Matt Ridley Interview

[RH: = Roger Harrabin

MR: = Matt Ridley]

RH: Matt Ridley, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed for a
combination of the Open University and BBC. Its a great pleasure to talk to you.
Were asking everybody, for the first question, when their interest in energy was first
kindled. I suspect your story may be slightly different to everybody elses.
MR: Well, yes and no. I got very interested in the climate story when I was covering it
for The Economist in the late eighties, early nineties.
RH: Im thinking way back from then, because very few people have a coal mine on
their land!
MR: Yes, although the coal mines relatively recent, but I grew up in a coal mining
area, and Im descended from a long line well not recently, but in the eighteenth
century one of my ancestors was pioneer of coal mining in Newcastle and indeed put
the first steam engine into a coal mine on the north bank of the Tyne so was right
there at the beginning of the industrial revolution. So yes I have a
RH: So thats there in your family history. Do you
MR: I have an affection for what coal did for humanity and I occasionally feel like
standing up for it. I try and be dispassionate about it, I always declare that I have,
currently, an interest in coal mining. It doesnt actually last for very much longer,
another couple of years and then I get no money from coal mining and then I can say
what I really think, which is that coal is wonderful!
RH: OK, well
MR: <Laughs>
RH: Lets get back onto that in a moment, because Id like to start, if you would, with
your history on climate change, because youve moved about a bit, can you just talk
us through your journey?
MR: Well I first came across the climate change debate in 1987 or so, working for
The Economist, and I was alarmed. I looked at the numbers people were saying, I
looked at the increasing carbon dioxide levels, looked at the Jani equation for how

Commented
[CB1]:
Carbon
Brief
[1]: Transcription error. This should read
Charney equation. It refers to the findings of a
National Academy of Science report in 1979 on carbon
dioxide and the climate, chaired by Jules Charney.

much warming this was likely to produce, and reported it straight, as it were, as a
very alarming prospect. I became a little more sceptical in the nineties when I began
to look into the science a bit more closely, but then I kind of drifted off and went off
and wrote about genes for a number of years and didnt pay any attention; then the
hockey stick graph hit me between the eyes. When I first saw that I can remember I
was at a farming conference, someone showed this hockey stick graph, Mann et al.
1999, and I thought wow! I was wrong to be sceptical, this is really scary, because its
clearly unprecedented, it bears no relation to whats happened at the Medieval warm
period and that kind of thing, and so when in the following years Ive discovered
RH: So you wrote about it at that point?

Commented
[CB2]:
Carbon
Brief
[2]: The Hockey Stick refers to a graph
of temperature over the past 1,000 years, reconstructed
from tree rings, ice cores, corals and other proxy
records. The graph was first published in a paper by
Mann, Bradley & Hughes in 1999 (hereafter referred to
as MBH99).
Commented
[CB3]:
Carbon
Brief
[3]: Medieval Warming Period or
Medieval Climate Anomaly refers to a time between
950-1250AD during which the IPCC says temperatures
in some regions, but not globally, were as warm as in
the late 20th century (WG1 SPM p3).

MR: No I didnt, I wasnt writing about climate change either way much at that point,
but when I did touch on it, I didnt demure from the consensus.
RH: Intellectually you were convinced.
MR: I thought Id made a mistake by being sceptical, put it like that. But then I came
across Steve McIntyres work on the hockey stick, and the further I dug into that and
Andrew Montfords distillations of it

Carbon
Brief
[4]: In 2005, Steve McIntyre and Ross
Commented
[CB4]:
McKitrick published a critique of the techniques used in
Mann et al. (1999) Their critique was, in turn, disputed
by subsequent studies (see comment [6] below).

RH: I should say these are two bloggers, and very well-informed bloggers.

[Cont]

MR: Exactly, well Steve McIntyres a Canadian mathematician who had the hockey
stick put through his letterbox by the Canadian government and thought, Hang on
this graph doesnt look right, and the more he looked into it the more he dug up
thats wrong with it. And basically now theres very few people who think that graph
is correct i.e. that the rate of change today is dramatically different from anything in
the past, and that the level of temperature is dramatically different from things in the
past 1,000 years, were talking about. So the undermining of the hockey stick was
therefore all the more important, because it had been the thing that had persuaded
me to take this issue seriously. But it was simply the beginning of going on looking
into more and more of the climate story and finding that more and more of the

Commented
G Schmidt [GS5]:
[5]: Actually, the issues raised mainly
only impacted the last step in the procedure (14001450) and were clearly shown in Wahl and Amman
(2007) not to make any substantive difference to the
form or substance of the Mann et al. results.
Commented
G Schmidt [GS6]:
[6]: Ridley is creating a strawman. The
original Mann, Bradley & Hughes paper only covered
600 years, and made no claim that the rate of change
now is 'dramatically different from anything in the past'.
The MBH99 extension to 1,000 years also did not make
this claim (obviously since these are just
reconstructions for a small part of the past). The best
updates since then - which include both methodology
improvements and expanded data sources - do not
show anything dramatically different to the basic picture
shown in MBH.

G Schmidt [GS7]:
[7]: I can't comment on what led to
Commented
Ridley's supposed conversion, but since better papers
have come along with more or less the same results I
cannot follow his logic, even if he thinks the absolute
worst about the MBH papers themselves.

alarming stories didnt seem to add up; that actually the evidence for a gentle
warming as a result of carbon dioxide produced by man was very good, but the
evidence that this would accelerate or turn catastrophic was not good.
RH: Can you just talk me through which bits of the mainstream climate story you
agree with? The fact that the earth is warming, that humans are largely or
predominantly responsible, talk me through that.
MR: Yup. We are increasing carbon dioxide levels. Weve increased them from
0.03% to 0.04% of the atmosphere. I dont have any problem with that. Im pretty
sure its to do with industrial activities, possible that something naturals going on but
I think its highly unlikely.

Commented
[8]: A 1C warming is very significant for the
P Forster [8]:
globe and it has occurred rapidly. Ridley does not like
the original hockey stick graph. It is ok to be critical of
this original graph, but the science was new at the time
of its construction. The science has moved on since
then and much-improved equivalent graphs show
warming is unprecedented in at least 2000 years (see
Fig 5.7 WG1 Chp5 p409).
Commented
G Schmidt [GS9]:
[9]: This is just wishful thinking and
confirmation bias at work. Given that the Pliocene was
only about 3C warmer than pre-industrial, and sea level
was ~20m higher, where does he think the temperature
threshold is for the eventual collapse of the Greenland
and West Antarctic ice sheets? Or does he not think
that would be a problem?
Commented
[10]: Although correct, this plays down the
P Forster [10]:
role of carbon dioxide (CO2). 99.9% of the atmosphere
is nitrogen and oxygen, which are not greenhouse
gases. For a greenhouse gas, CO2 concentration is
high, only exceeded by water vapour in the lower
atmosphere.

That carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas yes, no problem with that.

That carbon dioxide on its own would produce a degree of warming for a doubling of
carbon dioxide thats basic physics, completely accept that.
RH: Well you say that, but there were some sceptics, you wouldnt put yourself in this
camp presumably, who have resisted each one of those facts along the way and
slowly, slowly moved along?
MR: There are certainly some sceptics whove resisted those facts all along, but Im

Commented
[11]: Not clear what "on its own" means.
P Forster [11]:
Assuming the Earth responds as a physical black body,
a doubling of CO2 would lead to 1.1 or 1.2C of warming
- this is probably what he refers to. However, the Earth
does not respond as a black body: the Earth responds
to amplify this initial warming. In particular, atmospheric
water vapour, the most important greenhouse gas
increases and adds to the warming. Overall, the
warming is higher and the IPCC estimates this warming
as the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). Ridleys
number is lower than the ECS estimated by IPCC. The
IPCC AR5 likely range for ECS is 1.5 to 4.5C (WG1
SPM p14).

not convinced that there are some who started out resisting those facts and gradually
accepted them, there might be some.
RH: So you
MR: So the people, for example, who think that the warming weve seen is all to do
with the sun, I dont think some of those have come over to the view that its partly
man made.
RH: And you dont agree with that, so what is your position now? You call yourself
now a lukewarmer, what exactly does that mean?
MR: That means that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has a forecast
that were going to see between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees of warming over the next
century, roughly speaking, and Im at the bottom end of that range. Im probably
within that range. I think we probably will see 1.5 degrees of warming this is above
preindustrial levels, so some of its happened already so essentially the full carbon

P Forster [12]:
Commented
[12]: This is not true. Ridley is confusing
equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), the temperature
change you get for a doubling of carbon dioxide, with
the warming projection out to 2100. In fact, the IPCC
does not make a forecast for 2100 as it depends on
societal choices. If we continue to burn fossil fuels as
we are, IPCC shows projections could go well beyond
4.5C. If we cut emissions to zero before 2050, we might
just keep within 2C.

dioxide warming effect could happen, but what I think is very unlikely to happen,
because theres all sorts of lines of evidence suggesting this doesnt seem to be
likely, is the feedback amplification, mainly through water vapour, that the models
have been assuming, and that this is why the models have been consistently overpredicting warming, as conceded by the IPCC in its latest report, where it admitted
that 114 of the 117 model runs it looked at were too high, too warm. And if you go
back to the 1990 report, the first IPCC report, they said, We expect 0.3 degrees per
decade, and they didnt say starting in 30 years, they said, starting now. And we
havent seen anything like that.
RH: No, that was clearly wrong. They had clearly underestimated the medium-term

Commented
[13]: This again is a confused argument.
P Forster [13]:
Ridley is making arguments about ECS, and implying
they pertain to 2100 warming. In fact, ECS has very
little to do with the rate or final warming we will see at
2100.
Commented
[14]: This is not a direct quote. The IPCCs
P Forster [14]:
First Assessment Report in 1990 said about 0.3C per
decade, with a 0.2 to 0.5C range for one scenario. But it
missed some important effects, such as aerosols. Later
reports corrected this.

trends, the great sporadic ocean currents and the changing thereof. They were
hubristic at that point I think we could agree.
MR: Yes, and they continued to be so, because theyve been consistently wrong ever
since.

P
Forster [15]:
Commented
[15]: Not clear what aspect Ridley is
referring to here.

RH: But they are much more cautious now, but very confident still that we will see a
serious degree of warming, over the 2 which is generally recognised to be an
acceptable threshold of warming.

Carbon
Brief
[16]: The Cancun Agreements (11
Commented
[CB16]:
November 2010) committed governments to hold the
increase in global average temperature below 2C above
preindustrial levels.

MR: Well, I dont agree there. I think they are much more cautious, youre right, if you
read the actual report as opposed to the Summary for Policy Makers, which is much
more alarmist, then they are much more cautious. For example, they have a whole
table where they knock out a lot of the tipping points. They say the halting of the Gulf
Stream, the collapse of the Greenland icecap, the halting of the Indian Monsoon,
these are very unlikely. Now these were possibilities in previous reports that were
taken quite seriously. Now theyre saying thats not going to happen. Theyre also
saying
RH: No, theyre not. Theyre saying the high impact, low probability event; Ive just
got to pick you up on that because
MR: No, theyre saying we have very high confidence that these wont happen.
RH: Thats not quite the same as saying its not going to happen.

Commented
[17]: IPCC never said that these events
P
Forster [17]:
were likely.

