Climate change and 'Canute' Lawson


The former Tory Chancellor-of-the-Exchequer writes in The Spectator on climate change. With slick and well-reasoned argument he outlines the reasons why we should not get carried away by jumping on the green bandwagon without thinking.

Clearly an intelligent man, he raises some salient points. Anyone who is serious about the climate change debate should welcome a voice that differs from the standard line offered by newspapers like The Independent, i.e. that we are all doomed to a watery grave.

But while Lawson’s argument is well-constructed, it is ultimately the dry rationalisation of an economist who views the world in terms of easily pliable opposing forces.

First, he attacks the idea that the average global temperature is rising with unprecedented intensity, pointing out that in the smoke-spouting early 20th century, the world did not suffer a large rise in climate change. The change it did undergo, says Lawson, was not necessarily caused by man-made factors. He also states that the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change’s (IPCC) forecasts are extremely pessimistic.

It is foolhardy of him to argue that we cannot prove that man is responsible for the change in climate. That may indeed be the case, but are we to wait until it can be proved before we act? Is it not generally accepted that the less carbon emissions, the better for all of us? Do the Lawsons take their family holidays at the Hammersmith flyover or somewhere with purer air quality?

We may not be able to prove it just yet, but if we operate under the assumption that it is man who is heating up the planet, we at least have a chance of stemming the tide, whether it is our fault or not.

To say that the IPCC is being pessimistic smacks of the cold rationalism of a man used to looking mainly at hard facts and figures. Of course the IPCC is pessimistic. We are dealing with worst-case scenarios here, the potential upheaval of the world as we know it. If the IPCC were to give us conservative estimates, we may find that we regret the lack of a contingency buffer one hundred years down the line.

Next, Lawson attacks the Kyoto protocol, and here he makes his most poignant remarks. He is right to say that the targets laid out by Kyoto would do little or nothing to reverse the trend. He is also right to point out that the worst carbon-producing nations of today and tomorrow have not signed up to Kyoto and are not likely to.

But the point of Kyoto was not to solve the problem of global warming in one fell swoop, but to reach a landmark consensus that climate change constitutes a clear and present danger. A fairly hollow gesture one might say, but a gesture which had not been made before and which has seen an increase in energy awareness teaching in schools. This is a message that continues to be exported globally and which looks set to take hold gradually. By the time energy efficiency is taken as a given it may be too late, but that is no reason not to start now.

As European countries slow their carbon emissions, Lawson says, there will be no real global net decrease, for carbon-producing industries will simply relocate to countries like China. That may be so, and it will certainly be unavoidable if we abandon the Kyoto agenda now. But if European nations continue to hammer home the message that green energy is preferable to carbon-based fuels, that message can and should eventually penetrate the insular stubbornness of the non-Kyoto nations.

Where Lawson really seems to be away with the fairies is in his fantastical suggestion that we should concentrate on countering the effects of global warming, rather than spending money on trying to reverse it. His first suggestion is that countries like Holland will have to improve their sea defences (Bangladesh, he suggests kindly, will need some international aid).

This is a suggestion that conjures the enduring image of a Canute-like Lawson, standing atop a 300-foot dyke on the beaches of Scheveningen, commanding the waves to return from whence they came. Does he really imagine that flood defences will be viable in the face of the rising oceans? Does he find the idea of building walls around our beaches desirable?

Then he cheerily suggests that farmers will adapt to changing climate conditions. No doubt turnip farmers in Scotland will be amused to know that their grandchildren could be harvesting olives, but the nations somewhat closer to the equator may not see the funny side.

Last, he suggests that we work harder to conserve water supplies, as we waste the stuff on a monumental scale as a species. That is undoubtedly true, but it sounds too much like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. When nations across Africa, Asia and Latin America find their crops dying and their wells drying up, no irrigation system, no matter how fiendishly brilliant it is, will do the trick. Yes, we should conserve water more than we currently do, but global warming will render the poorer nations of the world more than just thirsty.

The main tenor of Lawson’s article is that we should not blindly believe what the alarmists say. “That can be no basis for rational policy-making,” he writes. But what he fails to recognise is that the irrational policies of today could well be the necessities of tomorrow. Yes, he espouses some sensible ideas for dealing with climate change in other ways than merely reducing emissions. But to abandon the groundwork that has already been laid for a sea change in global thinking on energy is madness.

Lawson labels “climate change absolutism” a credo that is akin to faith, the new religion for Europe’s secular masses. If that is true, then so be it, for none of us can see so far into the future that we can afford to relinquish faith in our ability to prevent global warming.

We must continue to act, even without proof, or Lawson’s policies could prove to be the worst gamble he has ever thrown his no longer considerable weight behind. And that includes Poll Tax.