Communicating Climate Science

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, on his final point. It is important to separate scientific fact, evidence and theory from policy making. When policy making and science collide, there are often the most horrific difficulties, as people who want to change the policy try to change the scientific facts. We have seen that with stem cell research and we are seeing it at the moment on mitochondrial replacement therapy. People with quite genuine and reasonable ethical objections try to distort the science to get the policy they want.

There are particular difficulties around climate science, both in this country and internationally. Professor Trewavas, a fellow of the Royal Society, pointed out in his evidence to the Committee the fundamental difficulty of climate science, which is that there is not a single scientist on the planet who can distinguish between natural variation in climate and those changes in the climate system that are caused by anthropogenic interference. Nobody can do that, which is why climate models are so important in the debate on climate science.

The difficulty is that models do not conform easily to normal scientific method and analysis. The basis of science and the scientific method—Karl Popper laid down probably the clearest basis for it—is that hypotheses can be tested and things can be disproved. That is extraordinarily difficult with models. We must realise that a lot of climate science is based on models, not on the normal scientific method under which we can disprove and falsify hypotheses. That is a difficulty.

[Andrew Miller]

Just for clarity, when my hon. Friend had a proper job, a long time ago, he was a chemist. Will he confirm that his argument applies to any science in which we cannot see and touch the evidence? For example, some aspects of astronomy and palaeontology would fit in that category.

[Graham Stringer]

When we cannot repeat experiments, as we cannot with astronomy, we get into a difficult but different area. There is a difference between climate science and astronomy and cosmology, because of the ability to make and test direct observations in a way that is particularly difficult when we are relying on computer models. My hon. Friend makes an intelligent and sensible point, but cosmology and astronomy are not quite the same as climate science.

My point is that it is not just non-scientists who have become enthusiasts for policy, but scientists as well. Many of my views on climate science were formed during the investigation that the previous Science and Technology Committee and this one carried out into the “Climategate” e-mails from the university of East Anglia. I am not going to go down the path of analysing that case—although we have a lot of time, so I suppose one could—but from reading those e-mails and talking to the people involved, I came to the firm conclusion that, at best, those scientists were guilty of noble cause corruption. They believed so fundamentally in what they were doing and the policies that they wanted that some of their scientific work was below the standards one normally expects. Professor Kelly of the university of Cambridge, who was part of the panel that looked at the work of those scientists, said that their methodology had turned 300 years of the scientific method on its head. It was also clear that they were not using the latest and best statistical methods, and they could not even reproduce their own work because they had lost the papers. That is not science but narrative. That case informs a lot of the discussion about climate science.

When looking to communicate something, we need to know what we are talking about. The first lesson in debate and discussion for undergraduates is to define the terms, so that they know what they are talking about. Many discussions, both political and undergraduate, could be saved if people made it clear at the start what they were talking about.

Every witness was asked for their definition of climate change and the answers were interesting. The Committee concluded that the best definitions of climate change were given by Professor Slingo of Reading university and the Met Office and Professor Rapley. Basically, they talked about the energy imbalance in the earth and the disruption to the climate. We thought they gave good definitions.

We would have expected the Department to have a definition that the Minister understood, or at least had one at its finger tips. I am pleased to see the new Minister in her place, but I have to say that one of the crassest statements I have ever heard from a Minister at a Select Committee—I have served on many Select Committees over the past 17 years—was when the previous Minister of State was asked for his definition of climate change. He said:

“Climate change is climate change.”

That was less than useful. When I asked him to be a bit more helpful, he said,

“Climate change is a change in climate.”

That was not much more use. He then said that he did not think it was a technical term.

It was bad enough that the then Minister was not in agreement with senior scientists or even with the Government’s scientific adviser, who gave us a perfectly sensible definition, with a slightly different emphasis. I was surprised that the Government said in response to the Committee’s report, in which we said which two definitions we preferred, that they did not agree with the scientific adviser and were not sure what definition they were using. They said:

“However, we also note that the term ‘climate change’ does not apply just to the physical manifestation of a changing climate, but also actions to address human influence on the climate.”

That rather extends the definition. They continued:

“For example, the scientific definition of ‘climate change’ based on Professors Slingo’s and Rapley’s definition does not explain the use of ‘climate change’ in the acronym ‘DECC’. In this case ‘climate change’ means not just the physical manifestation but also steps taken in the UK and internationally to reduce”

greenhouse gas emissions

“and other human impact of the climate.”

There is a Humpty Dumpty element in that—words will mean whatever we choose them to mean. That is not helpful.