Commented
[18]: The tipping point evidence is quite
P Forster [18]:
nuanced, in fact. Some events are high impact but low
risk. Others are higher risk but not as dangerous. We
have high confidence in some assessments (e.g. West
Antarctic ice sheet collapse being unlikely) but very low
confidence in others (e.g. methane release from the
Arctic being relatively likely). See for yourself in Table
12.4 of AR5 Chapter 12 (p1115).
Commented
Chris Hope[CH19]:
[19]: Indeed, see also Hope & Schaefer
(2015) Economic impacts of carbon dioxide and
methane released from thawing permafrost Nature
Climate Change.

MR: No, OK, fair point. 99% rather than you know they have specific figures for
what they mean by this and 99% not 100% of course, but yes, they have definitely
downgraded the possibility of these alarming tipping points. The methane burp from
the Arctic is one of them, etc.
RH: Theres still a lot of uncertainties about that, you would agree?
MR: Theres a lot of uncertainties about everything, yes.
RH: There are indeed. Which makes me, as an interviewer, slightly worried when I
hear people, from whatever side of the debate theyre on, being too categoric about
what were going to get.
MR: Absolutely! And yet I have to listen, all the time, to politicians and journalists
telling me that I am in denial for saying we may well not get dangerous warming.
RH: Well Im not one of those journalists. Let me quote at you a piece of
MR: No, its alright. Im not picking on you, Im just talking about the position.
RH: Let me quote something from one of your articles. You said, A cumulative
change of less than 2 Celsius by the end of the century will do no net harm. It will
actually do net good. Rainfall will increase slightly, growing seasons will lengthen,
Greenlands icecap will melt only very slowly and so on. Im just wondering, in terms
of confidence of assertions, what do you base those on? Like the 2 Celsius by the
end of the century will do no net harm and will actually do net good; whats that
based on?

Carbon
Brief
[20]: Cooling Down the Fears of Climate
Commented
[CB20]:
Change Matt Ridley - The Wall Street Journal, 18
Dec 2012.
Commented
[AH21]:
Andy Haines
[21]: The original meta-analysis on
which this statement is based [Tol 2009] cannot reliably
tell us whether there would be no net harm from a
cumulative change of up to 2 degrees C because it
omits many indirect effects of climate change. In the
abstract of the paper, Richard Tol says: "Current
estimates of the damage costs of climate change are
incomplete, with positive and negative biases. Most
important among the missing impacts are the indirect
effects of climate change on economic development;
large scale biodiversity loss; low probability, high impact
scenarios; the impact of climate change on violent
conflict; and the impacts of climate change beyond
2100."

[Cont]

MR: Thats based on the peer reviewed literature in economics, which is very clearly
pointing to net benefits up to around 2. Now its not very precise, nobodys sure that
at 2 it turns negative, but the point is most people think 2 is when it turns
catastrophic. Thats not right. The literature is very clear; 2 is when we start to get

Commented
[22]: This is based on one world view which
R
Betts [22]:
holds that "harm" and "benefit" can be quantified
entirely with economics. Another world view would hold
that impacts on biodiversity and people's way of life
have value in ways which go beyond just money.

harm. Up until then we get benefit. Now it might be wrong, we might see benefit
petering out sooner than that, but we know were getting benefit at the moment from
carbon dioxide and from warming

[Cont on next page]

Chris
Hope [CH23]:
[23]: We all need to be clear on
Commented
definitions here. If, as Tol suggests, we see some initial
benefits from temperature rise, then at some point the
initial benefits stop and we start seeing harm from the
next tiny increment of temperature change, Tol thinks
this will occur at 1.1C [Tol 2009]. But of course, we
cannot be certain of this. What Ridley seems to be
talking about is the point at which the harm from
temperature rise exceeds the initial benefits. If you
believe Tol's new figure, this could still not happen until
the temperature has risen by 2C or so. But for policy
purposes, it is the point at which we start to see harm
from the next tiny incremental temperature change that
matters. Tol thinks this is 1.1C, and we are pretty much
at that point already. And we are certainly committed to
go past it, even with no more emissions.

P Forster [24]:
Commented
[24]: This is not true. Even the most
optimistic authors, e.g. Richard Tol, have net harmful
effects beyond 1C - where we are today. [CB: See the
transcript of an interview with Tol for Episode 1 of the
BBCs Changing Climate series. He is asked where the
boundary lies between net positive and net negative
impacts and gives the answer 1.1C]. Some parts of the
planet have experienced harm for a long time - e.g. lowlying islands.

R Myneni [25]:
Commented
[RM25]: This is human-centric view. Polar
bears, for example, are not seeing any benefit from the
greenhouse climate that we are already experiencing.
The billions of dollars in damage from intensified storms
that we have already racked up in the past two decades
is conveniently forgotten in the above argument.

because for example winter deaths are more than summer deaths in most
countries, even a country like Greece sees far more deaths in winter than summer.
So slight warming, particularly in winter, because of course remember this warming is
more in winter than in summer in the northern hemisphere, will produce a lower
death rate, it will increase the amount of land available for crop use, it will probably
increase rainfall slightly and it will fertilise the ecosystems of the planet.

Andy Haines
[26]: Climate change is likely to have a
Commented
[AH26]:
range of effects on health beyond the direct effects on
cold and heat related deaths. The balance between
decreased cold-related deaths and increased heatrelated deaths worldwide is uncertain. World Health
Organisation (WHO) estimates suggests around
150,000 additional deaths per annum from climate
change, for example from increases in under-nutrition,
diarrhoeal diseases, malaria and flooding.
There is also increasing evidence that increasing
thermal stress will reduce labour productivity in tropical
and sub-tropical regions. Indeed, increased migration of
rural labourers to urban centres is already occurring in
countries such as Pakistan a result of decreased ability
to perform agricultural work due to thermal stress.

