International Sustainability: Natural Resources and Biodiversity

Lord Rees of Ludlow Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for the chance to address what is surely an ethical imperative: responsible stewardship of the entire natural world. Biodiversity is essential for our health, well-being and prosperity.

Energy from the sun flows through intricately structured ecosystems to give us our food, other natural resources, forests and other habitats. However, there is a spiritual value too. In the words of the great ecologist, EO Wilson:

“At the heart of the environmentalist worldview is the conviction that human physical and spiritual health depends … on the planet … Natural ecosystems—forests, coral reefs, marine blue waters—maintain the world … as we would wish it to be maintained”.


Our body and our mind evolved to live in this particular planetary environment and no other. These sentiments resonate with all conservationists. Of course, here in the UK there is widespread anxiety about the effects on wildlife of urbanisation, pesticides and so forth. There is understandably more focus on birds and cuddly mammals than on worms, insects and microfauna.

The UK is only 1% of the world’s population and an even smaller fraction of its land mass. None the less, we can have disproportionate leverage in promoting global sustainable development, which was defined in Brundtland’s classic 1987 report as meeting,

“the needs of the present”,

especially those of the poor,

“without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Against this, we have the well-known World Wide Fund for Nature’s estimate that the world is consuming natural resources at about 1.7 times the sustainable level.

However, the global response to this concern is muted, partly because those in poor countries, who are at the sharp end of the impacts, understandably have shorter horizons of both space and time. The main impediment is, of course, that natural capital does not feature in national budgets. If a forest is cut down it should be recorded as a negative contribution to GNP. Incidentally, it is fortunate that the UK’s inputs to the UN biodiversity conference in China next year are being co-ordinated by my Cambridge colleague, Sir Partha Dasgupta, who is perhaps one of the real world leaders in environmental economics.

We need to preserve diverse ecosystems. They are more sustainable and more resilient. When conditions change some minority species with different traits might get an advantage. These other species are, as it were, waiting in the wings to take over if required to do so. Sparser ecosystems cannot respond so well to changing conditions. However, changes in climate and in land use can, in combination, induce sudden changes—tipping points that amplify each other and cause runaway changes. If humanity’s collective impact on nature pushes too hard, the resultant ecological shocks could irreversibly impoverish our biosphere.

Rising and more demanding populations are putting growing stresses on the entire biosphere. We have, of course, entered the new geological era called the Anthropocene. Biodiversity is threatened when land is built on, cultivated or overgrazed, and when large areas are subdivided. These concerns are aggravated if extra land for food production or biofuels encroaches on land left for natural forests.

To feed 9 billion people in 2050 while avoiding these threats will require further-improved agriculture that is low-till and water-conserving, and GM crops, together with better engineering to reduce waste, improve irrigation and so forth. However, there will also be limits on the amount of energy available and, in some regions, severe pressure on water supplies. To feed the world we might need dietary innovations: converting insects, which are highly nutritious and rich in proteins, into palatable food, and making artificial meat instead of beef. The buzz phrase is “sustainable intensification”.

How can the UK be most effective? Regarding climate change, our Climate Change Act sets stringent targets, but even if we meet them we will reduce global emissions by only 1%. However, up to 10% of the world’s innovative ideas gestate in this country. Some of us have argued that we can amplify our leverage, as it were, on solving the climate challenge by massively enhancing research into clean energy systems so that we can accelerate their improvements and the decline in their costs. In that way, countries such as India can afford to leapfrog to a clean network rather than building coal-fired power stations.

I venture a similar argument in the context of today’s debate. If we expand and deploy our world-leading expertise in plant science, and prioritise associated engineering advances, we can substantially enhance the chance that the planet can be fed without devastating the natural world. It would be to our economic benefit in this country if we can get a lead in these key technologies. It is hard to think of a more inspiring challenge for our brilliant young biologists and engineers than using their skills to develop more efficient agriculture for the world’s rising population, without degrading the wonders and beauty of the natural world.

The most devastating consequence of biodiversity loss is extinction—destroying the book of life before we have read it. I would like to end with another quote from EO Wilson, that,

“if human actions lead to mass extinctions, it’s the sin that future generations will least forgive us for”.

Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Rees of Ludlow Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)]

My Lords, it is good that this debate has focused both on what the UK itself is doing to remedy the shameful inadequacies within its own border with regard to justice and poverty and the even more challenging global issues confronting less-developed nations. The local and the global aims are emphatically not misaligned with each other. I would like to highlight some measures that we should take in our own national interest which are also highly cost-effective ways to help developing nations. I will then make a few remarks in the context of Africa.

The phrase “sustainable development” gained currency in 1987, when the Brundtland commission on environment and development defined it as,

“development that meets the needs of the present”—

especially the poor—

“without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

We all surely want to sign up to this and aspire that by 2030—and even more so by 2050—there will be a narrower gap between not only the rich and poor within countries such as ours but, more important and challenging, between the lifestyle that privileged countries enjoy and what is available to the rest of the world.

There is a depressing gap between what could be done and what is actually happening. Offering more aid is not in itself enough, because stability, good governance and effective infrastructure are needed if these benefits are to permeate the parts of the developing world where they are most often needed.

Developing countries need to leapfrog directly to a more efficient and less wasteful mode of life than ours, not mimic the path to industrialisation that Europe and North America followed. For example, they can leapfrog directly on to mobile phones without ever having had landlines. New technology will be needed, but it must be well directed and well motivated. It will involve a great deal of innovation to meet the actual challenges.

Even more than the other goals, goal 13—to control the rate of CO₂ emissions—requires a concerted effort by all nations, developed and less developed, to avoid the risk of tipping points that could lead to runaway changes with disastrous consequences for us all. I emphasise that this offers a special opportunity for a nation such as the UK, as well as a special obligation. It is a challenge for us in the UK to meet the goal of cutting CO₂ emissions ourselves—and especially to meet the very stringent target we have set ourselves for 2050. In our own national interest, we need to accelerate the development and deployment of all forms of low-carbon energy, as well as other technologies where parallel progress is crucial, especially storage and smart grids.

However, technical progress of this kind is even higher in priority for countries such as India, where more generating capacity is urgently needed; where the health of the poor is jeopardised by smoky stoves burning wood and dung in their homes; and where there is therefore pressure to build coal-fired power stations as the cheapest option. The faster the alternative clean technologies advance, the sooner their prices will fall. They will become affordable to developing countries, which can then leapfrog to clean energy.

That is why an encouraging outcome of the 2015 Paris conference on climate change was an initiative from Sir David King and others in this country called Mission Innovation. It was launched by President Obama and the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and was endorsed by the countries of the G7 plus India, China, and 11 other nations. It was hoped that they would pledge to double their publicly funded R&D into clean energy by 2020 and to co-ordinate their efforts. This is a modest target. Presently, only 2% of publicly funded R&D is devoted to these challenges. Why should the percentage not rise closer to spending on medical or defence research? Incidentally, Bill Gates and other private philanthropists have pledged a parallel commitment.

This is a win-win strategy for the UK. We contribute only 1% of global CO₂ emissions. However—historically at least—we have contributed far more than 1% of the world’s innovations. If we can indeed pioneer new and improved clean energy technologies, it would amplify and leverage our national contribution to tackling global climate change. We need not just better ways of harnessing solar and wind energy but complementary storage technologies such as batteries and hydrogen, as well as—in my view—fourth-generation nuclear and even fusion, where we have special expertise and potential.

I have focused on energy, but there are other sustainability goals where UK expertise can help not only our own country but can offer a substantial boost to much larger populations in the developing world, helping them to meet the same goals. We should be evangelists for new technologies in those other sectors, especially biotech, to provide better health, more intensive agriculture and engineering innovations.

The need is aggravated because of the world’s expanding and more demanding population. Fifty years ago, the world population was about 3.5 billion. It is now about 7.6 billion. The growth has been mainly in Asia, and it is now fastest in Africa. The number of births per year is now going down in most countries. None the less, the world population is forecast to rise to around 9 billion by mid-century. That is partly because most people in the developing world are young, are yet to have children and will live longer. Doom-laden forecasts made 50 years ago by, for instance, the Club of Rome, proved off the mark. As it has turned out, food production has more or less kept pace with rising population. Famines still occur, but they are due to conflict or maldistribution, not overall scarcity. To feed 9 billion will require further improved agriculture with low-till, water-conservation and GM crops and perhaps dietary innovations, such as converting insects, which are highly nutritious and rich in proteins, into palatable food and eating artificial meat not beef.