The first thing the Government should do if they want to communicate effectively on what climate change is and what they mean by it is to agree on a definition and what action is required. The Government do not agree and give the definition of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but they want to extend that as well. That is an unsatisfactory position for any Government and it is not surprising that climate science and climate change is not communicated effectively if Ministers, scientific advisers and the Department do not agree on the same words.

One statement is that there is consensus on climate science and climate change. That is sometimes used to close down debate. The Science Media Centre said:

“Climate change is real and man made.”

We heard that in a number of forms throughout the Committee’s hearings. A previous Minister said that the consensus is now beyond debate and that the BBC should not be interviewing people who do not accept it. It is worth looking at the consensus and at what it means. I will quote evidence that was given not to our Committee, but to the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change.

Robin Guenier who, as far as I am aware, has done the only academic research into what is meant by the consensus, references Doran and points out that his results in the scientific literature and the 97% claim is based on consideration of only 79 of 10,257 earth scientists who were surveyed. He then referred to a study by Anderegg, who found that the 97% claim was based on a very limited sample of researchers whose opinion was asked for. He discounted 472 of respondents. Similarly, Cook concluded that there was overwhelming consensus, but that was from a survey of about 12,000 scientific papers, so he was looking at secondary sources.

Basically, Guenier’s view was that anyone who believes that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and has some influence is part of that consensus. That is not really where the argument is. He then moves on to two other studies, discounting the statistic of 97% and looking at a survey by the American Meteorological Society. It is worth quoting from that because, again, the previous Minister did not like it. It states:

“Only 52% of respondents thought global warming was happening and was mostly anthropogenic; moreover, at most 34% (and probably less) believed warming was happening, was mostly anthropogenic and would be ‘very harmful’”.

Therefore, the debate on this issue relies on a belief that 97% of scientists believe there will be some climate catastrophe because of extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The evidence from scientific literature does not support that 97%.

Finally from that submission, I want to quote Xie Zhenhua, who led China’s delegation to the recent UN planet science conference in Warsaw. He stated:

“There are disputes in the scientific community. We have to have an open attitude to the scientific research. There’s an alternative view that climate change is caused by cyclical trends in nature itself. We have to keep an open attitude.”

He is not an obscure scientist. When people say there is consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and has an impact on the climate, the evidence does not extend to the belief that carbon dioxide will do major damage to the planet.

Last week, Steven E. Koonin—again, he is not an obscure scientist, but was the Under Secretary of Energy for Science, in the United States Department of Energy, and one of Obama’s senior scientific advisers—made a statement. By profession, he is a computational physicist. He clearly makes the point that there is consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but the real question he believes should be answered is:

“How will the climate change over the next century under both natural and human influence?”

He says that the answer is extremely difficult to determine. He believes that the carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere at the moment is responsible for only about 1% of the changes taking place. More interestingly, he points out that we do not know very much about the ocean and how it interacts with the rest of the system. We certainly do not understand probably the most critical part of the computer models, which is the feedback mechanism. It is not even clear whether feedback, when things warm up, will be positive or negative: whether feedback will intensify the increase in temperature or whether—because, at its simplest, there is less cloud cover—it will reduce the effects. Nobody knows that.

Mr Koonin talks in detail, because it is his specialism, about the computer models. He points out that the grids used within the computer models have a 60-mile resolution. That is a very big grid to have on the earth. Within those boxes, someone then has to change the average temperature and humidity, and work out how the carbon dioxide and the heat it traps affects the temperature and the humidity. He points out that dozens and dozens of assumptions are put into those boxes, because the resolution is so big, so they are adjusted. Adjustments and assumptions are effectively the same word—one could also use the word “fiddle”, because if someone is changing things that they do not know, they can change them to get the results that they wish.

The models cannot, by and large, reproduce the current situation and they imperfectly represent the past. There are huge, detailed differences between the 55 models that the IPCC uses. Rather than looking across the piece and seeing whether there is a consensus among scientists on the big issue—which there is not—if we look in detail at the modellers who are at the core of the climate change debate, we find that because they make different adjustments in their models, there is no consensus there either, and there are often huge differences in their predictions.

Many hon. Members in previous debates have pointed out that all but about 3% of the models that are used are running hot—in other words, they are over-predicting the temperatures that the earth is experiencing. It is not clear from the models why, when there has been a 25% increase in carbon dioxide, there has been effectively no rise in temperature. There is no clear explanation, and that is not covered by the models. The other basic theory with the models, which is well known by people who look at these things, is that the models predict that there will be increased warming in the atmosphere near to the earth’s surface in the tropics. Those hotspots have not been observed.