[Cont on next page]

Commented
Sari Kovatz[SK27]:
[27]: There is no evidence to support a
statement that climate change will cause a "lower death
rate" in temperate zone countries - which could be what
Ridley is saying but its not very clear. This is a
misunderstanding of how temperature-related mortality
is estimated. The evidence relates to deaths attributable
to cold (outdoor low temperatures) which are called
cold-related deaths by the epidemiologists. It is correct
that in most countries, even ones with hot summers,
the absolute number of cold-related deaths is greater
than heat-related deaths, for an average year (in some
countries such as the UK, cold related deaths are a lot
larger and a more significant public health problem).
Climate change will reduce the cold related mortality
rate (deaths attributable to cold divided by the total
population). The number of cold related deaths will also
reduce - but not by so much as the population is
ageing- and old people are more susceptible to cold.
Thus, the ageing population will offset some of this
benefit of lower temperature exposures.
Where these benefits have been estimated, e.g. for UK,
the reduction in cold related deaths is greater than the
increase in heat-related deaths.
Environmental temperature is only one small factor- and
there are many other more important factors reflect the
death rate in a population, such as Greece. So implying
that climate change will lower the death rate in Greece
is a nonsense.

Now we know this, this was a thing based on multiple thousands of experiments, that
if you add CO2 to the air, you increase the growth rate of plants. Whats changed in
the last few years, and people are not picking up on, is that weve got the satellite
data to prove that this is happening. Several different data sets, the Normalised
Difference Vegetation Index is one of them, showing that weve got a greening
occurring in all ecosystems on the planet, in the Amazon rainforest, in the Sahel
semi-desert etc. etc.

[Cont on next page]

R Myneni [28]:
Commented
[RM28]: This is an inaccurate statement.
Nearly all the CO2 enrichment experiments show
enhanced plant growth only in the first few years after
which the plants acclimatise. The fertilisation effect
disappears because other factors (mainly nutrients)
become limiting.

Andy Haines
[29]: Carbon dioxide fertilisation
Commented
[AH29]:
depends on adequate water for irrigation. Even if crop
yields are higher, they may be of lower nutritional
quality. Using data from free-air enrichment
experiments, for example, Myers et al. (2014) found
significant reductions in zinc, iron and protein in grain
crops like rice and wheat. They also found similar
reductions in zinc and iron, but smaller reductions in
protein, in legumes like soybeans and field peas.
Commented
[30]: This is heavily talked about in IPCC
P Forster [30]:
and the scientific literature, and has been known about
for more than a decade. It is accounted for in our
climate models. Although we don't fully understand the
fertilisation effect, we cannot be certain it will continue
as the world warms.
Commented
[31]: There is indeed some modelling
R Allan [31]:
evidence to suggest that rising CO2 has contributed to
a greening of the Sahara since the 1980s, but this is
more related to a northward shift in the rainy belt linked
to rising CO2 concentrations and also a recovery from
drought in the 1980s, which has been linked with
aerosol particle pollution.

Weve got greener vegetation as a result of CO2. Now some of it is explained by

other things, agricultural fertiliser, more moisture and so on, but there is now no
doubt that you can say that weve got about 11% more green vegetation on the
planet than 30 years ago, much of which is down to the CO 2 fertilisation effect
RH: I think its fair to say that that has not been sufficiently trumpeted, in the media in
particular, the positive benefits of CO2, but when I saw that quote, I assumed youd
taken the 2 Celsius doing no net harm, actually doing net good, I assumed that youd
taken that from Richard Tol, whos very prominent in this field, the economist.
We spoke to him a few days ago and he said that he believes that things will start
turning negative from 1.1 Celsius above pre-industrial, and were almost at that now.
MR: Well, he may say that now. He was saying something different a while ago, but
there are other studies out there, as you say theres uncertainty here. Given the
capacity of human beings to adapt, to be able to get the good out of something while
not suffering the bad, because of the way they change their behaviour, its easily
possible it might be higher than 2. These are very inexact sciences.

[Cont]

Commented
R
Allan [32]:[32]: I think this refers to this work?
[Donohue et al., (2013) It's worth noting that without
uptake of some of the CO2 emitted by human activities
by vegetation the atmospheric concentrations would be
even higher. These processes are included in
sophisticated Earth system models used to make
climate changes projections.
Commented
[RM33]: Much of this is based on my
R Myneni [33]:
(+colleagues) unpublished studies - the satellite data of
the past 30+ years do show a greener vegetation over
about 30% of the global vegetated land area and this
translates to about 11-13% increase in gross carbon
fixation by vegetation. Our analyses showed that about
42% of this greening can be attributed to climatic
changes in temperature, precipitation and solar
radiation and the rest to anthropogenic factors (CO2
fertilization, Nitrogen deposition, land use management
history, etc.). This, Lord Ridley, does not mention,
although they are contained in the same sources from
which he falsely claims that CO2 fertilisation is
responsible for the greening of the Earth.

R Betts [34]:
Commented
[34]: Yes, I largely blame the media here!
And NGOs. CO2 effects are well known in climate
science and included in climate models and many (but
not all) studies of climate impacts on ecosystems and
agriculture. But the media and other "climate
communicators" cannot cope with nuance, so for them it
always has to be one of the spectrum or the other which means that someone like Ridley gets to say that
an issue has been ignored when it hasn't. And worse,
he can only get it on the agenda by exaggerating.

