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The Royal Society of Edinburgh Discussion Forum: Facing Up to Climate Change 26 September 2011 Report by Stuart Brown Chair: Speakers: Then RSE President, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn KT GCMG PPRSE The Rt Hon Lord Adair Turner HonFRSE, Chairman of the UK Committee for Climate Change, and Professor David Sugden FRSE, Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh, and Chair, RSE Climate Change Inquiry

Lord Turner It is fitting, Lord Turner opened, to be discussing climate change in a multidisciplinary institution such as The Royal Society of Edinburgh, when the most appropriate way forward for climate change involves wide-ranging disciplines including science, technology, economics and ethics. The Chair of the Climate Change Committee making recommendations to the UK Government on targets for reducing CO2 emissions by 2050 began by discussing the science of climate change. There is a communications challenge, Lord Turner asserted, in putting across the high degree of certainty that science provides about the direction of climate change, whilst at the same time stating the uncertainty that exists (and the implications of that uncertainty) around the specific extent of climate change and its regional impact. This is important, because some sceptics use this uncertainty to undermine the credibility of what we know with a high degree of certainty. Lord Turner proceeded to set out what we do and do not know. Science and empirical data tell us within a range of high degree of certainty that: Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere warm the world, and without a reasonable concentration of them in the atmosphere, the Earth would be about thirty degrees colder and devoid of human life. Over the last million years, there has been a very significant correlation between concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and average temperatures. This historical occurrence has nothing to do with man-made emissions of carbon, but is a natural cycle. Feedback loops occur where the increased level of CO2 then feeds back to create a major increase in temperature and in this complex system feedback loops amplify and dampen. However, for long periods of time, potentially very significant amplifying has occurred. This warns us against significantly changing quantities in this system. We have changed CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and the increase is driven by the burning of fossil fuels. We are set to double the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which we know have major impact on the complex feedback loop system.

We almost fully understand the relationship between greenhouse gases and concentrations in the atmosphere, and can measure emissions and climate change and create models to estimate the potential impact on human welfare. Lack of certainty is not a reason for doing nothing, but rather an argument for extreme caution, Lord Turner argued.

2 We cannot say what climate change for a specific geographical region would be and could not predict temperature or rainfall there. Intelligent policy must therefore rely, not on certainties, but on probabilistic estimates. There is further uncertainty in translating the impact as positive or negative for human welfare, but there are many reasons for believing that the effects are broadly negative. The Climate Change Committee believes that the effects are non-linear; i.e., that if there are adverse effects caused by global temperature going up by 2C, the impact of going up by 4C is not twice as bad, it is much worse. There is a point beyond which we begin to have potentially catastrophic effects. Lord Turner then turned to the way in which his Committee approached the challenge. They looked, he said, at estimates that the scientists have produced of the probabilities of going above certain increases of global temperature over the next hundred years. Most scenarios give a very significant probability of exceeding a rise of 2C, and although many people demand a target to ensure it is not more than 2C, that is undeliverable, in Lord Turners view. They looked at best estimates of the possible impact scenarios, such as European heat waves or glaciers melting, and the potential impact of rainfall in Africa and the movements of people that drought might produce. Some potential impacts can be expressed in the language of economics, e.g., impact on agricultural productivity or on GDP, and we can attempt to put an economic value on them. Others, whilst important to human wellbeing, are difficult to put a value on, such as deaths from a heat wave or fewer deaths from less extreme cold. The Committees conclusion, said its Chairman, was that a sensible aim for the world is to set on a path of global emissions which would keep the increase in temperature as little above two degrees as possible, and the chance of going above two degrees at no more than approximately 50%. The most crucial maxim they proposed is that we have to keep the probability of really catastrophic change very low, (defining very low as below 1% and catastrophic as four degrees change). The world is putting out about 48 gig tonnes, (billion tonnes) of CO2, but has to get that down by roughly 50% by 2050, or down to 810 gig tonnes by the end of the century. Ethics come into play when you think how much each country should reduce its emissions by and whether there should be equal sharing. China is now the biggest emitter of CO2 in the world at 24%; USA 18 %; UK is about 1.5% of global emissions. CO2 per person levels also matter. They have reduced in the UK and remain low in India and Africa, but are rising worryingly in China and by 2015 China will probably overtake us. Lord Turner asserted that we must begin by persuading China not to go to the national emission levels that America has reached. Some might question whether Britain should cut its comparatively low emissions, he said, whilst there have been calls from some Developing World countries for Britain and America to shoulder more of the burden. The lead has to be given by countries with high levels of emissions, he asserted, because they have many economic opportunities to do so and because of the ethics of shared responsibility. Lord Turner framed the potential impacts for Europe as not catastrophic, but if, in Africa, climate change causes projected 50% reductions in crop yields and if crop revenues were to fall by 90% by 2100, these would be very significant adverse effects indeed. In order to achieve the reductions targeted, roughly equal per capita emission cuts across the world are the most sensible option. In this scenario, the UK by 2050 has to aim for approximately 2.12.6 CO2 tonnes per capita an 80% reduction, or 160 Mt (million tonnes) a year. The target for 2050 is to have gone from 670 Mt down to 160 Mt of CO2 emissions. That is what they recommended and what Parliament enacted. To achieve this, Lord Turner said, we must turn to technology and economics rather than to science and ethics, and the Climate Change Committee had to work out by what mix of

