[Mb-civic] climate crusader

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

The King and I
An interview with Sir David King, Britain's top scientist and 
climate crusader
By Amanda Griscom Little 
http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/17/griscom-little/?source=daily> 
17 Feb 2006
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has earned a rep as a global leader in 
the fight against climate change, and, at least in part, he has Sir David 
King to thank for it. 

 Sir David King.


King, the U.K. government's chief scientific adviser and an outspoken 
advocate of aggressive action to forestall global warming, has pushed 
the climate crisis up the PM's priority list. He was instrumental in 
making the U.K. the first nation to commit to greenhouse-gas 
reductions that go beyond Kyoto, and in positioning climate as one of 
two top issues at last year's G8 summit, hosted by Blair. 

King's headline-grabbing rhetoric has put climate change in the 
spotlight, and King himself in the hot seat. He's become a target of the 
American right and been publicly heckled by U.S. climate skeptics 
during lectures. He has also raised the ire of some in the 
environmental community for arguing that nuclear power, gasified coal, 
and carbon sequestration are necessary weapons in the battle against 
global warming.




 Your comment that climate change poses a bigger threat to humanity 
than terrorism turned a lot of heads internationally. How did you come 
to this conclusion? 

 That sentence originated from an article I wrote in Science. I pointed 
out that, for example, the 30,000 deaths in Europe from the hot 
summer of 2003 -- which have been closely correlated to global 
warming -- indicate the kind of security problems we are faced with. 

Let me be clear: I in no way diminish the threat of terrorism to our 
society and way of life, quite the reverse. It is a very serious threat. But 
I don't think it is even comparable to the threat to our civilization that 
global warming represents.

 How did you help bring climate change to the prime minister's 
attention? 

 I engineered an invitation to give a lecture on the current state of 
climate-change science in 2002, the Zuckerman Lecture [PDF], that 
went around to all the cabinet and many influential people in British 
government. The most important turning point was the decision the 
prime minister made very quickly after that -- he is, by the way, a very 
decisive sort of person -- to look at the U.K.'s energy policy in light of 
global-warming science. That led to further research and eventually a 
white paper in 2003 that committed the government to reducing carbon 
dioxide 60 percent by 2050. It was the first time a government had 
come forward and said, "We are going to go beyond Kyoto." 

 Was it intended as a challenge to other heads of state to follow suit?

 In part. We put ourselves on that path so as to provide Britain with a 
strong position in negotiating with other countries. The prime minister 
has followed this up with clear advice to his cabinet ministers to raise 
the profile of climate change worldwide. I became his unofficial 
ambassador on the matter, and in the past 18 months, I've delivered 
over 140 lectures on climate science around the world at his behest.

 What was the 60 percent CO2 reduction figure based on? 

 It was consistent with figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change. Without reductions of 60 percent by mid-century, I 
believe the melting of the Greenland ice sheet would be irreversible, 
and sea levels would rise by seven meters from that alone. Knowing 
that the world's great cities are on coastlines and would therefore be 
underwater, we felt that was something to be avoided.

 What would the global-warming impacts be on the U.K.? 

 We did the most detailed analysis yet conducted of the impact of 
climate change on any one country, examining the flood and coastal 
defense risks for the U.K. over the next 80 years. It demonstrates that 
if we globally continue burning fossil fuels at the current rate, by 2080 it 
will be extremely difficult to protect British homes and cities from 
coastal flooding, fluvial flooding, and flooding from rainfall in our cities. 

 Are you already seeing impacts?

 Rainfall patterns are already changing across cities. Just in the last 
decade, we've been seeing flash floods from tropical storms that bring 
a lot more water to our cities than we've previously experienced. Our 
drainage and sewage systems are not able to cope, so we get massive 
flooding. 

 Many of the politicians and oil-industry executives of the U.K., such as 
Lord John Browne of BP, are seen as global leaders on the climate 
issue. Why, would you say, are your leaders ahead of the game on this 
matter?

 It's a nontrivial fact that the U.K. has always been very interested in 
the weather. Remember that Britain developed its leadership position 
through trade and war. In order to be one ahead of the opposition, you 
need to predict weather better than they do. So our meteorological 
office is placed within the military, which means it has always been 
exceptionally well funded. That's why the Hadley Center, which is in 
the Ministry of Defense, is a world leader on modeling climate change. 
It is widely respected in the U.K., both by our leaders and our citizens. 
A recent opinion poll revealed that about 90 percent of the British 
public believes that global warming is a real threat.