RH: Well it rather depends where you live, doesnt it, and how well developed your
country is and rich you are or how poor you are, how susceptible you are to sea level
rise, all those things, the distributional effects are massive, arent they?
MR: Absolutely, and that of course is the key point, is that the reason the number of
deaths in the world from droughts, floods and storms is 93% lower than it was in the
1920s is not because the climates got less dangerous in that time; droughts, floods
and storms are probably just as common as they were then. Its because people got
richer, they got better sheltered, better transport, better communication, all these kind
of things. So when a hurricane hits a really poor country like Burma, it kills far more
people than when it hits a relatively wealthy country like India or Mexico. And so
thats what we need to be doing, to protect people against weather, whether its
getting worse or not, we need to be helping them get richer, so thats the crucial point

Commented
[CB35]:
Carbon Brief
[35]: Carbon Brief has searched the
academic literature for this 93% figure. It appears in a
2009 paper by Dr Indur Goklany, published in the
official journal of the Association for American
Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). The group describes
itself as non-partisan but is recognised in the US as a
conservative political action group. On its website, the
AAPS describes carbon dioxide as the basic building
block of all living things and also a weak greenhouse
gas." The 93% figure also appears in materials
published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation
(GWPF) and the Heartland Institute, climate-skeptic
lobby groups in the UK and the US. Dr Indur Goklany is
a member of the GWPFs advisory board.

is are we focussing on the wrong thing? Are we trying to stop some tiny increase in
the probability of a hurricane hitting you, or are we trying to stop you dying when a
hurricane does hit you?
RH: And here you would make your argument for coal?
MR: Well, no, Im not making an argument specifically for coal.
RH: You said earlier on you wanted to make an argument for coal.
MR: Well the point about coal is that it has produced enormous improvement in
human living standards, and not just coal, same with oil, same with gas, same with all
three fossil fuels. The improvement that they have done to human life is spectacular,
but not just to human life, to the planet as well. And people somehow think that fossil
fuels are evil, but just look at what theyve done! Theyve stopped us cutting down
forests. If Britain hadnt shifted to coal wed have deforested this country very quickly.

P Forster [36]:
Commented
[36]: This is a very legitimate policy choice
of what society does about extreme weather and
climate change. To make this policy choice you need
the best information from climate science. An argument
against one policy choice over does not need to bring
climate science into question.
Andy
Haines
[37]: Its obviously correct that we need
Commented
[AH37]:
to reduce poverty as rapidly as possible. But climate
change is likely to increase poverty, for example,
through reduced labour productivity from increased
thermal stress. This has already started to happen and,
depending on emissions, [labour productivity] could
decline to less than 40% by 2200 in peak months with
tropical and subtropical regions experiencing extreme
thermal stress.
Commented
[AH38]:
Andy Haines
[38]: This is not contested but does not
mean that the use of fossil fuels will continue to do so in
perpetuity.
Commented
[CB39]:
Carbon Brief
[39]: The World Health Organisation
says that coal and other polluting fossil fuels now pose
a major burden on sustainable development.

As it is were reforesting this country very rapidly at the moment. Oil has stopped us
killing whales, whales and penguin populations plummeted. The advent of kerosene
is what killed the US whaling industry in the nineteenth century. The whaling industry
came back in the twentieth century, but again it went away because basically theres
no need to use animals for energy, which is what we were doing.
The advent of gas had a spectacular effect on human living standards because it

Commented
[AH40]:
Andy Haines
[40]: Right ...and now we need to
replace fossil fuels with renewables! Renewables have
a range of co-benefits for health including reduced air
pollution.

enabled us to make cheap fertiliser, and cheap fertiliser has fed the world and
basically weve got 9 billion people more easily fed today than 3 billion people in
1960.

Commented
[AH41]:
Andy Haines
[41]: This is incorrect. The current world
population is around 7.4 billion.

RH: All these points are extremely well made, but Ive just come from an interview
with Lord Stern, in which he says if were talking about coal for instance, if you priced
in the externalities of coal, thats the costs that are not taken up by the people who
are burning the coal, costs on society, air pollution in particular he cites, local air
pollution and also CO2 into the atmosphere causing warming, that the dis-benefits of
coal vastly outweigh the benefits of coal according to his most recent analysis.
MR: Yeah, well I think hes completely wrong about that, because when you think
about it, Ive just mentioned the greening of the planet, Ive just mentioned the failure
to cut down the forests as a result of coal. These are benefits of coal, theyre also
externalities, and the idea that local air pollution is a problem from coal, yes, its a

Commented
Chris
Hope[CH42]:
[42]: CH: There are many peerreviewed studies of the possible climate dis-benefits of
fossil fuels, such as Hope (2013) Critical issues for the
calculation of the social cost of CO2: why the estimates
from PAGE09 are higher than those from PAGE2002.
To be convincing, Ridley needs to cite the peerreviewed studies that show these to be wrong.
Commented
[CB43]:
Carbon Brief
[43]: See comments [28]-[34].

problem when you burn unabated coal in a dirty way in cities, like in Peking today,
but in this country weve largely got rid of that. We have extremely good controls on

Commented
[CB44]:
Carbon
Brief
[44]: Beijing in northern China was
formerly known in English as Peking until the late 20 th
century.

the sulphur emissions and the nitrogen emissions from coal burning, so actually
weve adapted. Weve got the benefits of coal without the dis-benefits. So its simply
not true to say that the externalities of coal are negative; I think theyre positive.
When you think about it, hes saying that the CO2 externalities, the negative CO2
externalities in 2100 are more important than the positive CO2 externalities today.
Well, I wonder if thats fair? The people of 2100 are going to be much richer than
today, theyre going to start to suffer marginal damage from climate change, not
necessarily very great damage. How can we be sure that if we cut coal off today
and coal is by far the cheapest way of making electricity, theres a billion people on

Commented
[AH45]:
Andy Haines
[45]: Ridley quotes no evidence at all for
his statement. It is correct to say that the levels of air
pollution from coal can be reduced by emission
controls. But even now, power plants are estimated to
cause around 7500 deaths per annum in the USA. Coal
fired power stations are the largest single source of
mercury in the USA. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. In
the UK, estimates suggest that coal is responsible for
1,600 premature deaths, 68,000 additional days of
medication and 363,266 working days lost. These
health effects of coal cost 1.1 to 3.1 billion (1.3 to 3.7
billion) each year in the UK.

the planet who have not got access to electricity, theres 4 million people dying every
year cause theyre cooking over wood fires, because they dont have access to coal.
How can we be sure that were not doing those people a disservice if we stop burning
coal now?
RH: Im not sure youd want those people to be breathing in the coal fumes on a
stove.

