The Committee on Climate Change has repeated its call made last year for a “step change” in UK policy to meet climate change targets, despite a reduction in emissions.

Although greenhouse gas emissions fell 8.6% from 2008 to 2009, it has mainly been caused by a drop in economic activity as a result of the recession. Prior to the recession emissions fell by 0.6% annually, short of the 2-3% annual cuts required in the period to 2020 to meet carbon budgets. The recession, therefore, has created an “illusion” that progress is being made to reduce emissions.

The committee’s second annual report to parliament continues by warning that the government cannot continue to rely on “light touches”. Instead, it proposes the government introduces new policy in electricity generation, providing greater incentives for home insulation, setting more ambitious targets for the number of electric cars on the road, and encouraging farmers to use fertiliser more efficiently.

The full report can be read here.

The BES Policy Team last night attended the inagural Royal Society Science Policy Centre debate, taking place this year as part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary festival of science and the arts, ‘See Further’. Lord Krebs, new Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee; Professor David Nutt, Chair of the newly created ‘Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs’; Prof. Mike Hulme, Head of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA and Prof. Sheila Jasanoff, Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University, joined Royal Society President, Lord Rees, on stage at the Southbank Centre to discuss ‘the experimental society’. The event was organised in partnership with the Science and Democracy Network – set up by Prof. Jasanoff to bring together leading thinkers annually to consider major science policy questions.

Speakers were each given five to ten minutes to cover their key points before the floor was opened for questions. A central theme was the role of scientists in providing scientific advice to policy-makers. Lord Krebs was clear that scientific advisors have the job of assessing risk, whilst policy advisors have the role of managing risk. Prof. Jasanoff felt that scientific advisors are those who are able to tell society when an experiment is over; when we have enough evidence to move forwards and the scientific certainty to act, at least until evidence is reassessed. Prof. Jasanoff was also clear that it wasn’t enough for scientists to say that they were trustworthy just by virtue of their position: creating trust in people was fundamentally interlinked with creating trust in knowledge and needed to be cultivated. Prof. Jasanoff contrasted the position of physicians, seen as trustworthy figures by the public due to their adoption of a unique ethical code, with that of scientists. She stated that being more highly cited is not necessarily a mark of being more trustworthy: an interesting point.

Prof. Nutt, controversially dismissed by the Government as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in 2009, was clear that politicians should not stray into making psuedoscientific statements to gain favour with the electorate: politicians should stick to politics and scientists to science.

Prof. Hulme highlighted the UEA ‘climategate’ affair as a mechanism facilitating greater openess and transparency in science. With the aid of the internet, the public can offer new challenges to scientific institutions. Prof. Hulme said that it was valid, in an open society, for the public to make demands for greater openness from scientists. Scientists need to consider how they respond to this. Prof. Hulme suggested that ‘climategate’ and ‘glaciergate’ – controversies over data cited by the IPCC -have unsettled the traditional notion of the expert. Who are the experts in society? Prof. Hulme gave an example of a flood-risk assessment project in Pickering. Citizens have been brought in alongside hydrologists and geomorphologists to construct models of flood risk in the town, based on their understanding of how water has flowed through the town in past flooding events. As a consequence of public involvement, there has been greater public buy-in to the model constructed.

Yesterday’s budget included some policy changes which could impact science, the environment and innovation.

A relatively long section on a “low carbon economy” included a pledge “to make this the greenest government ever.” The document also stated that order to move towards a secure low carbon economy, the UK needs “£200 billion of investment to 2020″, which would require a “reform of the energy market and action to attract additional private sector funding.”

More specifically, the budget outlined that a report will be published in the autumn to reform the climate change levy in order to “provide more certainty and support to the carbon price”, setting a provisional date of 2011 for relevant legislation. The government has also pledged to “help individuals invest in home energy efficiency improvements that can pay for themselves from the savings in energy bills.”

On the subject of oil and fuel duties, the case is being considered for introducing a fuel duty discount in remote rural areas, including a possible pilot scheme in Scotland. Following an assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility on the effect of oil price fluctuations on the public finances, the government will consider options for the design of a “fair fuel stabiliser.” Furthermore, the government is considering changing the aviation tax system to a per-plane rather than per-passenger duty, which could “encourage fuller planes.”

Finally, regarding business innovation, a consultation with business will be conducted in autumn 2010 to “review the taxation of Intellectual Property and the support R&D tax credits provide for innovation.”

The full budget can be read here.

Representatives of the BES attended yesterday’s Science and the New Parliament at the House of Commons, which boasted an impressive array of speakers from the political community and learned societies.

John Bercow MP set the tone for the morning’s speeches, referring to the link between parliament and the scientific and engineering community as “absolutely indispensable”. He continued to say that science is key for economic success, but that we should also enjoy the science conducted “for the sake of discovery,” a point later emphasised by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell in a well-received speech.

David Garner, President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, continued by highlighting that the solution for many of the world’s growing problems will come from Science and Engineering. He also identified the importance of science teaching and maintaining investment for science, two sentiments later echoed by other speakers.

The speeches then took a different tack, with Malcolm Wicks MP stressing the need to articulate the central role science plays in shaping policy, and that public knowledge of what science has to offer must be improved. He did, however, inject a cautionary note, saying that although scientists and policy makers must make strides to work closer together, science must understand that “there can never really be some simple linear relationship between scientific knowledge and policy action. Other things intervene,” he continued, such as history and public opinion, which are “not entirely irrational forces.”

The chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Andrew Miller, then continued by highlighting two major issues he believes the committee will be focussing on; maintaining science investment in the economic climate, and seeking to improve how we as a society see and use science. David Willetts, the newly appoint Minister of State for Universities and Science, continued on the theme of future priorities, saying that one of his own was to look at how libel affects scientific debate, as it was unacceptable that scientists giving empirical data could be subject to libel.

Following several quips about the Labour leadership debate, Ed Miliband urged scientists to be “out there more”, as public debate will do better with [scientists'] voice at the heard of it. Julian Hubbert, MP for Cambridge, then labeled the coverage of the climate change scandal at UEA a “deliberate attempt to undermine the role of academics” in public debate, and insisted that there are not enough politicians with a scientific background in parliament.

The morning’s speeches were concluded by Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, who warned that the right kind of scepticism should not always be viewed as inappropriate. He concluded by emphasising that collaboration, both between scientists, and scientists and politicians, is key to the future of the country.

All of the days speeches can be viewed here.

Researchers in Switzerland have successfully inoculated rice with selectively bred mychorrhizal fungi which helps the plant grow faster in the acidic soils of tropical regions. Such fungi are known to help plants by extracting nutrients – in this case phosphate – from the surrounding soil, receiving sugars in return.

To date studies have only been conducted in temperate climates, but greenhouses were used to recreate conditions in the tropics where phosphate fertiliser gets bound to the soil. Ian Sanders, a biologist at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, said that harnessing this method could become increasingly important if predicted shortages in global soil phosphate ring true.

Sanders is also collaborating with researchers from the National University of Colombia on field trials of economically important crops such as potato and cassava. Early results are promising; the same amount of potato can be grown with less than a third of the phosphate fertiliser normally applied.

Whether or not the technique used for rice will be viable in the field remains under question. Roland Buresh, a principal scientist at the International Rice Research Institute specialising in nutrient management, highlighted that the fungi require oxygen for growth, hence might not perform so well in submerged soils. The technique, he continued, is not expected to allow more rice to be grown in a year.

Original article: Scientists harness ‘good’ fungi to boost staple crops by Mićo Tatalović

Next Tuesday sees the Royal Society of Chemistry’s annual ‘Parliamentary Links Day’, an opportunity for scientists to meet parliamentarians in Westminster. The event this year will provide the chance to mix with new MPs, encouraging them to see the value of science to policy-making. Parliamentary Links Day is part of the RSC’s ‘Links Scheme’, which matches RSC chemists with their MP. The MP is encouraged to contact their ‘Link’ scientist for briefings and information on chemical science or other matters related to the work of the RSC. The day is co-sponsored by the Society of Biology.

The BES will attend Parliamentary Links Day, as in previous years, and we’ll be blogging about the event afterwards. On the day itself (22 June) there’s the opportunity to view presentations and discussions live via a web-feed which you can access here.

Starting this week, the functions of three environmental coordinating bodies will be delivered by one new body, ‘Living with Environmental Change’. By coordinating scientific research and knowledge, the new body will shape the UK’s response to the urgent situation climate and environmental change presents, by ensuring the right choices are made in response to these changes.

The existing Living with Environmental Change group will be joined by the Environmental Research Funders’ Forum and the Global Environmental Change Committee to create an effective partnership to deliver best value from environmental research and observation. By joining together, the organisations seek to deliver a shared objective; to ‘optimise the coherence and effectiveness of UK environmental research funding’, and to equip government, businesses and society with the knowledge and tools to ‘mitigate, adapt to and capitalise on environmental change’.

The merger brings together 22 public sector funders, providers and users of environmental research under a single identity, including key government departments and agencies, research councils and businesses. More information on the new partnership can be found here.

Last week and international meeting of UN delegates gave the ‘green light’ to a global panel on ecosystem services and biodiversity.

The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), expected to be formally endorsed in 2011, is likely to modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

One of the main roles of the IPBES will be to conduct peer reviews of scientific literature in order to provide governments with ‘gold standards’ reports, and to assess appropriate government responses.

The formation of the IPBES has been hailed as a “major breakthrough” by the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, Achim Steiner. It the culmination of work which began in Paris in 2006, following suggestions made in the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005.

Plans to set up the IPBES are set to be formally established by the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, which opens in September.

The Commission for Rural Communities is to propose today that upland farmers should recieve payments for the services their land provides.

Speaking on the Today programme, Dr Stuart Burgess emphasised the importance of upland regions, which are “[just] as important as lowland communities.” Uplands, he continued, provide 70% of the UK’s drinking water, store 200 million tonnes of carbon in peatlands, and are a source of enjoyment for the 40 million annual visitors to National Parks.

Dr Burgess conceded that such a scheme may eventually bring additional costs to the Government, but stressed that other streams of income may be available should be value of uplands be recognised. Possible source include the growing carbon market, or through the revision of the Common Agricultural Policy.

The full interview with Dr Burgess can be heard here.

12th July 18:00 – 20:30

The British Library is hosting the latest in their Talk Science series on 12th July, in partnership with the Research Information Network and Eureka.

Mark Henderson, Science Editor for The Times, will be in conversation with Dr Evan Harris

The discussion will address current issues in Science Policy, including:

• What role will science play in the new Government?
• How will the scientific perspective be heard and understood across Parliament?
• How could the use of scientific evidence in policy-making be improved?
• With tightening budgets, what are the big issues that UK science faces?
• Should science funding be more elitist?
• Will the long-term impact of science ever be measurable?

The event is free, but booking is essential. To book, please email Science@bl.uk providing the name, affiliation and email address of each person requesting a place.