The risks of climate change should be assessed in the same way as risks to national security or public health, according to a policy brief to the UK Foreign Office. The advice is that, as with terrorism, we assess these risks on a worst-case scenario and then plan our actions to counter them.
The brief is a follow up to a hard-hitting report Climate Change, a Risk Assessment, which described the frightening consequences to the human race of the temperature rises we can expect this century. It says we need to plan our actions now to counter these dangers.
The report was compiled by four experts, including Sir David King, formerly the UK’s chief scientific adviser, and, although commissioned by the Foreign Office, came with the disclaimer that “it should not be taken to represent the views of the UK government”.
Governments of all political hues, starting with Mrs Thatcher, have a history of commissioning influential reports on climate change. They come with copper-bottomed and far-reaching recommendations about action that will safeguard the British public (and the rest of the planet) from the dangers of overheating, and then they are almost totally ignored by the politicians that paid for them. The Stern Report on the economics of climate change, ordered by Gordon Brown, when he was chancellor, being the best-known example.
These dangers to Britain are no longer all long-term. Flooding and mass migration are already happening. Food shortages and sea level rise only require extreme weather events to take them from the list of probable events to stories that will dominate the news; but yet another report is probably destined to gather dust.