3 technologies this is achievable. They have to recommend what are called Budgets the maximum number of tonnes that the UK will emit in a series of five-year time periods. In the fourth Budget, they have just recommended to Parliament, and Parliament has accepted, a target of 1,950 Mt which is 390 Mt per annum. Lord Turners Committee believes it possible to achieve these targets, and at reasonably low economic cost (and very little human welfare cost), through a combination of three ways to reduce emissions: 1. Keep the same lifestyle and use the same amount of energy, but produce it from renewable sources or low carbon sources; 2. We dont change our lifestyle but we use energy more efficiently; 3. We change our lifestyle. The solution will be led by electricity decarbonisation. Today in the UK, when using electricity, we emit about 500g of carbon per kilowatt of electricity produced. It will be possible to reduce this to 50g per kilowatt hour by 2030 and to a much lower level, close to zero, by 2050. That would be achieved through a mix of technologies, including nuclear (which Lord Turner recognises is controversial to some, including the Scottish Government) and renewables and carbon capture and storage. Each technology has a role to play and the combination provides the lowest cost solution. If one is removed, the challenge is heightened. We can achieve very significant reductions from the emissions in cars, which could be reduced from 145 g per kilometre travelled to 95g per kilometre by 2020 with the existing internal combustion engine. It will be hard to get it down below 70g with the internal combustion engine. Aviation remains a big challenge and it will be difficult to more than cap aviation emissions, but as long as weve reduced emissions in other areas of the economy by 90% in 2050, thats adequate. Nobody has worked out how to get a plane off the ground except with liquid hydrocarbons. We have to concentrate on using liquid biofuels for aviation and biomass for heating, i.e., where they can each be most efficiently used, depending on how much biofuel the world can produce in a sustainable fashion. Electrification will be the route to decarbonise cars. Electric cars are very significantly more efficient that internal combustion engines, where around 70% of the energy is lost in heat rather than conversion into kinetic energy. In an electric car, the conversion from power to kinetic energy is about 90%. Once we get our electricity from wind or nuclear or other low carbon source, rather than from fossil fuel power stations that work at only 50% efficiency, then the grammes per kilometre emissions of the electric car become dramatically lower than those of a fossil fuel car. The one big problem is how to store electricity. An innovation which will be a breakthrough that will make someone rich beyond their dreams is the creation of light high energy density batteries. They are progressing fast enough and will be an increasingly workable technology over the next twenty years. In 2030, 4060%, or worst-case 10%, of new cars could be electric. We are on the verge of a new electrical industrial revolution, Lord Turner stated, and we are going to produce electricity far more efficiently but also much more of it, because we are going to start using it for surface transport and it in domestic heating. In the next 20 years we are likely to replace our gas central heating with fuel-efficient heat pumps that will give us approximately three kilowatt hours of heat coming out for one kilowatt hour of electricity going in. Household insulation is a very important area. The Climate Change Committee posed itself the question, Where should we be in 2030? It is possible to get emissions down to something like 360 million tonnes through a very dramatic reduction in emissions from power, transport and buildings, in particular residential buildings, through a combination of better insulation, better appliances and the electrification of heating.

