Sustainable Development in a Changing Climate - International Development Committee Contents


Examination of Witness (Questions 220-222)

PROFESSOR LORD STERN OF BRENTFORD

11 MARCH 2009

  Q220  Richard Burden: You do not think there is a danger perhaps that if the logic is to bring them together, and the logic has got to be "it needs more money put behind it", that we could end up with bringing together not enough more money to put behind it and the result could be that actually money could get diverted away from, say, health projects, and so on?

  Professor Lord Stern of Brentford: I was with you right up to the last sentence. I think there is a danger, but the danger is about the overall resources being too small in relation to the extra challenges from climate change. It is not that very last issue, which is diverting money. Investment in human capital, in the jargon that we sometimes use in health and education particularly, can be very important for dealing with climate change. A lot of this is about human resilience, a lot of it is about finding different kinds and more diversified activities which education helps you find. So the danger is that the inadequate resources are there and that those will be inadequate resources. I do not think the diversion question is the right way to look at it.

  Q221  Chairman: It is three o'clock. I know Lord Stern has to catch his plane to Copenhagen to join that discussion, so I think we should let you do that, because I think we need you to be there. My apologies for the interruption that obviously took some time away, and thank you for giving us this opportunity to have an exchange. I think we can all only hope that Copenhagen will be about securing a deal and that the Americans, even if they cannot deliver everything that we want, come with a positive attitude and also the EU, because with Italy cutting aid and with Xavier Solana saying they should only fund a third of the developing countries' requirements against the expectation of 100 %, there are big gaps, so I guess we need you and others to try and use all your eloquence to show them the gaps to bridge.

  Professor Lord Stern of Brentford: It is very nice to talk, Chairman. There are so many things to talk about, obviously. You should certainly let Mr Solana know that this is a security issue. Big numbers of people are already moving and the numbers who would have to move in the context of unmanaged climate change would be in the hundreds of millions, and what we would then have is a very protracted world conflict, because large numbers of people moving lead to conflict—surely a lesson of the last two or 300 years. So I fear those are mistakes that you describe, but we should try to argue strongly against them because they are just analytical errors.

  Q222  Chairman: Thank you very much and bon voyage.

  Professor Lord Stern of Brentford: Thank you very much. It was nice to talk to you.





 
previous page contents

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2009
Prepared 3 June 2009