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UK Government scientist were found to be contradicting the IPCC at a high profile climate conference.

Introduction

Why is there such a gap between, on the one hand, the warnings of the UN and IPCC with their "code red" and "every tonne matters" messaging , and on the other hand, the lack of effective action by governments, resulting in global total emissions continuing to rise and even high-poluting countries still expanding roads and airports? What is going wrong? Government policies should be in accord with the Paris and other agreements to limit global warming to 1.5°C, but this is not happening.

Government scientists
Scientists at the heart of government have a key role in accurately explaining the science, particularly the degree of urgency to government civil servants, politicians, industry and wider society, so it is worth assessing how well they are performing this role.

This study
The study reported here is a small scale study following the publication of the latest set of three IPCC reports between August 2021 and April 2022 [1]. It compared the messaging from the IPCC on the urgency of action with the messaging that UK government scientists conveyed at a high profile conference at the Royal Society. It assesses the messaging in the presentations from four scientists close to the heart of UK Government.

It was an opportunity for the scientist to distill the reports and what they mean for UK policy making.

Methods

Messaging assessed
The scientist assessed were speakers at the Royal Society conference titled Climate change: science, responses and research needs held on 11-12 April 2022. They were the speakers in Day 1, Session 3 titled What do the IPCC findings mean for UK policy?. Earlier in the day, in Session 1, three IPCC Working Group Co-Chairs had summarised the findings in their reports.

The four scientists studied were the two Chief Scientific Advisors at the UK Government departments for business and the environment, a member of the UK Government's Climate Change Committee, and a professor of environmenal policy. All four are currently professors at UK universites or have held a comparable post in the past. Two are Fellows of the Royal Society.

Assessment system
In advance of the meeting, five points were selected that are essential steps in the process of translating the IPCC reports into the UK context, and reviewing UK policies with regard to the scale and timeframe of action needed. These were

• Global warming must be kept below 1.5°C by limiting further total global CO2 emissions to the CO2 budget specified by the IPCC [The total global CO2 budget is given as 400 billion tonnes from 2020 to be 67% confident of keeping global warming within 1.5°C [2]. ]
• The UK's CO2 budget should be determined as a "fair share" of the global CO2 budget [The Paris Agreement [3] specifies that developed contries should reduce emissions faster than developing countries (article 4.1) and specifies equity between nations (multiple articles). An equal per capita share of a global CO2 budget of 400 billion tonnes is 3.4 billion tonnes for the UK (from 2020). This is from global and UK populations of 8 billion and 68 million respectively. ]
• The UK's per capita "fair share" CO2 budget will run out in 3 years at the current emission rate [The current level of emissions (including aviation) of just over 600 million tonnes per year [4][5] means that the UK's CO2 budget of 3.4 billion tonnes CO2 runs out in 2025 [4][6]. ]
• The UK Government's Net Zero 2050 strategy would take three times the UK's per capita "fair share" of the global CO2 budget [It would result in emissions of around 9 million tonnes CO2 [4][5]. ]
• Instead of the UK Government strategy, radical emission cuts of about 25% per year are needed in order to comply with the Paris Agreement commitments [This level of urgency is of course very different from what is generally discussed but this is what the mathematics says [4][5]. ]

Scores were awarded on each of these five points using

• +1 when the point was adequately covered
• 0 when the point was not relevant
• -1 when the point was dealt with incorrectly, or when the point was relevant but had been evaded.

With a score of -1 to +1 on each of the five points, the overall total score would be in the range of -5 to +5.

The score indicates whether the degree of urgency stated by the iPCC was accurately conveyed. It could be termed a Climate Urgency Realism/Denial score.

Results

The results are shown in the table.

Individual	Limit further global CO2 to budget for 1.5°C	Limit UK CO2 to fair share of global budget	UK's per capita share CO2 runs out in 3 years	UK Gov. 2050 plan would take 3x per capita share	Instead, cuts of c. 25% per year are needed	Score
A	-1	-1	-1	-1	-1	-5
B	-1	-1	-1	-1	-1	-5
C	-1	-1	-1	-1	-1	-5
D	-1	-1	-1	-1	-1	-5

Individual A is the Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
B is the Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
C is a member of the UK Government's Climate Change Committee (UKCCC), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
D is a Professor of Environmenal Policy, who does not have a UK Government appointment, and so does not have the same obligations as the three UK Government scientists.