4 Some segments dont decrease; for example, agriculture. Agriculture is an area in which it is incredibly difficult to reduce emissions, but more must be done. International aviation and shipping also remain a challenge. Lord Stern estimated that meeting climate change targets will cost around 1% of GDP, and that this should be compared to damage costs potentially as high as 20% of GDP. The Committees estimates suggest that for the UK to reach our 80% target, maybe the costs will be 1.1%, maybe 2%, they cannot be precise, but feel sure it will not be in the order of 20%. If 2%, that means the GDP in 2050 will be 2% below what it would otherwise be, and given that the economy grows at 12% per annum, we would reach in February 2051, the standard of living we would otherwise have reached in January 2050. Lord Turner stated that he believed the welfare impact of such a cost for a country like the UK is very limited. Therefore, Lord Turner concluded, from the perspective of science, technology, ethics and economics, the case for robust action on climate change is very strong indeed.

Professor David Sugden: "Facing up to climate change: breaking the barriers to a lowcarbon Scotland" Professor Sugden set out his intention to discuss the background to the RSEs independent Inquiry into climate change and to explore why it is apparently so difficult for Society in the UK to make the changes that climate change necessitates and to create a blueprint for this. At the outset of the Inquiry in 2009, The RSEs Climate Change Committee took two key decisions. The first was that science showed there was an enormous risk for Society in the form of temperature fluctuations correlating with CO2, and that the levels of CO2 were well outside the natural range because of our use of fossil fuels. David Sugden stated that if one is modifying greenhouse gas levels, this is likely to be having an amplifying effect and that the greater the uncertainty of what is caused, the greater the risk. The second assertion was that climate change is not solely an environmental problem, but that the gravity of it poses a challenge to the way the world organises society and uses resources. He cited Lord Stern, suggesting that there is a solution to this and referred to Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a speech to the UN highlighting how climate change is a global challenge and that theres a responsibility for the richer world to help the poorer world. The Inquiry set out to bridge the gap between the policies needed and what people will currently accept, and looked in particular at the opportunities for and barriers to change. It was an interdisciplinary Committee of eight people, including natural, economic and social scientists, and people from business, education and policy. The Committee determined to engage with policy makers and with schools, on the premise that this is the generation that will have to deal with the problems. The wide range of organisations who contributed to the funding of the Inquiry gave it the magic ingredient of independence. The Committee took evidence from 110 organisations, held public meetings, visited exemplar case studies, participated in and organised their own seminars, ran a schools competition and produced a film. The results of these are all on The RSEs website. Professor Sugden then highlighted the barriers that are making it difficult for the country to actually make the change and also made recommendations for further changes. The first thing that struck them was the optimism and vision they encountered from all walks of life around Scotland as to how well positioned Scotland is to participate in a Renewables Industrial