 You've been heckled at your lectures by U.S. climate skeptics who 
argue that climate science is "in its infancy" -- an opinion that has also 
been voiced by members of the Bush administration. 

 I've been chased around by several people funded by the Competitive 
Enterprise Institute who make these kind of statements that simply fly 
in the face of all the evidence. To say that climate science is in its 
infancy is quite simply puerile. The greenhouse effect was established 
by [Joseph] Fourier back in 1827. By 1896, [Svante] Arrhenius had 
calculated that we would see global warming by five degrees 
centigrade if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubled. That's 
pretty close to what current scientists are saying. So the state of 
knowledge is 100 years old plus. 

 What's your opinion of the Bush administration's approach to climate 
change, in particular its argument that both Kyoto and domestic 
regulations could pose a threat to the U.S. economy? 

 What I'm not going to be able to do is criticize any other government. I 
can say that in Britain our economy since 1990 has grown by about 40 
percent, and our emissions have decreased by 14 percent. So to 
argue that you destroy your economy by reducing emissions is 
blatantly incorrect. 

Furthermore, we feel we have a competitive advantage in getting into 
the Kyoto CO2-trading program early; we believe it is an incredibly 
important new commodity exercise that will spur crucial technology 
development and soon begin to pay dividends for our country.

 You were quoted in a recent BBC article as saying that the U.K.'s 
targets of reducing carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent below 1990 
levels by 2010 are "a bit optimistic." Why?

 Meeting the 2010 target will be challenging, despite the significant 
program of action under our 2003 white paper. The key problem is the 
rapid decline in the contribution of nuclear power to the U.K.'s energy 
mix that will be seen over the next decade as existing plants reach the 
end of their lives. Ministers are currently considering what further steps 
can be taken to get back on track, but it will be a tough call. 

Spend Your $.02 Discuss this story in our blog, Gristmill.


 So do you worry that your mid-century targets are not achievable? 

 I will not deny that significant further policy and technology innovation 
will be needed over time for this to happen. I do think that we have the 
framework right and will see emissions continue to decline significantly 
to 2020 and beyond. The targets do not need to be adjusted; they are 
achievable. 

 To what extent will nuclear play a role in achieving these targets?

 Deploying a range of technologies to radically decarbonize our energy 
systems over just a few decades is a challenge that should not be 
underestimated. We need every tool in the bag to address it. Even 
taking the most optimistic projections, dramatic investments in energy 
efficiency and renewables will not be enough. I believe the government 
is right to revisit now the question of new nuclear. The question of 
nuclear waste is of course an important one. It is worth noting that the 
next generation of nuclear plants would add only around 10 percent to 
the U.K.'s nuclear waste pile over a 40-year period, given the greater 
efficiency of more modern reactors. 

 What about coal generation and carbon sequestration?

In The Same Vein Coal Reversal
Climate campaigners warm to "advanced coal" and sequestration, 
despite Bush backing


 It also seems certain that fossil fuels -- coal and gas -- will continue to 
contribute significantly to meeting U.K. and global energy needs for at 
least the majority of this century. This is a political and practical reality 
that it is important to acknowledge. Carbon capture and storage 
technologies offer the possibility to address this. 

 What have you personally and the British government in general done 
to improve your energy efficiency?

 I drive around in a Toyota Prius. The government car service in 
London is shifting over to hybrid-engine vehicles as fast as we can get 
them. We are also deploying energy-efficiency measures on 
government buildings and bolstering public transport systems.

The bigger point, however, is that there's a tremendous effort within 
our government to get more people into science and technology. We 
are doubling our funding in this area and now producing more science, 
engineering, and technology graduates as a proportion of 22-year-olds 
than almost any other country in the world. 

 How much progress do you think was made at the recent Montreal 
climate negotiations in the effort to forge a foundation for a post-Kyoto 
international agreement?

 Excellent progress was made in Montreal on a number of important 
fronts, including strengthening of the practical mechanisms for 
reducing greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and the 
agreement to launch a process for targets beyond 2012. Perhaps the 
most encouraging aspect for me was the very constructive approach to 
the discussions adopted by developing nations such as China and 
India. 

But it is of obvious importance that any future framework be inclusive, 
bringing in the U.S. and involving fully key developing nations. There is 
no question that the international community has a long way to go if it 
is to minimize the risk of the most dangerous climate-change impacts 
occurring.



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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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