Benn: Engineers need to remedy changing climate
Making Britain resilient to a changing climate will depend on the engineering sector’s response, according to environment secretary Hilary Benn.
Speaking at a joint Defra and Engineering the Future Conference, Benn called on the sector to lead the way in building Britain’s future infrastructure - from transport networks to nuclear power stations to withstand the changes to our climate.
“The floods of last month, and the collapse of bridges, show us how much a resilient infrastructure matters. Protecting ourselves against negative impacts, and also taking advantage of the benefits of a changing climate, is all part of building Britain’s future.
“The UK’s engineering sector is vital to tackling this challenge and is well-placed to design and engineer climate resilient and low carbon infrastructure for global markets, as well as the UK.”
Defra predicts warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, increased risk of coastal erosion and more severe weather events such as flooding and heat waves.
All 10 of the hottest years on record globally have been since 1990, and extreme weather appears to be on the rise, as last week’s floods in Cumbria show.
ICE President, Paul Jowitt, said: “In the past week we have seen the destruction that infrastructure failure can cause and how dependent we are on the whole infrastructure network. It is crucial that we adapt and develop this network to withstand the inevitable future threats facing it.
“Climate change is not only about reducing emissions – it is one of the biggest threats facing the UK’s infrastructure and will present some major challenges. These challenges will require innovative solutions from the engineering community and joined up thinking with Government. We are confident that by acting now and working together, we can adapt our infrastructure to improve its resilience and reduce our vulnerability to crisis,” he said.
Senior Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Professor Robert Mair, said: “Resilience in the face of climate change is a challenge all engineers must rise to. In partnership with our customers, policy makers and the users of the infrastructure we provide, engineers can provide the solutions that will protect us from the worst effects of climate change.
“This is essential to maintaining and developing our modern way of life, as well as sharing the benefits of progress equitably across the world. The challenge has never been greater for engineering,” he said.
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Readers' comments (18)
Charles Scott | 3-Dec-2009 10:57 am
Data from the last 10 years does not support the global warming hypothesis. Lots of my fellow engineers are as unconvinced as I am about the hype perpetuated in NCE. You should present a more balanced view.
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Alan Sim | 3-Dec-2009 11:29 am
Hold on a minute, lets not all get caught up in this. What Mr Benn is asking for is already provided. Any new infrastructure over exdisting watercourses will no doubt be well engineered for future flood patterns. This is controlled by the Environment Agency in many respects.
The issues we have had in last few weeks are related to historical infrastructure, and masonry arch structures in particular. Unless Mr Benn relaxes the grip of the planners, conservationists and English Heritage (and the public) then we will continue to have these problems well into the future.
As a Bridge Engineer I know first hand how difficult it is just to repair and modernise any existing arch structures, no matter what classification of road over. To replace all the vulnerable arch structures is nigh on impossible. We'll just have to train any heavy flows through these bridges best we can and inspect them regularly, especially after heavy flooding.
As for the Government's financial assistance for this, its not even going to scratch the surface. Local authority maintenance budgets are continually stretched and barely cover the absolute minimum.
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William Bowie | 3-Dec-2009 4:57 pm
I have just had lunch with a friend whose grandfather came from Cumbria. The old man's diary recalls floods over a century ago
Climate Change AKA Global Warming AKA CO2 has nothing to do with the current floods. Extreme weather events are not increased by the current warming. - rather the opposite (see Florida University). It is the weather. Just the weather
How anyone can reasonably say that man's influence on climate is harmful after reading how the CRU and NASA have been massaging the figures to fabricate data to show inflated warming when there is only slight warming?
We need to step back and look at the facts. We need to debate coolly whether man's influence on climate is:-
a) significant and
b) whether we can do anything about it.
I think Bellamy and Barrett got it just about right (see proceedings May 2007) - "if we burn all the known fossil fuel we will put up global temperature just 1.5C". This will do us no harm. Let us attack real problems that engineers can tackle, like clean water for the third world!
Before anyone takes me to task please explain why the IPCC AR4 temperature chart that shows +3.2C at 560 ppm also shows +1.5C at today's 385 ppm when the actual figure is +0.6 C . This is just 40% of the IPCC estimate. We have been conned. It is time to ignore the Alarmists.
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Chris Johnson | 4-Dec-2009 10:54 am
How should the NCE present a more balanced view? By not reporting the statements made by the Environment Secretatary, the ICE President and the RAE Vice-President?
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Charles Scott | 4-Dec-2009 2:16 pm
By selectively reporting pro global warming the NCE does its readership a disservice. Articles by Anthony Oliver appear every week in NCE on the topic with always the same biased theme and without any representation of more rational views exemplified by Alan Sim above.
The Environment Secretary, ICE President and RAE Vice-President all have political agendas. But NCE is well known for close scrutiny of construction stories and can not have the same excuse. I expect better from NCE (which I pay for through my ICE subscription and therefore have some entitlement in the matter).
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Chris Johnson | 4-Dec-2009 3:09 pm
The gloabal warming debate inputs into the drivers of what we all do. The debate seems one-sided because dissenters have not been winning the debate. Anthony Oliver is using his editorial perogative to discuss global warming. Alan Sim has indeed given a rational view, not on global warming, but on elements of the Env Sec's speech and their effects upon his field of engineering. The Env Sec obviously has a political agenda with a capital P, but surely the ICE President & the RAE VP 's polictical agendas must surely be very small p?
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Tim Regan | 4-Dec-2009 10:50 pm
I agree with Chris Johnson. To question evidence for climate change or man's contribution is prefectly reasonable and proper. But we have to acknowledege the consensus that exists amongst the overwhelming majority of those who actually conduct research in these fields. It is simply not rational to suggest the whole world is being "conned", nor to dismiss any authority expressing the established view as having a "political agenda". In the light of the current scientific consensus it is right for NCE, as well as our policy-makers, to be vocal in expressing the enormous significance of the issues and the role we must play in confronting them.
