it,
so we will bear those things in mind.
Dr Tickner: Indeed.
Q190 Chairman: Why am I not surprised
that the Welsh Assembly is interested in water footprints? Speaking
as a Scottish Member of Parliament it occurs to me that this has
regional implications. In Scotland we have plenty of water and
plenty of renewable energy but not enough market opportunities,
so if these kinds of things become concepts they apply inside
developed markets as well as between developed and developing
markets. As you say, there are quite a lot of complicated variables
to be built in before you actually can start saying to people
that they should or should not be buying these products or supporting
these products or finding an alternative.
Dr Tickner: Exactly.
Q191 Chairman: It is quite an interesting
starting point which I think we would like to explore further
and I hope that in our inquiry and the visit we are making we
will bear that in mind. The Committee is really grateful for what
you have given to us; you have given us a few things to have in
our minds as we are making our visits to East Africa. Thank you
very much. If you would keep us posted with your papers that would
be excellent.
Dr Tickner: Sure; we would be
happy to do that.
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