Demographers predict continuing urbanisation, with 70% of people living in cities by 2050. Even before then, Lagos, Sao Paulo, and Delhi will have populations greater than 30 million. Preventing megacities becoming turbulent dystopias will be a major challenge to governance and, of course, an engineering challenge for infrastructure. Demographics beyond 2050 are uncertain. It is not even clear whether there will be a global rise or a fall. Declining infant mortality, urbanisation and women’s education trigger the transition towards lower birth rates, but there could be countervailing cultural influences. If, for whatever reason, families in Africa remain large, then that continent’s population could, according to a UN projection, double again by 2100 to 4 billion. Nigeria alone would then have as big a population as Europe and North America combined.

Optimists say that each extra mouth brings two hands and a brain, but the geopolitical stresses are surely worrying. Those in poor countries now know, via the internet et cetera, what they are missing. They are less fatalistic about the injustice of their fate, and migration is easier. Moreover, the advent of robots and the reshoring of manufacturing mean that still-poor countries will not be able to grow their economies by offering cheap skilled labour, as the Asian tiger states did. It is a portent for disaffection and instability. Wealthy nations, especially those in Europe, should urgently promote prosperity in Africa, and not just for altruistic reasons. It is not only a moral imperative but a matter of self-interest for fortunate nations to promote greater equality by direct financial aid and ceasing the current exploitative extraction of raw materials, and by investing in infrastructure and manufacturing in countries where there are displaced refugees, and where there will be huge numbers of climate refugees in future, so that they are under less pressure to migrate to find work.

If the benefits of technology are to be spread worldwide, there will need to be lifestyle changes for us all, but they need not signal hardship. Indeed, all can, by 2050, have a quality of life that is at least as good as profligate westerners enjoy today, provided that technology is developed appropriately and deployed wisely. Gandhi proclaimed the mantra, “There is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed”. This need not be a call for austerity; rather, it is a call for economic growth driven by innovations that are sparing of natural resources and energy.

Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Rees of Ludlow Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)]

My Lords, the SDGs are indeed ambitious and wide-ranging, perhaps too much so. Our Government are surely right to argue for a focus on a subset of them, especially on those with well-defined, implementable outcomes and targets.

I will focus my remarks on goal 7, which is to:

“Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”.

This is of course a key cross-cutting goal, because electricity is vital for economic development and quality of life. The phrase “sustainable development” was introduced by the Brundtland commission in 1987 and was defined as,

“development that meets the needs of the present”—

especially those of the poor—

“without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

The focus on future generations means that climate change must be held in check—and that is goal 13. Climate change will hit hardest those who have contributed the least to its cause. Heat stress will most hurt those without air conditioning; crop failure will most affect those who already struggle to afford food; and extreme weather events will most endanger those whose homes are fragile.

The eventual elimination of fossil fuels must be a worldwide imperative if climate change is to be controlled, but there is a special urgency to supply clean energy to the poorest in developing countries. Millions of such people have their health severely damaged by exposure to toxic fumes from stoves burning wood or dung. They lack even small-scale electrical power for lighting their homes and charging basic appliances. This can be supplied by solar panels and batteries, but a higher generating capacity will be needed to power transport and economic development. Unless the costs of renewables fall, developing nations will be under pressure to build polluting coal-fired power stations to supply this need.

The impediment to “decarbonising” our economy is that renewable energy is still expensive to generate. Moreover, power from the sun and wind is intermittent, so we need cheap ways to store it on a large scale. Fortunately, technology in solar energy and batteries is proceeding apace.

A group led by Sir David King and the noble Lord, Lord Layard, together with five other Members of this House, including me, is promoting a campaign to encourage as many countries as possible, especially those in the G20, to expand and co-ordinate publicly funded R&D into “clean energy”, especially into solar power, storage techniques and the design of “smart grids”. The faster this research proceeds, the sooner will the cost of power from “renewables” come down and become as cheap as coal-fired power stations. We call this the Global Apollo Program, to highlight an analogy with the American “Moonshot” programme, which exemplified how a spectacular goal could be achieved if the motivation were there. But whereas the original Apollo programme was fuelled by superpower rivalry in the Cold War, this programme will be international and co-operative. The target will be that new-build baseload energy from renewable sources becomes as cheap as new-build coal within 10 years.