[Andrew Miller]

I think my hon. Friend answered his own question when he said earlier that we simply do not understand feedback mechanisms as well as we would like to, particularly in respect of the impact of the oceans on both absorbing CO₂ and the massive variations in temperatures. They are so poorly understood that that ought to be a call for a massive scientific study on our deep oceans.

[Graham Stringer]

I essentially agree with that, but there are two other points to mention. First, the stats on the temperature in the ocean, as well as other ocean statistics, such as salinity, are very recent. We know very little about what has been happening in the oceans over the last 30 or 40 years. Records go back between eight and 20 years. Secondly, as my hon. Friend knows, we as a Committee supported the Met Office’s bid for a supercomputer, which will certainly improve weather forecasting and bring the resolution of forecasting down. It may also help the Met Office with getting its models right. I am always in favour of increasing knowledge and improving understanding, but the real point I was making—by going through those different papers and what Obama’s scientific adviser was saying—is that much of the Government’s policy is based on the belief that climate science at present is settled, and it is not, because nobody knows the answers to those questions.

Having shown that, I want to pick up two or three other points. We had some interesting sessions with the BBC, BSkyB, Channel 4 and different experts on the media. Clearly, they are slightly wary of this subject, because passions run so high. It is fair to say, if we look at the BBC first, that it does not have as much expertise in science as one would wish it did. Most of the journalists are Oxbridge educated on the arts side, not on the science side. The BBC agreed to try to increase its journalists’ knowledge of science, but when we asked the representative from BBC which scientists it would get to do that, I was disappointed that the answer was none—that is, they are going to have their knowledge improved by other journalists, not by scientists.

Because the BBC is criticised from both sides, it has made real efforts to improve its coverage of climate science and climate change, but I am not convinced that it has got it right. It asked for a report from Professor Steve Jones, who is a well respected professor of genetics—I am slightly in awe of Professor Jones when it comes to genetics; I have read his books, and he is a brilliant man and a good communicator.

However, to go back to the debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston was having about whether climate scientists should be the people to talk about climate science on the BBC, Professor Jones was an odd person to choose to advise the BBC on climate science. We had a private meeting with him—which was interesting, because I was a bit star-struck on meeting him—and I did not think his answers were really adequate, because he was looking at secondary and tertiary phenomena. He seemed to think the fact that the Thames gate had been raised more times than was predicted was in some way evidence that global warming and climate change was happening, and I do not think it is. Rather, it is evidence that the gate has had to be raised a number of times. One of the interesting facts about climate change is that, with all the extra carbon dioxide that has been put into the atmosphere, the rise in sea level, which is about a foot a century, has continued at almost exactly the same rate.

The BBC, fortunately, did not accept Professor Jones’s recommendation that climate science was settled. It says its remit is to give everybody a say and to give the opportunity for different views in British society to be explained to the rest of our country. The difficulty with that—this comes back to the Lord Lawson debate that goes on—is whether non-scientists should be able to talk about scientific issues. Should someone only be a climate scientist to talk about climate science?

I was a scientist some time ago. I have read some of the papers. Can I therefore debate and discuss climate science? I think I can. I would not pretend to be an expert in climate science, but I am scientifically trained enough to be able to understand those papers. When it comes to policy, because a lot of the argument about the science is settled, the aim is to stop not just the debate about the science, but the debate about the policy impact. People have to be careful that by trying to restrict debate in that way, they do not stop the production of better policy.

It is true that the media, as I said at the beginning, tend to be ignorant of science, and I cannot leave this subject without giving two examples. One is slightly old. “The World This Weekend”, a few years ago, put the tsunami in Thailand down to climate change, which would be a surprise to most scientists and geologists. A few weeks ago, The Times, in one of its editorials, declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we would all be dead. Plants need carbon dioxide; we need plants—end of story. It is not a pollutant. The amount in the atmosphere goes up and down. That just indicates how bereft of scientific training many journalists are.

It was quite an achievement to reach a consensus, whereby we all voted for the same report in the Committee, because clearly we place different emphases on matters, but my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston talked about the IPCC as a resource for knowledge in this area and was saying that it should be respected. I do not agree. I think the IPCC should be disbanded, for a number of reasons. It is a political process. It claims to be a scientific body, but it is not. It holds its discussion on how the IPCC report is produced in private. When I say “in private”, a number of lobbying groups—green groups—go along. It comes to its conclusions based on compromise between those groups.

At the last meeting, the IPCC increased the size of the report by five pages and took out 700 words. Then it decided, having changed the summary, that it would change the basic documents underlying it to be consistent with the summary, which I think is a perverse process. The IPCC should be much more transparent or should be changed, not least because we need reports more often than every seven years on this issue as science improves.

