Scientific Alliance

Too Stern a view of climate change

Today, Sir Nicholas Stern has published his review of the economic implications of modelled climate change. Not surprisingly, his conclusions are those which the government wanted: high levels of expenditure now will prevent much greater economic damage arising from the projected influence of Mankind on the global climate.

The Scientific Alliance believes that Sir Nicholas's talents have been misused. His calculations are based on the output of complex computer models, all constructed on the assumption that average global temperatures are directly linked to atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases - in particular carbon dioxide. His estimates are doubtless correct for the scenarios presented, but we question the validity of the starting point.

Martin Livermore, director of the Alliance, said 'Evidence is building that climate is not driven primarily by human use of fossil fuels, as most people have been led to believe. There have been significant temperature changes during the last millennium, well before industrialisation, and the major influence of fluctuations in cosmic rays from the Sun have been under-represented in the work of the IPCC.

'The billions which this review says it is necessary to spend are likely to have little positive effect, and could be put to much better use in helping the world's poorest people to create better lives for themselves.'

Despite rising levels of carbon dioxide, 1998 remains the warmest year on record. Although hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic damage in 2005, it was not an especially intense storm, and 2006 has been a particularly quiet hurricane season. While the Western Antarctic ice shelf is breaking up, more snow is falling over a much greater area in Eastern Antarctica.

Climate changes all the time, and humans undoubtedly have some influence, but to believe that drastic reductions in our use of fossil fuels will necessarily have any real effect on a climate system which we don't understand is to distract our attention from the current needs of the majority of the world's population.

According to Martin Livermore, 'Gordon Brown's recruitment of Al Gore as an advisor - perhaps the world's leading propagandist for a one-sided and alarmist view of Mankind's role in climate trends - shows how much a single analysis of the evidence currently dominates policy.

'The government still has time to bring cooler heads into the debate, look at the evidence in a more balanced context and develop policies which can make a difference to people's lives in the here and now.'


The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, synthesises the work of many hundreds of expert scientists, but the conclusions in its series of reports are agreed by participating government delegations.

The Scientific Alliance is a membership-based organisation which campaigns for an evidence-based approach to environmental issues and policy-making.

For further comment or interviews, please call on 01223 421242 or 07984 033354.




The Scientific Alliance
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