Commented
[AH46]:
Andy Haines
[46]: Ridley is referring to the annual
deaths from household air pollution (4.3 million), as
estimated by the World Health Organisation in 2012.
But they are not all due to burning wood - a variety of
solid fuels are used (wood, animal dung, crop residues
and coal). However, the energy required to provide
clean household energy for the 2.7 billion or so people
currently reliant on these solid fuels for household
energy is actually quite small in comparison to global
energy use.

MR: No, no, but you use the coal to make electricity, like we do in this country, thats
the point. <Laughs>
RH: Yes. Assuming you can get it to those people.
MR: Exactly, but thats the cheapest way of getting it. If you do it from wind power it
costs roughly three times as much.
RH: Well it is at the moment, but one of the things that you have disparaged in your
columns is subsidies, so subsidies for solar for instance; yet subsidies for solar have
brought the cost of solar panels plummeting by 70% in the past few years, so solar
now, not wind but solar is the real competitor to coal in developing countries,
particularly in sunny areas, and we could easily see, in the next ten years I think
were going to reasonably anticipate seeing that solar would become the best option
in sunny countries.

Commented
[47]: This is not correct. Whilst figures on
J Watson [47]:
the economics of coal generation are rarely published
these days (the usual comparator is new gas), the
difference between wind and coal costs is likely to be
closing fast - especially if carbon costs of coal and any
intermittency costs of wind/solar are included in their
respective costs.

MR: Its still about three times as much as the cost of coal, because remember
although the cost of solar panels has come down, the cost of the whole transmission
system with wires and land and all these kind of things is still huge.
RH: But if youre going to build it on a local village basis or a regional basis or a
micro-grid basis
MR: Im sorry, the numbers just dont support that, Roger. It really is clear. For a start
I mean Im all for solar, I love solar, and particularly in sunny countries, fine, lets
do it as much as we can, but the idea that we should pour ten times as much subsidy
per unit of energy into solar as put into fossil fuels, Im not sure thats right, given
what fossil fuels we know can do for poor people in the world. Do you know what the
percentage of the worlds primary energy that comes from solar power today, to the
nearest whole number, is?
RH: Tiny.

J Watson [48]:
Commented
[48]: 'Huge' is an overstatement - the
Committee on Climate Change said that, on average,
the costs of intermittency for a 2030 decarbonised
electricity system are roughly 10/MWh. That is only an
eighth of the costs of wind & solar electricity in the latest
DECC auctions for contracts (both came in at around
80/MWh).

There is also a wider point - all technologies impose

some costs on the system at some level. Balancing the
system is a system wide issue, so the costs should be
shared by all users of the electricity network. It would
not be very economically sensible or fair to load all of
those costs on to individual wind or solar generators.
J Watson [49]:
Commented
[49]: This leads to some pretty arcane and
semantic discussions about subsidies. There are many
conflicting claims. Yes - direct production subsidies for
some renewables/low carbon technologies are
significant; so (arguably) are tax breaks for fossil fuel
extraction and subsidies due to under-pricing the
carbon emissions when they are burned. There was a
good review done by Will Blyth for the Environmental
Audit Committee a year or two ago.

MR: Zero.
It hasnt even got to half a percent yet.
RH: It hasnt, and that is an absolutely massive challenge, but it doesnt necessarily
mean we shouldnt be investing in it, does it? And the other numbers you mentioned

MR: Investing, fine, yeah, but

RH: The other numbers you mentioned on coal and the amount of public money
going into coal, the World Bank and others have put out reports showing there is
vastly more money going into subsidising fossil fuels than there is into renewables.
MR: Thats misleading. First of all they are consumption subsidies not production
subsidies, so they hit poor
RH: Well some are. There are both, arent there?
MR: No. Nearly all of them are consumption subsidies. Very few of them, by the way,
are in this country, theyre all in places like Iran and so on, so they are helping poor

Commented
Chris
Hope[CH50]:
[50]: The World Bank and IMF work
includes externalities from fossil fuel use, and they
make up a large part of the subsidies.
Commented
[51]: That is true - about fossil subsidies
J
Watson [51]:
worldwide being dominated by consumption subsidies.
But this is not a 'free lunch'. As the IEA pointed out in its
climate change report earlier this year, some countries
spend significant proportions of their budgets on such
subsidies. That is money that is not available for other
things, including other measures that could help
alleviate poverty etc.
Commented
[AH52]: See comments above (CB:
A Haines [52]:
Comment [45]) Much of the subsidies result from failing
to take into account the externalities, which also affect
the poor. Many subsidies disproportionately benefits
middle and high income groups who tend to use more
energy.

people, whereas we are doing production subsidies in renewable energy, which hit
poor people harder and reward rich people. Thats uncontested.
RH: But that would be I mean youre a politician as
MR: And secondly, theres ten times as much subsidy for renewables as for fossil
fuels per unit of energy they produce.
RH: Youre a politician of course as well as a science writer, as well as a columnist. If
you were worried, and if the parliament was worried about poor people being hit
disproportionately, which they are, by renewable subsides, wouldnt a rational thing

J Watson [53]:
Commented
[53]: This is not entirely true. Whilst many
beneficiaries are middle class, there has been
significant investment in solar by housing associations
etc., many of which own housing in lower income
communities. I don't know how important this is as a
share of overall deployment.
Commented
[AH54]: Its unclear what this refers to.
A Haines [54]:
Does it take into account the externalities of fossil fuel
and conversely the co-benefits of renewables? Fossilfuel subsidies can be a barrier to the development and
uptake of renewable energy technologies. Many
renewable energy technologies are immature and costs
are falling rapidly whereas many fossil fuel technologies
are mature.