The surprising thing about the IPCC is that as temperatures have flattened out over the last 16 or 17 years, and as its models have failed to predict that, it now has greater confidence in its results. I find that a strange conclusion—when people predict something incorrectly, they then say they have more confidence in the results.

I want to finish with two points. This is a serious debate. It is disappointing that so few hon. Members are present. A great deal of Government expenditure is based on a belief that there will be catastrophic climate change. The evidence for that is very limited. All energy policies should include the following. Security of energy supply, so that the lights do not go out, is the top priority. Cost to the consumer, both industry and the individual, is the second priority; and the third priority is how much carbon dioxide and pollutants are being put into the atmosphere.

At the moment, it is an act of genius by Government—this is not a party political issue, because the previous Government followed very similar points—to be responsible for putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than would otherwise have been the case, because our carbon footprint is increasing at present; for them to have prices higher than they otherwise would be for some of the poorest people in the country and to be de-industrialising parts of the country; and for them to manage that when there is a greater probability and risk that the lights will go out. That is an energy policy based on a misunderstanding of the science, which could be disastrous for individuals.

This is a highly fraught area. I was appalled when I listened to “The Life Scientific” a few months ago, when Professor Julia Slingo was on, to realise that she had been vilified and been the centre of a campaign of abuse by people who think that she has got the science wrong. That is completely unacceptable. The vast majority of scientists involved in this area are honest, diligent researchers coming up with decent scientific papers. Some of their work is misrepresented. I think that a small number of scientists at the university of East Anglia have fallen below the standard I would expect for scientists.

There is that kind of vilification on one side and there is the vilification of Lord Lawson, who is not of my political party. He has tried to enhance the debate, particularly on the policy side. He has said—I would not go quite this far with him—“Accept that climate change is happening as people say. What is the right policy response?” I think he has enhanced that debate, but, again, he comes in for a great deal of vilification from the other side. If we are to understand the science better and to get better policies than we have at the moment, that nastiness, which should not be part of any political discussion and certainly any scientific discussion, should cease.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I intend to make only a very brief contribution to the debate on the report by the Science and Technology Committee, “Communicating climate science”, but I did feel that it was important to come along, listen and give some perspective from the point of view of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit. As hon. Members on both sides will know, that is a cross-cutting parliamentary Select Committee; it looks right across the board at different Departments.

Unsurprisingly, our Committee has spent a lot of time looking at climate science and climate change. The overarching theme that comes out of virtually all our inquiries is that looking at environmental issues, from whatever perspective, should not be a matter for just one Department, one business, one sector or one section of the media to deal with. It needs to be brought together in a cross-cutting way. It seemed to me that the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee report were doing just that, so I felt that it was important to come along and take part in the debate.

I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), on securing the debate. It is important that we discuss work that Select Committees of the House have done. However, much as I welcome the support for and the emphasis on sound science, the integrity of science and the importance of science not being exploited for short-term political expediency, I think that what the report is really trying to say is that there must be an overall strategy from Government for communicating climate science. I believe that that is very important.

I was heartened to see that the report was unanimous; there was no minority report. Having listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), however, I wonder whether there was complete unanimity.

[Graham Stringer]

It was a remarkable work.

[Joan Walley]

It certainly was remarkable, because when I listened to my two hon. Friends, I did not get the sense that I was hearing about the same report. In fact, I looked at their body language to see whether there was any difference from what was said in the report, and I did not see that either.

Climate change is the most important issue that we face locally, nationally and internationally, so it is strategically important that we communicate the science of climate change in as robust a way as possible, having regard to the facts. After that, what matters is policy, and the support that politicians receive for those policies. If we do not have the trust of the British public for the policies that we want to implement on climate change and climate science, we will not get the policy outcomes that we so urgently require. That is why I had misgivings when I was listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton.

For me, the most important thing is that, as even the Prime Minister stated during Prime Minister’s questions on 26 February in response to questions about the winter floods,

“man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats that this country and this world face.”—[Official Report, 26 February 2014; Vol. 576, c. 255.]

He spoke about the UK’s carbon budgets and the importance of long-term investment. Hon. Members from both sides of the House know that we are at an important stage in the international negotiations that are taking place, which we hope will be completed in Paris in 2015.

This week, there are also important negotiations going on in the European Commission about the target of reducing carbon emissions by 40%. There is great concern that even if that proposal goes through, we will still be moving away from our target of keeping warming within 2° C. Negotiations are under way and huge decisions are being taken, and it will be incumbent on Ministers to return to the House and do the best that they can on those negotiations.

