The government’s chief scientific adviser gave an emergency briefing to 70 MPs this week, warning of the dangers of the climate crisis and urging them to act. He was joined by Professor Stephen Belcher from the Met Office, Professor Emily Shuckburgh, from Cambridge Zero and Professor Gideon Henderson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. All of them showed MPs slides – like the ones they might have been used to during the Covid lockdown – which you can see in detail at this link. Vallance warned MPs: “We have had two and a half years of global crisis in the form of a pandemic. We’ve been facing 50 years of really big climate-related problems, and the nature of this threat to countries around the world means that this should be one of the things that should be on every government’s agenda. There’s no way we can pretend it’s not happening.” While the scientists did not make policy recommendations, as they were simply there to present the science, they told MPs that action is needed now to stop the worst effects of the climate emergency. “To give three observations… the world is warmer than it has been, CO2 levels in the atmosphere are higher than ever, and extreme weather events are more common than before all this happened. That’s what we’re dealing with, and the goal of this briefing is to talk about the science,” Vallance said. The slides are similar to those presented to Boris Johnson ahead of Cop26 by Vallance, which the prime minister said was the “road to Damascus” moment on climate change. Belcher’s data from the Met Office makes for uncomfortable reading, showing that extensive changes have occurred in the ocean, cryosphere and biosphere since the appearance of homo sapiens. The diagrams on his slides make this point dramatically. It also showed that Arctic sea ice coverage is declining by a factor of 12 every decade, and in 40 years we could have lost enough to cover an area larger than India, Bhutan and Bangladesh combined. He also drew attention to recent extreme weather events in the US, Europe and Bangladesh to show that the effects of climate change are already being felt, while worse is predicted. Shuckburgh’s message was slightly more optimistic, showing how emissions can be reduced by increasing GDP. However, it also showed that while we have made some progress, emissions need to be reduced more quickly and across a wider variety of sectors to reach net zero. This includes surface transport and buildings as a priority. Henderson gave his presentation even more relevance by drawing attention to the predicted heatwave, where temperatures could reach record highs in the coming days. He focused on threats from extreme weather and how it could affect food production by increasing issues such as potato blight and animal heat stress. The briefing also showed MPs that the way we currently live will have to change, as new technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere will not be enough to offset emissions in time. Vallance warned: “Technology will be an important part of tackling this, but it’s not a panacea and it’s not going to tackle it on its own. If we get to 2050, any technology you can’t see already working isn’t going to save our bacon because of the scale at which these things have to be introduced.” The briefing was organized after campaigner Angus Rose staged a 37-day hunger strike outside parliament, calling for the information to be given to all MPs. It was backed by 79 of the UK’s leading climate scientists in an open letter, who said an update similar to that given during the Covid pandemic would be useful for MPs.
