UK policies need solid underpinnings, says Robert May

With so much focus on the G8 summit in July, it is perhaps not surprising that such little attention has been given to a far more important meeting on climate change due to take place this year.

At the end of November, high-level representatives from governments around the world will gather in Montreal for the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

With 191 signatories, the UNFCCC pledges governments to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, through the most cost-effective measures, at levels that would avoid the worst effects of climate change.

It was concern that the UNFCCC was not enough to prompt countries into action that the Kyoto Protocol was added in 1997, creating real initial targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by industrialised nations, as a first step towards co-ordinated long-term action by all countries.

Most eyes will be on the US administration to see if the small but significant shift in policy suggested in the Gleneagles communiqué, recognising that human activities are contributing to climate change and that urgent action is required, translates into a concrete commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

No agreed target

Although much of the focus will be on negotiations about targets beyond the end of the first period of the Kyoto Protocol, the parties need to take account of a crucial issue, highlighted by the science academies of the G8 nations in a joint statement in June. As yet, there is no agreed target level for concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Without this, countries cannot plan an effective programme of cuts. This of course was noted by participants in February at a special meeting of climate change scientists at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, organised by the UK government to inform the G8 summit.

Although the Gleneagles communiqué did not include action on establishing a stabilisation level for greenhouse gas concentrations, it does commit the G8 partners to a ‘dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development’, with the first meeting due in early November. Hopefully, the UK can help to maintain pressure on the United States to agree to significant cuts in the long term.

The UK government is likely to play an important role in Montreal as well, yet will be under even more pressure to ensure that its domestic climate change policies live up to the bold declarations made in international arenas. One important contribution to the UK’s response to domestic challenges is a review of the economics of climate change policies, announced by the Chancellor on 19 July.

Eccentric report

I hope that the Treasury’s review will yield a more valuable contribution than the report published by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs 1 two days before the start of the G8 summit. Tellingly, this report’s digression from economics into an eccentric account of the current state of the science of climate change appears to have been warmly welcomed by some White House officials.

The report is based on a rather curious selection of witnesses and some of the language is reminiscent of the controversial official US government document allegedly doctored by former White House aide Pat Cooney, before his departure to ExxonMobil, to make it seem like climate change science fits the current policies of the Bush administration.

As such, the sections dealing with science in the Committee’s report may have benefited during their preparation from the expert advice of somebody involved in climate change research. However, the Committee’s report had some sensible things to say about the need for good economic analyses of the impacts of climate change. It offers a valuable recommendation in suggesting that the climate change levy should be scrapped in favour of a carbon tax, a measure that has been advocated a number of times by the Royal Society as the best economic instrument for promoting energy technologies that do not produce carbon dioxide.

Such a recommendation is important because the UK faces some difficult policy choices. By the Government’s own admission, domestic climate change policies are not working well enough and we need to tackle head-on the problems arising from our present reliance on fossil fuels. That means considering a range of technologies, including nuclear power, renewables, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen engines. The UK must continue to lead by example by demonstrating how to face up to the challenges posed by climate change.

Lord May of Oxford is President of the Royal Society