If Members of Parliament, let alone members of the public, have no awareness of the science of climate change, we will not have the public trust that we need to achieve the required outcomes. I do not think that future generations will forgive us if we do not achieve those outcomes, because the clock is ticking. Indeed, Lord Prescott talked about stopping the clock in the negotiations that took place in Durban. We are in an urgent situation, and I believe that the overall recommendation in the report—that the Government must communicate climate science—is exactly what is needed to bolster and support the international discussions.

For that reason, I hope that the Minister—I welcome her to her new position—will set out whether and how the Government will draw up a climate change communication strategy and ensure that it is implemented consistently across Departments. Perhaps she could give us more detail than was provided in the Government’s response to the report. As part of that work, will she have further talks with other bodies, especially the BBC? We have heard a lot about the BBC, and many Members have met and challenged the corporation about its inclination to run with controversial stories rather than taking on board existing climate science, saying that there is a problem and asking what should be done about it. That would be the proper focus for discussion.

Communication is not only about the Government’s having a communication strategy for climate science, but about campaigns to increase public awareness. I was interested in the reference in the report to the education model, because I believe that there should be a duty to promote sustainable development in the national curriculum. That is the only way to encourage youngsters to be aware of sustainable development and engage with climate science throughout primary school, secondary school, college and university, so that whatever their chosen job or career, they will be sensitive to climate science and sustainable development. That awareness will influence the work that they do, and that will contribute to the Government’s strategy for meeting the 2° C objective. We need a communication strategy, but we also need to look at what we are doing in education.

I have looked at the computer model for teaching climate science in schools, and I do not think that there is a great understanding of that model. I was speaking to somebody yesterday about the Canadian Parliament’s green citizenship programmes. I think that environmental issues are all part of the citizenship agenda, and far more can be done through the curriculum to sensitise young people to such issues, whether they go to university or train to be plumbers. At the core, it is essential to get the science right and communicate it.

We are talking about a huge subject. We have seen from situations such as the floods and the take-up of the green deal that there is insufficient public awareness and understanding to support the necessary policies. Education is key, and it is not possible without a communication strategy. Whatever the politics inside the Select Committee when this unanimous report was agreed, I hope that because of the evidence submitted to the Committee and the urgency of the need to address climate change issues, a long-term benefit of the report will be a wider response from the Government in addition to their written response.

The Environmental Audit Committee has published several reports on related issues, such as carbon budgets and energy subsidies. We also published a follow-up report on the progress made on carbon budgets. If we are to achieve the correct energy policies, which take account of security of supply, affordability and climate security, the whole country needs to have an understanding of UK policy. That relates back to the importance of understanding the science. I hope that the report will help us to fulfil the need for an overarching communication strategy based on science, rather than on the sceptical science that we occasionally hear too much about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I am not moving on from the expert group yet. I will say a few words about that. The matter was brought up in some detail by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. We want to ensure that this group has an effective role and we are talking to those who are likely to be involved. We have set up the group and my Department has also set up the cross-Government climate change communications group and developed a cross-Government narrative, which climate science is part of.

The cross-Government communications group is composed of working-level officials invited from all Departments. It has met twice so far, in June and again on 15 August, and it will continue to meet for the foreseeable future. In the first meeting, 12 Departments attended, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Scottish Government are also included. We also had representatives from the Department for International Development, the Treasury, the Environment Agency and the Met Office. That is another example of action following Committee recommendations.

My Department’s new chief scientific adviser, Professor John Loughhead, whom I was delighted to meet yesterday, on his first day, will have an active role in promoting understanding in this area, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Professor David MacKay. The Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Mark Walport, will of course also play an integral role. The Government will continue to work with the academies, learned societies and other experts, including the Met Office, to help ensure that authoritative scientific voices on climate science are more readily available to the general public.

However, most people do not need, or indeed want, to understand the detailed science; they want to understand what they can do. The good news is that the public in the UK understand that climate change is a serious issue. More than two thirds of people in the UK are concerned about climate change. This is a strong mandate for all political parties to take ambitious action to tackle climate change. That underpins this Government’s actions to seek an ambitious global deal in Paris next year and our policies to reduce UK emissions entrenched in the Climate Change Act, helping towards achieving our commitment of an 80% reduction of emissions by 2050.

[Graham Stringer]

Does the Minister agree with me and the Government’s chief scientific adviser that, although emissions are reducing, this country’s responsibility for putting increased amounts of carbon into the atmosphere has increased as we have imported more manufactured goods? Although one can boast about reduced emissions, actually there is a perverse consequence, which is that this country is responsible for more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.