Share
2024 Christ’s College Climate Lecture: On nature, biodiversity, and climate - Sir Patrick Vallance
Reported by Valérie Nowak, Policy Intern, Centre for Science and Policy
Sir Patrick Vallance provided insights into his experience as a former scientific adviser for the UK Government. The lecture focussed on how governments can align policy with nature, particularly in the context of climate change.
Sir Patrick Vallance, who served as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government from 2018 to 2023, spoke at the CsaP Climate Lecture at Christ's College, Cambridge on 18 January 2024. Sir Patrick explored the inextricably linked challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. The event built on the launch of CSaP's 2023 Policy Fellows Climate and Sustainability Cluster in partnership with the Natural History Museum, where Sir Patrick is currently serving as the Chair.
Four critical questions for science advisers
Sir Patrick emphasised that scientists should not hold decision-making power in a democracy, although providing advice alone would not be sufficient. Scientific advice should be framed in a way that is relevant to policymakers. During his time as a science adviser for the UK government, Sir Patrick utilised a set of four questions as a guiding tool: 1) is the evidence adequate? 2) is the evidence understood? 3) has the scientific advice been framed in a way that is relevant to policy? 4) how can science assist to monitor the impact of a policy?
Understanding scientific evidence
Sir Patrick pointed out that “most politicians see science as absolute truth”. Still, it should be noted that scientific evidence is not an absolute truth, as new discoveries can be made at any time. In 2019, there were several special advisers who held differing views on the reality and severity of climate change, which was contrary to the scientific consensus. This perspective gained some traction, with proposals to bring in prominent climate sceptics from the United States. However, as a scientific adviser, Sir Patrick made sure that the Prime Minister was fully informed of the evidence in support of climate change. He presented a visual graph that depicted the concentration of carbon dioxide over the past 800,000 years and the Prime Minister was convinced by the scientific evidence that the climate crisis is a major problem.
This led him to the following question: how can policy address climate change? Sir Patrick demonstrated that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is possible, as evidenced by the rapid change in the same graph during Covid-19 when flights were cancelled.
Climate change: learning lessons from other countries (resilience planning)
Climate change is a global issue that is already having an impact on our world, as evidenced by extreme weather events such as wildfires. As Sir Patrick pointed out, it is only recently that wildfires have emerged as a persistent threat in the UK and to address this newfound threat, he proposed greater resilience planning. Sir Patrick envisaged the UK Government learning from other states that have experience in dealing with these issues, citing Australia as an example.
System engineering problem: Reaching net zero
Moving on to discussing the big issue of addressing climate change and achieving net zero, Sir Patrick advocated a systematic approach which, in many ways, runs counter to the Government’s structure. He likened the challenge to a system engineering problem as climate change impacts every Government department. The monumental scope of the challenge means that no one department can hope to solve an issue in isolation as they are all interconnected. As such, Sir Patrick suggested that engineers could work within governments to help address the manifold challenges associated with climate change. His argument was that policy decisions should be made based on credible engineering solutions to reach clear and stable guidance on regulations and that this will support the private sector to make investments. Overall, governments need a long-term strategy to prepare for quick changes caused by climate change.
The ‘Biodiversity Intactness Index’
Sir Patrick redirected the focus from net zero to the related issue of biodiversity, an area that has often been publicly and politically side-lined. While carbon dioxide emissions are used as an indicator for net zero, such an indicator has been missing for biodiversity. Introducing the ‘Biodiversity Intactness Index’, Sir Patrick proclaimed, “What is measured, can be changed”. This index is based on a database of five million pieces of peer-reviewed evidence. This index shows the percentage of biodiversity that remains intact compared to the pre-human intervention period. Now that a scale is in place, Sir Patrick explained that the next step is to evaluate the effect that policies have on the biodiversity intactness index.
Bioengineering glass: Learning from nature
In his role as chair of the Natural History Museum’s board, Sir Patrick underlined how the museum’s work contributes to scientists and policy makers. He provided two examples, one of which was the discovery of sponges that produce glass using silicon through enzymatic processes at the bottom of 3000m of water. This discovery has the potential to revolutionise the way we produce glass, as the current process is highly energy intensive. Secondly, Sir Patrick highlighted the importance of the Natural History Museum's bat collection, which is over 150 years old. Scientists were able to extract DNA from the bats and identify the Coronavirus, which helped in tracing the virus's evolution over time.
View the lecture here:
Valérie Nowak
Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge