09 Sep 08

Sir David King outlined the role the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment would play in helping to meet the 'unprecedented challenges' posed by climate change.

Sir David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, threw down the gauntlet to global leaders during his presidential address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Liverpool on 9 September.

Sir David King spoke of the ‘unprecedented challenges’ posed by climate change and climate impacts. He said that leaders in governments and the private sector would need ‘strength of character and the vision’ to rise to meet those challenges.

Sir David also outlined the role that the newly formed Smith School would play in helping governments, private sector companies and individuals tackle future scenarios.

Sir David, former Government Chief Scientific Adviser, said: ‘A key aspect of our work will be through Foresight programmes of the kind that I introduced in government, such as Flood and Coastal Defences or Tackling Obesity. Each programme will be carefully chosen to tackle a particular futures area related to Enterprise and the Environment.’

He added: ‘The scenarios that are developed in these programmes are not predictions of the future. They enable governments, private sector companies and individuals to make key decisions which may optimise future opportunities or create a more robust approach to future risks.’

Before an interested lay-audience of professionals, journalists, students and schoolchildren, Sir David explained that each programme at the Smith School would take several years to research and draw in around 100 experts largely from the academic sector, but also from the private sector and governments.

He illustrated a business-as-usual scenario where global economies are growing at a healthy rate, and China and India are the new emerging powers. The United States meanwhile, has a stagnating economy with an alternative to petrol being developed: biofuel from food crops. Globally, food prices rise, and China continues its carbon-intensive economy. The apparent winners are the oil-rich countries of the Middle East who create lavish holiday resorts that need intensive air-conditioning and a major demand for energy. Solutions do not emerge to climate change, resulting in rising temperatures, rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns; this leads to flooded cities, crop failures and the desertification of some countries.

In a different scenario, an unprecedented level of international co-operation provides the basis for a way forward but leadership is key, from the leaders of the most powerful nations. This scenario heralds a huge increase in investments in new renewable sources, and, through increased research and development investment, unexpected solutions emerge. Deserts are converted into solar energy collectors, and this trade in energy alters the flow of energy-based funds between nations.

Sir David concludes: ‘My two story lines are strongly polarised alternatives. There are many different possible global futures lying ahead of us. But I do believe that we can rise to these unprecedented challenges.’