Energy investment 'better than war in Iraq'

OneWorld UK

By Daniel Nelson

The money – at least $1 trillion - spent by the US in trying to secure oil supplies in Iraq would have been better invested in developing alternative fuels, Britain’s former chief government scientist told a meeting in London on Monday.

“It would have served America’s needs better”, Professor Sir David King said in a lecture at the London School of Economics. The Iraq war, he added, “has not solved any problems for America in terms of securing supplies.”

King cited the war as an example of a country attempting to secure supplies on its own, at a time when national perceptions had to make way for global priorities.

Unfortunately, he also suggested, the United Nations was no longer fit for purpose – “It’s not ready to meet the challenges I’m talking about”, such as climate change.

Leadership was required, but it would be asking too much to ask a US president alone to carry climate policies forward. Nor was the G8 group of industrialised countries the right body: the involvement of China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa was required - the G8 plus 5. If these countries could agree on policies, most other countries would sign on.

Later he told a questioner that attitudes in China and India had changed rapidly, because Beijing recognised that unchecked climate change would mean Shanghai would not survive until the end of the century, and because New Delhi realised that the country’s coastline was “massively under threat from increased flooding.”

And the G8 agreement to halve emissions by 2050 was “a tremendous step forward … a real victory.”

For the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 he said the targets should be agreement on a global stabilisation level for “greenhouse gas” emissions, agreed national targets, an efficient carbon trading scheme, and agreement on the transfer of climate-friendly technologies to developing counties and on a strategy to enable developing countries to adapt to climate change.