Breakthrough: Prins and Rayner in Nature

In this week's Nature magazine, Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and Steve Rayner of Oxford University make a strong case that climate policy decidedly does not need more of the same approach that has not been working. They write:

We stare at stark divergences of trends. On the one hand, the International Energy Agency predicts a doubling of global energy demand from present levels in the next 25 years. On the other, since 1980 there has been a worldwide reduction of 40% in government budgets for energy R&D. Without huge investment in R&D, the technologies upon which a viable emissions reduction strategy depends will not be available in time to disrupt a new cycle of carbon-intensive infrastructure.
So investment in energy R&D should be placed on a wartime footing. This is a cause that embraces the political spectrum, including Kyoto supporters. In 1992 former US Vice-President Al Gore called for a 'strategic environment initiative' as part of his vision for a 'global Marshall Plan'. The conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC also supports primary research on sustainable new energy technologies. In 2006, Lord Rees, the president of Britain's Royal Society suggested that major public investment in R&D should be kick-started by a global investment in energy technologies research on the scale of the Manhattan Project.

Read the whole thing free here.

It is very obvious that a large scale energy R&D increase is needed. It is reminiscent of Jeffrey Sach's call for a large scale increase in funds to battle extreme poverty or even (on a smaller scale of course) the past push to increase the NIH budget.

This may be the only way to stimulate/jump start the market to produce the needed technologies. These technologies would be a key product to be purchased by developing countries, eliminating their need to build purely carbon-based infrastructure.

The solution seems straight forward, but where will the funds come from? Increased military budgets exceeding $500 billion, the President's American Competitiveness Initiative focusing on a select few energy technologies, and the NASA shift to the Moon/Mars Mission paint the picture that long term (10+ years) priorities are opposite to what is actually needed. Though these examples represent only a small piece of the budget pie, where would such a large scale funding project come from? Tough decisions would need to made!

Further more, it seems possible that the Congress may actually push through a single piece of legislation (say the Lieberman Cap and Trade Program) and then believe that the problem has been solved.

I am very optimistic of a new progressive program to take on the pressing issues of today, but there are indeed many walls (both economic and cultural) to overcome. The scientific community, in the mean time, needs to begin expanding and coming together. Bring in social scientists, policy makers, and the like to the table when researching Global Warming and climate change. While we think of what is needed, we need to also utilize what we already have.

Posted by: Matthew Stepp at October 25, 2007 11:44 PM

Post a comment