Climate Change

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on introducing this debate. It is topical and urgent and there is no one better qualified than the noble Lord to introduce it. I wish to make a general point about the way in which the Government tackle complex engineering and technological issues because it relates to the likelihood of our success in dealing with climate change. It is apparent that over the past four decades we have lost competitiveness in many areas of technology in which we used to be strong and had profitable companies based on home-grown technological advances. It has puzzled and distressed me why our national strategies have produced this unfortunate result. In retrospect, the strategies have frequently been inadequate both in the goals that were set and in the time allowed to reach them. We have, however, sustained some outstanding industrial capabilities—the accomplishments of Arup and Rolls Royce are shining examples—but these companies have survived, at least over the past two decades, largely on their own and almost in spite of government direction. But I am not suggesting that all engineering issues, such as the supply of clean, low-carbon power, can be tackled solely by private enterprises. Government must be involved because initially the commercial incentives will not be sufficient. The protection of the atmosphere is a very long-term task without immediate commercial benefit. It took state and federal regulation in the USA to introduce pollution controls on road vehicles. There was insufficient commercial motivation for Detroit to act without regulation. Fortunately, the government-enforced regulations proved effective and practicable, and were relatively rapidly taken up worldwide. There is the opportunity for the UK to show similar leadership in aspects of climate change. The science of climate change is reasonably well established in many areas, and it is now up to engineers to develop practicable solutions. By ““practicable”” I mean technologies that not only reduce pollution and carbon dioxide but which are economically sensible, sustainable from a maintenance point of view and can be implemented on a timescale that meets our goals. So far some of the proposals that have emerged from the Government have failed to be practicable. I cite the overambitious expectations for offshore wind, which the noble Lord, Lord Browne, mentioned, and which have now been generally accepted as unrealistic. From whence do these recommendations come? I am naïve in these matters but it seems certain that they are not the collected recommendations of competent engineers. Too often the Government seem to turn to individuals with little professional engineering experience to chair inquiries that, as a result, almost inevitably come up with recommendations that stand little chance of passing my practicality test or, on the other hand, are too commercial and short term and try to avoid the high initial cost of really tackling the problem. An example of the latter was the transport strategy that emerged at the end of 2006. Within government departments, many who draft recommendations have no science, let alone engineering, qualifications. In addition, most departments have science advisors when they would be better off with engineering advisers. The House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee, in gathering evidence for its inquiry into engineering in government, asked me whether I thought it would be sensible to have chief engineering advisers alongside the chief science advisers in some government departments. My response was that it had it the wrong way round and that the question it should be asking was whether it was necessary to have science advisers to work alongside engineers. The chair then asked me what my answer to that question was. I replied that the answer was probably no, because to be classed as competent, engineers should have a thorough knowledge of the science of their specialism. Engineers are, in effect, scientists who have gained the additional knowledge necessary to make science useful. It is engineers who are needed to fix our economy and come up with the practicable solutions to the supply of, for example, carbon-free energy. Science forms the base for engineering and it is essential to maintain a strong science base. As my noble friend Lord May and others have pointed out many times, we have a very strong science base, but it is not scientists who will fix the economy, it is engineers. As has become painfully obvious over the past few months, it is not financiers either. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, make that point in this Chamber two days ago when talking about the automotive industry. He said that, for the future, Britain needs an economy with less financial engineering and more real engineering. Creative engineers are needed if we are to give our automotive manufacturing facilities unique capabilities that will encourage their overseas owners to sustain and grow them, rather than phase them out when the going gets rough. I recommend that in future the Government turn more to engineers, whether to individuals, the Royal Academy of Engineering or the institutions, to gain advice and develop strategies. I of course declare my interest as an engineer and a former president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. We have a large cohort of talented senior engineers in this country, real engineers who have participated in the technical design of successful high-technology products and not just managed others doing the same. However, it may be wise to turn to the international community to gain advice. Last year I participated in a committee drawn together by the US National Academy of Engineering that was charged by the US academies to come up with the grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. There were 18 of us, including a majority of well known Americans such as Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, and Craig Venter, whose innovations speeded up the decoding of DNA. There were also three of us from overseas. If any nation could claim an adequacy of engineering talent, it is the USA, but it none the less used overseas advice to complement its own. We should do the same. We have too many people standing around waffling and talking about blue-sky ideas. Will the Minister please ensure that we select professional engineers such as those in Arup and Rolls-Royce who have demonstrated that they know how to practise successfully in the real world of modern technology to help us determine how we will meet the challenges presented by climate change?