Our last day in Lindau was largely taken over by recording the remainder of our interviews for the climate change film. So much so, that I’m just getting to blog it now.
On Friday, all 600 students, the Nobel laureates, and several media-types were shipped to Mainau island, home of the late Count Lennart Bernadotte, who instigated the Lindau meeting of Nobel Laureates some 57 years ago. There, we were greeted by his daughter Countess Bettina Bernadotte, ahead of a panel discussion on climate change, chaired by Geoffrey Carr, science editor at the Economist.
The panel discussion covered a lot of ground, albeit superficially, on what we need to reduce emissions, what technologies we can employ, and who needs to take the lead. It included Rajendra Pachauri and Thomas Stocker from the IPCC, Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg, laureates Mario Molina and Richard Shrock, and Cornelia Quennet-Thielen, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The panel potentially would have covered more detailed ground if Lomborg hadn’t been busy having it out with the other panellists on how much attention, and money, we should be dedicating to climate change.
Historically, there has been disagreement between climate scientists and Lomborg, partly owing to the fact that Lomborg simply doesn’t view climate change as a high priority on the list of global problems. More specifically, he has riled climatologists in the past with his disdain for what he sees as scientific alarmism, rather than consensus.
But the issue that got more attention Friday was the question of whether economic growth can be aligned with mitigating climate change. Lomborg argues that if we concentrate on getting development right – by actually reaching the Millennium Development Goals, for example – then we’d not only alleviate suffering in the here and now, we’d also help to out developing nations in much better position to adapt to the changes that lie ahead. The focus and priority should ultimately be on the present, says Lomborg, in a viewpoint notably different from that of economist Nicholas Stern.
To cite a specific example of Lomborg’s, if we enable economic growth in the developing world Bangladeshis will be so wealthy by 2100 that they will be able to respond to and adapt sea level rise.
But focusing on development at the exclusion of climate change is risky for several reasons, as the other panellists noted. For a start, it assumes that we will not experience climate tipping points, or severe climate impacts, anytime soon. The loss of Arctic summer sea ice, and the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers, suggests this outlook is naively optimistic.
Moreover, divorcing climate change from development issues really brings into question whether such development can be truly sustainable. Pachauri was quick to point out that unsustainable growth is one of biggest problems facing the world today. The old approach that brought the western world its wealth – relying on fossil fuels – shouldn’t be replicated elsewhere, highlighted the IPCC chief.
Molina noted that climate impacts can’t be measured in dollars alone. That’s especially true if we end up triggering an irreversible change in the climate – something that would impact many generations to come.
So that’s all from this year’s meeting of Laureates in Lindau, until the release of the films of course, which will be coming out in a the next couple of months.
Olive Heffernan