Although wind, hydro and geothermal energy is the best choice in some locations, our focus is on solar. That is because the sun provides 5,000 times more energy to the earth’s surface than our total human demand for energy. It is particularly abundant in the developing nations of Asia and Africa, where most of the future increase in world energy demand will occur. There are two techniques: photovoltaics, which can be used on a small scale and does not need direct sunlight; and concentrated solar power, which is larger scale and requires direct sunlight. Unlike fossil fuel, solar energy produces no pollution and no miners get killed. Unlike nuclear fission, it leaves no radioactive waste.

If renewable energy is to become the primary source of energy, it must be capable of being stored and supplied when and where it is needed. There is already a big investment in improving batteries, but there are other possibilities, including thermal storage, capacitors, compressed air, fuel pumps, fly-wheels, molten salt, pumped hydro and hydrogen. The need is, therefore, to accelerate the development of cheaper solar generators, all storage methods and, thirdly, DC grids to transmit energy efficiently over large distances. This is an arena where public, private and philanthropic efforts need to mesh together, but the hope of those of us promoting the Global Apollo Program is that Governments joining it will pledge to spend an annual average of 0.02% of GDP as public expenditure on the programme from 2016 to 2025. The money will be spent according to each country’s own discretion. We hope that all major countries will join. This is an enhanced, expanded and internationally co-ordinated version of many national programmes.

Incidentally, there is a precedent in the semiconductor field, where since the 1990s the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors has identified the scientific bottlenecks to further cost reductions and has spelt out the advances needed at the precompetitive R&D stage. The Global Apollo Program will follow this model. It will be collocated with the International Energy Agency in Paris but may include countries not belonging to the IEA. All results discovered through the programme will be made publicly available, though patents for all intellectual property will be protected and will remain with those who made the discovery.

In terms of value for money, this Global Apollo Program is an essential component of any serious attempt to manage the risks of climate change, and is better value, incidentally, than subsidising existing forms of clean energy. At relatively small cost, it will contribute powerfully to a safer and better world. The proposed programme has one aim only: to develop renewable energy supplies that can be deployed as cheaply as fossil fuels throughout the developing world.

Solar energy is already competitive for thousands of villages in India and Africa that are off-grid, but in most parts of the world it is still more expensive than energy from fossil fuels, and it becomes economic only due to subsidies or feed-in tariffs. Eventually, these subsidies have to stop, so we are looking for the technologies with the greatest potential for falls in cost year after year. In addition, the materials used should not be constrained in supply nor toxic, the risks of price volatility should be low and the installation payback should be short.

We hope that this rapid development would allow developing countries to leap-frog directly to cleaner energy, just as they have leap-frogged to mobile phones and the internet, bypassing landlines. Speeding up the transition by public pump-priming to accelerate the rate at which these technologies develop is perhaps the only way that the world can reduce the risk of really damaging climate change by the end of the century. But it is hard to focus on benefits or threats so far ahead. For politicians, the immediate trumps the long term; the national trumps the global. Activists and experts by themselves cannot generate or sustain political will. Only if their voice is amplified by a wide public and by the media will long-term causes such as the SDGs rise high enough on the political agenda.

Here we can find powerful allies in the world’s religious faiths. The Catholic Church powerfully transcends normal political constraints. There is no gainsaying its global reach nor its durability and long-term vision, nor its focus on the world’s poor. It is hugely welcome that three months ago the Pope issued an encyclical on climate and environmental issues and that he is attending the UN summit this month. His influence on the meeting and on what happens in Paris in December could be immense, influencing both public and politicians in Latin America, Africa, east Asia and even perhaps in the American Republican Party.

To design wise policies, we need all the efforts of scientists, economists and technologists, but to implement them successfully we need the sustained commitment of our leaders and the full support of the voting public. Our responsibility to our children, to the poorest and to our stewardship of the diverse life on earth surely demands that we do not leave a depleted and hazardous world. That is why we should surely urge our Government to adopt a forceful stance at the UN summit in the hope of ensuring a sustained commitment to the SDGs and, in particular, to accelerating the development of clean energy, which should be high among the goals of that meeting.