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Charles Scott | 5-Dec-2009 9:24 pm
The leaked East Anglia emails suggest that indeed we are being conned. I have access to reliable scientific research about melting of the polar icecaps and know the scare stories on the BBC and the rest of the media are just not true. Same goes for sea level rises. I'd prefer to think for myself thank you very much.
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Anonymous | 7-Dec-2009 8:37 am
Ah ha! Now I see a clue to someone's political agenda ;o)
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Charles Scott | 7-Dec-2009 2:02 pm
Don't know if Mr Anonymous is talking about me but the research I refer to is in regard to the Panama Canal Extension. USD 3 billion would not be spent upgrading the canal if there was a realistic case for a northern shipping route any time soon. How do you do that wink thing at the end of your email. I've always wondered.
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Kristian Ravnkilde | 9-Dec-2009 10:18 am
This started with the very reasonable comment by Hilary Benn that we need engineers to deal with the effects of climate change, which I think we can all see is happening. Human induced or no, we have to deal with it, and to see a politician bigging up our importance is no bad thing! As for "conning" us, who would benefit from that, and who would think they could get away with it when there is so much attention being paid?
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Kristian Ravnkilde | 9-Dec-2009 10:27 am
The UEA emails are a petty distraction - people do use sloppy wording and say silly things from time to time, you know. It doesn't suddenly discredit a whole branch of science.
There seems to be a clear cause and effect relationship between emitting greenhouse gases and global warming. It may not be the whole story, but it is the bit we can do something about - in any situation where things are heading in an undesirable direction, we should at least stop doing things that we can see make matters worse.
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Matthew Wilson | 9-Dec-2009 12:28 pm
I agree with Kristian and Tim. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of evidence and specialists support the view that global warming is happening and that mankind's activities are contributing to it. Instead of looking at a few emails which have been taken very much out of context, one man's diary or a single table it would be better to review all of the data available in existings reports produced by qualified experts in their field. The overall conclusion of the IPCC 4th report was that there is a 100% certainty that the earth is warming, and a 90% certainty that mankind is contributing. Thats pretty strong evidence for rational minds. I think there is a very irrational desire to be one of an elite who don't follow the herd, but beware that same thinking can lead you down the shameful road of improv jazz rather than normal music. Sometimes you have to admit the herd are right and Art Blakey and his enseble are wrong, dreadfully wrong. I also think there's a tendency among some hard nosed engineers (despite standing to gain huge amounts of money out of this) that they don't want to admit that the hippies were right all along!
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Charles Scott | 9-Dec-2009 4:19 pm
Thanks for lightening it up Mathew. I'm a classical buff as it happens but you'll be surprised to learn I don't like Schonberg's atonal stuff.
William Bowie already commented above on the IPCC report: "the IPCC AR4 temperature chart that shows +3.2C at 560 ppm also shows +1.5C at today's 385 ppm when the actual figure is +0.6 C . This is just 40% of the IPCC estimate.". Granted Mathew may not be an expert but at least he has read the report and drawn some rational conclusions for himself.
There are lots of high profile figures who are as unconvinced: Lord Leach, Lord Lawson, David Bellamy, etc. And anyway, if global warming is going to happen is it really the greatest threat facing mankind? What about global poverty and inequality of opportunity, the Islam / western-democracy dichotomy, AIDS? As a Scotsman from chilly Aberdeen I say bring it on - that's my political agenda.
The people who "will make money" are the sharp elbowed middle classes (of which I consider myself a member) who will be able to manage the impact of the punitive taxes to be agreed this week in Copenhagen. Internationally it's the Chinese who will gain. Paradoxically, one of the losers will be the environment as lots of money is wasted based on a false premise. The construction industry will also be a net loser given the huge carbon footprint of concrete production and steel manufacture. For the benefit of Mr Anonymous (the winker) I'm not employed by either cement industry or steel manufacturers.
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Katja Leyendecker | 9-Dec-2009 5:24 pm
Suppose history will judge us on this. Looking back in 50 years time I’d rather be seen as the one with the wary, not the indifferent approach.
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Charles Scott | 10-Dec-2009 8:44 am
You can look back 50 years. When the scientists were telling us we were doomed to global cooling with the same emphatic evangelism.
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Matthew Wilson | 10-Dec-2009 9:06 am
Again, the small number of high profile figures who are unconvinced are notably not climate scientists. The people who are experts in the field are overwhelmingly convinced. It is also vital to note that world poverty, inequality of opportunity etc. are all linked to climate and it is the world's poor who are losing and stand to lose the most as they have the least resources to adapt. Already vast numbers of people are displaced by environmental degredation (www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/RSCPB1-Environment.pdf) and this can only to increase. Many of the measures promoted to tackle climate change also tackle these other issues, and are, realistically the only way such issues can be tackled. I would recommend reading the UN sponsored TEEB report for a summary of the type and scale of the problems likely to be caused by climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, inequality etc and some potential solutions (http://www.teebweb.org/Home/tabid/924/language/en-US/Default.aspx.). Just as an example, 500 million people rely on tropical coral reefs for their livelihoods. Aside from meaning if you want a snorkelling holiday you'd best get one in the next ten years or so, it means that globally we've got to find a means of support for half a billion people when the reefs die off. That could prove expensive, possibly even more so than measures to tackle climate change.
Also, be aware that if the gulf stream slows any more due to increased fresh water input from greenland and the tundra, Aberdeen could be getting the climate of Newfoundland, not the Med!
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Charles Scott | 10-Dec-2009 10:16 am
You mean it's cooling then?
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