BBC eindelijk kritisch ten aanzien van klimaatbeleid
Andrew Neil, BBC, legt Ed Davey, minister voor energie en klimaatverandering, op het rooster.
Hoe vaak heb ik de BBC niet als fervent apostel van het broeikasevangelie gekwalificeerd? Maar ik heb ook af en toe gesignaleerd dat er tekenen waren dat de BBC voorzichtig bezig was een draai te maken. Nu is er dan iets dat op een doorbraak lijkt. De BBC-interviewer, Andrew Neil, legt de minister voor energie en klimaatverandering, Ed Davey, het vuur na aan de schenen.
Het interview zèlf kan niet worden bekeken buiten het Verenigd Koninkrijk, maar Bishop Hill heeft een transcriptie ervan op zijn website geplaatst.
Ik pik er een aantal krenten uit:
Andrew Neil: Now, are you ready for a puzzle? Well, here's one. Can global warming be happening as expected, when the world has stopped getting hotter? That's the brain-teaser that's troubling scientists and which threatens to shatter the consensus over global warming. Global temperatures have increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius since the industrial revolution. But since the late 1990s, they've stalled, despite the fact that emissions of greenhouse gases have continued apace.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million for the first time earlier this year. The pause has led some climate scientists to question whether there could be something wrong with their models. One eminent German professor [Hans von Storch, University of Hamburg] has said: "So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle..."
The Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey, has said that this normal expression of scientific uncertainty is no reason to reconsider energy and climate change policies, even though his department says they're already adding £112 to annual household bills, a number which is set to rise. Speaking last month, he described people who cast doubt on the scientific consensus as "crackpots and conspiracy theorists", and he warned the press not to give an "uncritical campaigning platform" to people who deny that climate change is man-made.
Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, joins me now for the Sunday interview.
Andrew Neil: Ed Davey, welcome. In a speech on June 2nd you said that healthy scepticism is part of the scientific process. Then, a couple of weeks later, you described anybody who challenged the climate change consensus as - quote - "crackpots and conspiracy theorists". So, what is it?
Ed Davey: Well, I do think we should always challenge the science - of course, we should - and there's a healthy debate amongst climate change scientists. But the vast majority of climate change scientists believe that climate change is happening and that man-made activity is causing it. So it's a tiny number of people who believe that it's not happening and that man isn't responsible for it. And I have to say that I agree with President Obama in his recent speech, when he said we don't need another meeting of the Flat Earth Society. We need to get on and tackle climate change, and I agree with him.
Andrew Neil: So the scientists who challenge the consensus are "crackpots".
Ed Davey: No, what I was saying - I was referring to a particular issue there. I do think there's a - of course, we should have a debate, I'm not against debate. What we've seen in the press -
Andrew Neil: You said that newspapers shouldn't publish their views.
Ed Davey: No, no, I didn't say that. What I've actually said, and I completely stand by that, is that we've seen a completely unchallenged view of the climate change deniers. I think we need rather more balance in the debate, particularly when we saw recent analysis on 12,000 scientific papers, and of the scientists who expressed a view - on climate change papers - of the scientists who expressed a view, 97% said that climate change was happening and that it was human-made activities - human activity that caused it.
Andrew Neil: That survey, of course, has been substantially discredited.
Ed Davey: Well, I don't believe it has -
Andrew Neil: Oh no, it has. Let me tell you - 35% of the abstracts were misclassified, and they were classified to the pro-global warming side. Professor Richard Tol, the expert most quoted approvingly in this report, has disassociated himself from this survey - he said it's not reliable. ...
Andrew Neil: We still have a puzzle. [Shows graph comparing temperature rise and CO2 levels between 1980 and 2012, with a widening gap towards the end.] We still have a puzzle, because this is the temperature and here we have superimposed the carbon dioxide, the CO2 going up in quantity. Now, is there not, at least when you look at that, clear at least that there is a possibility - I put it not higher than that - that there is something of a disconnect, now, between CO2 emissions and temperatures.
Ed Davey: If you had a longer time series, most climate change scientists would say that is completely consistent with data we've seen previously. And I go back -
Andrew Neil: Climate scientists can't explain this disconnect, at the moment.
Ed Davey: No, they can, actually. What they are saying -
Andrew Neil: Well, let me put you to - you may react to this, but this is just to amplify the question. [Screen shows a quote from Dr. Doug Smith, Met Office] Dr. Doug Smith, climate scientist at the Met Office: "It's fair to say that the world warmed even less than our forecast suggested ... We don't really understand at the moment why that is." So we don't know why there is a disconnect.
En zo gaat het interview nog lang verder.
De transcriptie is hier te lezen.
Aanbevolen lectuur voor klimatofielen van alle gezindten!
Ik zou overigens best wel eens zo'n interview op de Nederlandse tv willen zien, bijvoorbeeld door de immer subtiele Sven Kockelmann. Hij zou daarvoor de Nederlandse evenknie van Ed Davey kunnen uitnodigen: staatssecretaris Wilma Mansveld. Lijkt mij spannend!
Voor mijn eerdere DDS-bijdragen, zie hier.
Update
Het blijkt dat de uitzending toch toegankelijk is voor kijkers buiten het VK.
Tip van Krolll. Dank daarvoor!
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