to say well if tackling climate change is a public good, lets pay for it from general
taxation? Wouldnt that be rational?
MR: Yes indeed. I think that would be far fairer and more rational than subsidising
these renewable boondoggles, which are resulting in huge rewards to land owners,
huge rewards to rich investors, huge rewards to people who want to shelter from
inheritance tax etc. People like me! I mean I could benefit enormously from wind. Ive
many times turned down offers from wind companies to build turbines on my land
cause I dont like em and I dont think theyre right and I dont think people like me
should be getting those subsidies.
RH: Is that something you would advocate for, a shift to general taxation for whatever

J Watson [55]:
Commented
[55]: History shows (see the work of Prof
Carlotta Perez et al) that all big transitions tend to
involve phases where some firms make excess profits.
Ridley is right to be concerned about this, especially if
public money is involved. But those who make that
argument forget that those subsidies, if designed well,
are doing a very useful thing - they are paying for
technological innovation, learning and cost reduction.
That cost reduction benefits future consumers.

renewables subsidies come out of the melting pot that theyre in at the moment?
MR: No, I dont think it should be renewables subsidies. A shift to general taxation for
the cost of climate change, the cost of carbon measures. I just dont think that cost is
very great and I dont think we should be pouring money into it.

Commented
Chris
Hope [CH56]:
[56]: To be clear, this is a call for a
carbon tax.

RH: You take a very optimistic stance on the effects of climate change, and
pessimistic stance on the technological fixes to it.
MR: No I dont. I dont take a pessimistic stance on the technological fixes to it, by no
means. I think there are some spectacular technological fixes out there. Cheaper
gas, nuclear power in many different forms, molten salt reactors, thorium reactors,
small modular reactors. I think were going to see spectacular changes in our energy
mix over the next few decades, which will result in us decarbonising pretty rapidly. I
mean by far the biggest burst of decarbonisation came in the United States, where

Commented
[57]: This is not a 'fix' - it can help reduce
J Watson [57]:
UK emissions for the next 10-15 years by replacing
coal. But beyond that, significant gas use also requires
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to be used widely.
That is looking less likely following the recent
announcement that the UK demo programme would be
cut.

they shifted from coal to gas as a source of electricity. We could have done that in
this country.
RH: Well we have done it already. We preceded the US in the shift to gas.
MR: Well, we had a dash to gas and it ground to a halt. Why did it grind to a halt?
Because nobody at the moment wants to build a CCGT, a combined cycle gas
turbine, in this country, because the economics dont add up because of wind on the
grid. Thats whats happening.
RH: You made some interesting comments in the Lords the other day about obliging
firms to pay for the disposal of their own CO2. Can you talk about that, explain your
thinking on that?

J Watson [58]:
Commented
[58]: This isn't the only factor. The lack of
gas investment over the last few years has been poor
economics when compared to coal, and not just due to
any fall in electricity prices due to renewable growth.
Policy uncertainty has also played a big role, especially
about the likely shape of the capacity market and
whether or not there will be an emissions performance
standard.

MR: Yes, theres a suggestion in parliament at the moment that carbon capture and
storage, which is a long shot technological solution to this, where we actually
sequester the carbon and put it back in to help oil recovery and things like that
weve struggled to find ways to get this technology off the ground and to support it,
and I dont, myself, have huge hopes of it. I think its going to remain too expensive
for a long time, its cheaper than offshore wind but thats not saying much <chuckles>
as a way of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, but at the moment we hit fossil fuels
with very heavy taxes. I mean this thing called the Carbon Floor Price, which is a
unilateral British decision on top of everything else, means that its hitting fossil fuels

Commented
[59]: I'm not sure that's true. The UK
J Watson [59]:
government had a pretty good plan, which may or may
not have worked. Similarly (and more important), firms
in the US and Canada are building CCS plants. Yes, the
technologies are uncertain (especially their costs) but
that doesn't mean that there is a lack of knowledge
about what is needed in terms of government policy and
incentives.

very hard in this country, and thats one of the reasons were seeing closures of coalfired power stations at the moment, which is putting our electricity grid at risk.
RH: Well the main one is in terms of local air pollution as well, theyre coming to the

Commented
[60]: Ridley is over-stating this. It is the
J Watson [60]:
unreliability of coal plants that led to the tight margin a
few weeks ago.

end of their useful life cause they cant pass laws on air pollution.
MR: Yes, but one of the reasons nobodys building super-critical new coal-fired
power stations is that would produce less CO2 per unit of energy and less pollution, is
because theres no future. Why? Because wind is dumped onto the grid whenever its
available and that destroys the economics of new power plants in this area.
So anyway, if we want to support CCS, better to do it by saying to the fossil fuel
industry put aside some of your money to support CCS, particularly CCS R&D,
research and development, into how to improve this technology, and then well let
you off some of these carbon floor price things. I think thats a very sensible idea. It

Commented
[AH61]: So its cheaper then? This seems
A Haines [61]:
to invalidate earlier arguments about wind being so
expensive that it cant compete.