5 Revolution, on account of Scotland having: the landscape; compact cities which are easier to deal with; universities; offshore and renewables skills; and proximity to demand in Europe. Unlike the last industrial revolution which took people away from rural areas, the Renewables Revolution, said Professor Sugden, could also bring prosperity to rural areas, with local communities participating and benefiting socially and economically. The Committees first recommendation centred on the apparent lack of coherence about strategy for the Grid and how we are going to develop renewables in Scotland, because they encountered widely diverging views from key institutions. The National Grid envisaged that renewables are a temporary fix on the nuclear road, their vision for 2050 being a centralised grid based on nuclear. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), however, saw renewables, along with nuclear and CCS, as one of the three technologies that will be essential to the UK in the long term. The EU Environmental Agency expressed the view that there would be no full exploitation of renewables in Scotland unless there is an Interconnector a link to the Continent. This is so that pump storage can be called upon to generate electricity when the wind isnt blowing in one country and then export it back to another when the situation is reversed. The Interconnector would also be needed to exploit the major resource of tidal energy from the north of Britain to Europe. The nature and management of the Grid also caused concerns for the Committee, and the lack of co-ordination amongst the Scottish Government, UK Government and the EU they saw as representing a fundamental threat to the exploitation of renewables. Another of the main findings is the importance of city regions in making carbon savings. Despite having the best potential to make savings, due to concentrations of population and investment, local authorities face many barriers in doing so. Many of these centre around the conflict between national and regional goals, as exemplified by the failure of one authority to create additional commuter stations serving local people because additional stops would increase journey times for national rail networks. Investment in trunk roads was also at odds with local plans. Reducing commuting by car with much-needed public transport at a regional scale could make major savings and, particularly in urban areas, would provide a big reward for investment, said Professor Sugden. The second major issue was the lack of appropriate powers for local authorities, which is leading to new houses being built that are below optimum standards for energy efficiency and carbon saving. The Committee heard of developers threatening to move projects to areas with lower requirements and instances of additional facilities being built in exchange for less exacting building standards for carbon saving. The Committee learned that there can also be a lack of coordination between planners, building surveyors and architects; for example, as to what type of heating should be put into a new development. There was also a lack of integration amongst the various divisions within local authorities which, if better joined up, would have much more potential for carbon savings. As an example, Professor Sugden pointed to two buildings which have excellent environmental credentials and have won awards, but are located out of town, both with large car parks, calling into question their long-term carbon efficiency. There are fringe effects observed around the cities, with councils outside allowing lower heating and insulation standards in order to encourage more houses and outof-town shopping centres, all of which increase car use. Overridingly, it was clear to the Committee that a lack of strategic planning is impacting upon potential carbon savings in transport and energy efficiency. The sort of district heating for large buildings and combined heat and power schemes that are commonplace in Scandinavia are rare in Scotland. Also, municipalities in Sweden have the ability to build their own power stations burning local waste, something that is apparently difficult for the UK because of lack of local powers.

6 The Committee were surprised and frustrated by the amount of activity at local community level opposing wind farms. When they asked one developer about attitudes of NIMBYsm (not in my back yard), they were told the situation is not NIMBY but BANANA build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody! The RSEs Committee visited two impressive examples of wind farm successes which they felt could be replicated across Scotland. One is on Westray in Orkney, which came together as a community after the decline of the fishing industry, secured a loan from overseas green bank Triodos and, with support from the Lottery Fund, built a turbine. This is generating the islands own electricity and income, which is being used to improve facilities and is helping to reverse population decline. It took 800 legal documents to get that wind turbine erected, Professor Sugden related! Mackies of Aberdeenshire, who make ice cream, turned their electricity costs into income by building three wind turbines which paid for themselves in four years. Both of these projects present a model to follow which offers tremendous opportunities for rural and urban areas, the Committee felt. Civil society has an important role to play in addressing climate change issues. There is friction within civil society groups in the UK on issues such as wind farms, and civil society groups do not, on the whole, work harmoniously, as is the case in Sweden, with the Market and the State. We need, David Sugden said, to bring together environmental, faith and social groups to unite in tackling a low-carbon future, because their working together would make it easier for the politicians to take the sort of decisions that are needed. We need more education and to appreciate that beyond recycling, every activity in our life impacts on our carbon footprint. Britain should have discussion about its import of carbon, because this is increasing our carbon footprint and we ought to appeal to the media to contribute to an informed debate on climate change rather than focusing on controversies. We need bold political leadership and to invest in infrastructure rather than behavioural change, Professor Sugden said. In order to achieve the step change that is needed, we must engage Society more thoroughly than through nudge economics, since more of a paradigm shift is required. Community partnerships are important, where access to predictable local finance, rather than a plethora of different schemes, is the key. Professor Sugden concluded by saying that if we accept that we have underplayed the opportunity that the Renewables Revolution presents, we could have a more balanced discussion about climate, costs and BANANA attitudes. A huge impact can be made by city regions focusing on a low carbon infrastructure, and the roles of civil society and local communities are key. He emphasised that the overwhelming conclusion that they reached was that a lack of coherence between key institutions and diverging policies were impeding progress and, worse than that, were breeding cynicism amongst the public. The Committee wrote a 186page report. Since they feared it would not be read, particularly by those not engaged, they also produced a two-minute film which was played and is available on the RSEs website. www.royalsoced.org.uk or at www.achanging climate.ac.uk.