In summary none of the five points were covered adequately by any of the speakers, and all scored the worst possible score of -5. Several mentioned limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and one talked of a limit of "just above 1.5° or so", but there was no discussion that to do this we must focus on carbon budgets. There were several mentions of halving emissions by 2030, but no mention of the Paris Agreement's provision to equity between nations and the need for developed countries to reduce emissions faster than developing countries. There was no mention in the presentations of when the UK's per capita "fair share" carbon budget will run out, and no mention of the percentage annual cuts needed. The Government's timescale for emission cuts was portrayed as consistent with international obligations, with no need for significant policy change. A video of the meeting is available online [7].

Discussion

Failures
All three government scientists failed to mention carbon budget calculations, and yet they have been carried out for years and are an essential part of policy making, e.g. they are the basis of the much-quoted need to halve global emissions by 2030.

All three government scientists failed to mention the implication for the UK of equity between nations that is written in to the Paris Agreement, with the need for faster emission cuts in developed countries. Put simply, the UK's current CO2 emissions are about double the global per capita average, and so cuts need to be made twice as fast as the average. So talking of halving emissions by 2030 in a UK context is seriously misleading since the halving in the UK needs to be done twice as fast, i.e. by 2025 (or now earlier due to lack of action). This is not an esoteric point; developing countries are acutely aware that the pledges for action of the developed countries would mean them taking more than their "fair share" of the residual carbon budget [8].

All three government scientists failed to mention that the timescale of the UK's Government's emission cuts would result in emissions of three times the UK's per capita share of the residual global CO2 budget for 1.5°C and would lead to global warming of over 2°C if repeated around the world, and yet this gap between pledges made and action needed is well-established and deserves discussion.

The overall impression given (subjectively) was that everything is in hand.
Overall, there was no mention of a need for any change in the UK government timescale of action, or of a need for a change in policy, and so contradicts the IPCC reports.

Obligations of government scientists
Governments have a social contract with their citizens to tell them the truth and act in their interests. In the UK, government employees have to comply with Nolan's Seven Principles of Public Life [9], which includes Objectivity and Honesty. So this study shows evidence that UK government scientists are seriously in breach of their obligations .

How realistic are emission cuts of 25% per year?
Of course, emission cuts of 25% per year are very different from what most people are discussing. How realistic are they?

If the UK had to make emission cuts of 25% per year, e.g. due to war and interruption of fossil fuel supplies, then of course it would.

Personal experience is that cuts of 10% per year by individual action are not difficult. If individual action were to be combined with appropriate government action, cuts of 25% do not seem out of reach.

If the UK does not make emission cuts in line with its commitments to the Paris and subsequent agreements, it is because it is making a choice that e.g. continued fossil fuel use for non-essential purposes such as flying on holidays is more important than stopping the emissions that are leading to climate deaths and climate refugees. This choice is currently being hidden, but it is something that the UK population should be facing up to.

References

[1]	The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change https://www.ipcc.ch/

[2]	IPCC (Aug 2021) AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ (The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.)

[3]	The Paris Agreement (2015)https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/paris_nov_2015/application/pdf/paris_agreement_english_.pdf

[4]	Jackson T (2021) Zero Carbon Sooner—Revised case for an early zero carbon target for the UK. CUSP Working Paper No 29. Guildford: University of Surrey. https://cusp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/WP-29-Zero-Carbon-Sooner-update.pdf

[5]	https://www.carbonindependent.org/109.html

[6]	https://www.carbonindependent.org/33.html

[7]	YouTube video of Day 1 of the Royal Society conference (11 Apr 2022). Session 3 is from 4:27:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l9QPWWk_zQ

[8]	India raises alarm over depletion of carbon budget (Oct 2021) https://www.livemint.com/news/india/developed-countries-overused-their-domestic-carbon-space-environment-minister-bhupender-yadav-11634575835478.html

[9]	Committee on Standards in Public Life (2016) Striking the Balance: Upholding the Seven Principles of Public Life in Regulation https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/554817/Striking_the_Balance__web__-_v3_220916.pdf

First published: 14 Apr 2022
Last updated: 24 Apr 2022