Policy | Environment

13 Feb 09

Professor Sir David King has warned of new challenges in climate change facing the world

The Iraq war was the first ‘resource war’ according to Professor Sir David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and a former UK government chief scientist.
 
‘I believe historians of the future will look back and see the Iraq war as the first resource war of the 21st century,’ he told the British Humanist Association in a speech on February 11.
 
‘The US is dependent on oil and was well past peak oil production when the war began. Looking at Iraq, many in the White House saw an opportunity to secure America’s oil supply by creating a friendly government which would be more amenable to providing oil to the US.’
 
The Smith School is working with the private sector, governments and academics to find solutions to the challenges of climate change.
 
‘Our challenges now are entirely different from those faced by Darwin and Dickens in the 19th century,’ Professor King said. ‘The problems of their times have largely been resolved in the developed world, with life expectancy now 80 rather than 40 years.
 
‘Now, we face a new set of linked challenges including producing enough food, protecting biodiversity and supplying enough energy, water and minerals. If we try to tackle these problems individually we will fail.’

Professor King warned that the world’s rapidly increasing population will make these problems far worse. He pointed out that we are currently releasing 36 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year: with the Americans responsible for an average of 22 tonnes each; the British 11 tonnes each; the Indians 1.5 tonnes each; and the Chinese 4.5 tonnes each.

He estimated that by the time the population reaches nine billion, probably in 2050, we will need to cut carbon emissions to 18 billion tonnes a year – on average, just two tonnes per person per annum. The challenge of producing more food in a drier climate is also going to pose huge problems.
 
He said: ‘We will need to produce 50 per cent more food by 2030, including 50 per cent more crops. At the same time there will be much less water. Put simply we will have to get more crop per drop.’ 
 
In 2008, the economist Josef Stiglitz estimated that the Iraq war had cost the US $3 trillion. He said that the cost to the rest of the world, including Britain, was about the same amount again.
 
Professor King concluded: ‘The US could have secured its energy supply without having to go to war. If Washington had invested one tenth of that money in renewable energy they’d have managed it.’

Professor Sir David's King's lecture, Can British science rise to the challenges of the 21st century? was part of the celebrations of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.