Questions & Answers: Q. Given that there is no model anywhere in the world for predicting regional climate change, arent your predictions on impacts a work of fiction, Lord Turner? A. (Lord Turner) You are quite right to say its very difficult to predict regional variations, and models do contradict each other on rainfall, for example. We choose the most likely illustrations of what might happen, but the crucial point is exactly that we dont know! There will be very big changes which we cannot predict. We do know that a warming world will very significantly change the hydrological cycle overall, meaning more rain and warmer seas. It is a dangerous thing to

7 throw massive changes into the ecosystem and this is an argument for action, as we do know there will be adverse effects to human welfare. A. (Professor Sugden) Its a complex, uncertain situation. Our report suggests that one way forward is to look at the variability and trends in a region over the past 100 years and assume, as the models suggest, that the extremes will be greater than in the past. Q. I challenge your assertion as to there being no question about research showing that after a certain point, money does not make one more happy, because Layards study has been repeated using a larger sample size and came up with a different answer. A. (Lord Turner) I agree there is much debate, but Im well aware of the different arguments, which I laid out in the Lionel Robbins lectures last year at the LSE and which are coming out shortly in a book. I believe that arguments come out on the side that I stated and its certainly the case that beyond a certain point, the relationship between GDP and measures of wellbeing is highly uncertain. Q. I can easily believe that the UK can achieve the numbers you present. But how can we convince the USA, who have so much larger a problem, to go down the same route? A. (Lord Turner) The US actually worries me more than China, because I find more engagement in China. They are talking about capping per capita tonnes of emissions (at a higher level than Id like), but are engaged. However, some of the sceptics points in the US are criminally wrong. Responsible criticism is different from misusing data often driven by industrial lobby groups, and much of the scepticism in the US comes from that direction. America is an extraordinary place for creating new technologies and great things are going on in that sphere, in spite of the dreadful political situation with an inability to get commitment there. Q. Much has been said today about the role of CO2, but nothing or very little about methane... A. (Lord Turner) Methanes incredibly important and a much more powerful greenhouse gas per tonne of emissions than CO2, but exists in much smaller quantities, fortunately. Its very important in the models of potential non-linear feedbacks within models. If we warm the earth to the point that we melt the Arctic tundra, we may release methane to the point that the situation really runs away from us. Its also important to UK climate change targets, principally in the form of landfill sites (but methane emissions have already come down a great deal) and cows and sheep which produce methane. Leaky pipes in gas distribution system are also non trivial. Agriculture is the main challenge, as we have no technological solutions to that so far. Q. Quite a few American cities, in spite of their national position, signed up to the Kyoto Protocol and have been investing in sustainable transport systems. Do you agree that compact cities have many assets, enabling them to prosper whilst responding to climate change? A. (Lord Turner) Id agree compact cities can be environmentally sustainable and economically and socially vibrant. I dont think it matters whether the rate of GDP growth per capita is 1.95% or 2%. In order to deal with climate change we do not need to sacrifice growth, but believe that growth should not be objective but the result of other desirable outcomes such as a liberal economy and freedom of people to innovate. Q. Why did you not mention creation of a UK green investment bank and would Scotland be the appropriate home for this bank?

8 A. (Lord Turner) Because theres only so much time in a lecture. But the Climate Change Committee is very much in support of the green investment bank, but have no point of view as to location. A. (Professor Sugden) Predictability on gaining access to local finance at a regional and local scale and tailored to renewables is important. Renewables take longer to give full return on high up-front cost. We were impressed by the Co-operative Bank in Sweden and the UK. Q. Im Maitland Mackie, the maker of the only carbon-positive ice cream in the world! Agriculture: why not lead us farmers towards minimum tillage? Weve been trying it for ten years but bureaucrats in Brussels have stopped the production of the only weedkillers that can keep the grass weeds out. A. (Lord Turner) Im not fully familiar with details of minimum tillage, but we are looking at all the technologies with the help of the Scottish Agricultural College. A. (Professor Sugden) Our report has a large section on land use management and how carbon can be retained in the soils and vegetation and we were very struck about the potential both to sequester carbon and to save farmers money. We discuss low tillage as a method of storing carbon in the soil, and there are different views about its efficacy. Q Isnt the feed-in tariff a scheme that is causing people to invest large sums on tiny outputs instead of focusing that money on bigger and better systems of energy reduction? A. (Lord Turner) The residential feed-in tariff is a fairly expensive way of getting carbon reductions, particularly if putting solar photo voltaic (PV) cells on roofs. But solar PV will probably be the greatest technology, because most of our energy comes from the sun and there are signs that it may be cost-effective eventually, even in cloudy Britain. Today, however, the UK is not the place to drive solar PV, but sunny parts of the world such as the US and Australia are, and its not for UK to invest in it yet. Q. Weve an energy crisis, a food crisis and an environmental crisis. Do you agree that if we concentrate on the energy crisis, we will make much faster progress in dealing with the others? A. (Lord Turner) If you mean by that the peak oil and we are running out in any case...my main worry about fossil fuels in relation to climate change is not how few they are but how many they are. If I could arrange for aliens to invade earth and steal three quarters of our coal, Im very sure that we would come up with climate change solutions at very low cost because we didnt have the fossil fuels to burn, but theres so much coal, gas and shale gas out there (the accessing of which could do great environmental damage). Q. This Inquiry has not been independent, but biased why were there no scientists with opposing views on it? Theres been no mention of anthropogenic CO2, nor solar winds, and why did you not mention the UN report that says we need to subjugate the individual to world government? A. (Professor Sugden) Why not have someone opposing on the Committee? We accepted that climate change posed a risk to Society and that this justified our focus on the barriers to cutting carbon. A. (Lord Turner) Why did I not mention that UN report? Because I havent read it. The anthropogenic CO2 as opposed to natural CO2 is a very poor argument. If we are creating a smaller proportion of CO2 than is naturally occurring, that doesnt alter the fact that we are changing the system dynamics

9 Q. Would you comment on hydrogen as a future fuel source? A. (Lord Turner) We see hydrogen as an important energy storage device rather than as a source, and we are open minded as to its role in comparison with different kinds of batteries. Although we think it feasible to run cars off electricity from batteries, we think it unlikely that well run HGVs on that, given the distances they have to go and size of the battery needed, so hydrogen-based engines may be the future for HGVs and maybe for bus fleets. Q. Could you expand on standby generation how its achieved and what proportion of wind farms are capable of generating electricity for more than half the time? A. (Lord Turner) Standby generation and intermittency sometime the wind is blowing and sometimes not. The logical standby now is gas CCGT. The more that you connect the grid, the more youll get a balance of technologies used. If we have an electrified surface transport system, people will charge batteries when the wind is blowing. This requires a grid that gives precise signals to tell people when to charge. Q. Have we got things right by handing over power and energy generation to private companies which derive profits and have caused confusion by creating thousands of different tariffs? A. (Lord Turner) Yes, we can do it with private electricity companies. Theres nothing incompatible so long as we have the right regulation, and the government is putting in a more coherent system. Im confident we can achieve what we need with a privatised electricity system. A. (Professor Sugden) We found the private commercial companies have really taken the lead and are investing on a huge scale in electricity generation. The lack of integration of the grid we did see as a problem. The lack of strategic planning is an issue for us. Q. Can we be mindful when excited about new emerging technologies that there are older ones that work? Biomass has many applications, but when we cut down forest in Canada to ship it to Dundee to put in a biomass plant, it is lunacy. A. (Lord Turner) On the need to look at old technologies. Tidal range is proven technology. The issue is how much potential is there. The Severn River has huge scope. We could get about 4% of our electricity from a Severn barrage. The cost and environmental impact are big questions and it divides environmental groups. I think its a possibility and an acceptable way forward. On biomass, I totally agree with you. We are doing a report on which forms of biomass are sustainable and which are not. Q. Many of the problems of coherence have been known for a long time. Has there been a slowdown in recent years in addressing these problems in order to make progress in other areas? A. (Lord Turner) Broadly speaking, we are concentrating on making more specific technological advances rather than on trying to address complex social challenges. A. (Professor Sugden) The words Climate Change may have slipped out of the headlines but perhaps this allows good work to go on behind the scenes. The vote of thanks was given by Professor Roger Crofts, FRSE
Opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the RSE, nor of its Fellows The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotlands National Academy, is Scottish Charity No. SC000470