J Watson [62]:
Commented
[62]: See my comment above (CB:
Comment [58]). The other reason is that supercritical
coal only gives you marginal gains when compared to
the efficiency of existing coal plants.

might also help in the North Sea, where weve got a huge problem of
decommissioning the oil industry and where if we could give it a new lease of life
wed save a lot of jobs. So I think thats an imaginative suggestion thats come
forward in the House of Lords, and I was happy to support it.
RH: Its very elegant, isnt it, because what its doing is turning CO 2 into a waste like
any other waste, so if youre a chemical firm you produce a chemical effluent thats
toxic, you need to get rid of it. Its basically saying to fossil fuel firms, you produce the
CO2, you need to take some responsibility for it, which is quite simple and I think
might be appealing.
MR: Yes, except that the problem with that way of thinking of it is that it equates CO2
with a pollutant, and it isnt a pollutant. 95% of the CO2 in this room at the moment
was not produced in industry; it was produced by natural processes in the natural
environment. Only about 5% of CO2 released into the atmosphere every year comes
from industry. Its an enormously natural process for CO2 to be released into the air
and absorbed. Now our activities have increased the amount of CO 2 in the air from as
I say 0.03% to 0.04% and that has slightly increased the growth rate of crops, the
growth rate of plants, the growth rate of deserts, the growth rate of tropical rain
forests; thats added something like $100 billion a year to the value of the worlds
harvests, so shouldnt farmers be paying coal companies compensation for the
fertiliser theyve been freely given by the coal companies. <Chuckles.> Im not
making that as a serious political suggestion, but why not, by the logic of what you
just said?
RH: You are being provocative again and in a lot of your columns you are
provocative, youre hired because youre provocative.
MR: Well, I try and tell the truth is what I do.
RH: Yes, but also because you have a wonderful style, youre an extremely smart
guy and because you have a consistent line in provocation, which gets people
worked up. One of your books, The Rational Optimist, a fine book, but by painting
yourself as the rational optimist, dont you always predetermine your line of enquiry
into anything? If you, Oh, Im going into this as a rational optimist it frames your
view, doesnt it?

Commented
[AH63]:
Andy Haines
[63]: There is evidence that CO2 may
not be inert - see earlier points about nutritional
implications of CO2 fertilisation [Comment 29] and
recent work suggesting that CO2 levels in buildings may
cause adverse cognitive effects at much lower levels
than were previously thought to be problematic.

Chris
Hope[CH64]:
[64]: It only 'isn't a pollutant' if you
Commented
dismiss the whole peer-reviewed literature on the likely
damage from climate change.
P Forster [65]:
Commented
[65]: Ridley is confusing emissions with
concentration. Concentration-wise it would be over 2/3
natural and 1/3 man-made.
Commented
[CB66]:
Carbon Brief
[66]: See comment [10].

Carbon
Brief
[67]: See comments [28]-[34].
Commented
[CB67]:

MR: Well, no, because actually when I set out to write that book it was going to be a
neutral book about progress, the pros and cons, literally, and the more I got into it the
more I found there were no cons, or at least there were very few cons. I mean to take
happiness for example, I thought it was true that the richer people got, the less happy
they got. So this was a real drawback to economic growth. I discovered that the
literatures been turned on its head in recent years and actually thats not true. There
is a correlation within countries, between countries, within lifetimes, between wealth
and happiness.
RH: To an extent, and once you get very rich
MR: Its a correlation, its a correlation. Oh, its possible to be very rich and very
unhappy, but thats alright cause it cheers other people up.
<Laughter>

Andy Haines
[68]: Ridley is talking about within
Commented
[AH68]:
country comparisons rather than between country
comparisons that I think are being referred to in
comment 69. Easterlin (2001) concludes The material
aspirations are initially fairly similar among income
groups; consequently more income brings greater
happiness. Over the life cycle, however, aspirations
grow along with income, and undercut the favourable
effect of income growth on happiness, although the
cross sectional happiness-income difference persists.
Chris Hope[CH69]:
[69]: Layard's work on this finds a strong
Commented
correlation up to a per capita income of $15,000 per
year, and almost no correlation at higher incomes.

RH: OK, so look, I mean its comments like

MR: My point is I arrived at my rational optimism by argument, not by attitude. And I
particularly looked back at all the environmental doom and gloom I was told in the
1970s when I was a student, which left me really depressed about the future of the
world, that the population explosion with unstoppable famine was inevitable,
pesticides were going to cause a cancer epidemic, they were going to shorten my
life, acid rain nuclear winter, my sperm count was gonna fall, etc. etc. And these
all turned out to be exaggerated. So am I supposed to say, when people come along
and give me exaggerated claims about climate change, that arent supported in the
proper literature, am I supposed to say, Oh well, this time youre probably right? No,
I think Im supposed to say, Well hang on, I dont think the evidence is as strong as
that. I think the evidence for some man-made climate change is good; the evidence
that its going to turn very harmful in anything other than the next century, by which
time well probably have cut our carbon emissions, I dont see that evidence.
RH: I mean some of those scares that you mentioned havent materialised precisely
because we took action to stop them. So acid rain, for instance, we fitted scrubbers
on our power stations.
MR: Actually thats not my critique of acid rain, that it was a problem but we solved it.
Go back and look. The evidence is now really clear, the biomass of European forests

P Forster [70]:
Commented
[70]: Evidence, or lack of it, needs to be
evaluated on a case by case basis - IPCC WG2 does
this across many cases and finds stronger evidence of
harm than benefits.

was increasing in the 1980s. It really was. The forest death problem caused by acid
rain was a complete myth. The biggest and best studies in the United States, in
Canada, in Europe, came to that conclusion.
RH: Let me ask you finally a sort of attitudinal question, which is what your critics
raise with you, which is one of risk, youre proposing that the world should say, OK,
were going to ignore these risks. Your critics point to the fact that you were
Chairman of Northern Rock when it suffered a dreadful bank run, the first since the
nineteenth century, and so they ask, should we trust you on risk, as a politician, as
an advisor, as an influencer, a massive influencer, should we trust you on risk?
MR: Well the thing that Northern Rock taught me, above all else, was not to trust
groupthink. Because it was groupthink that we had a great business model, the FSA
said that, the Bank of England said that, the City said that. There were one or two
people who said, Hang on that business model is too good to be true, but actually
they were saying that for the wrong reasons. <Chuckles> There was no one who
foresaw what was going to happen to us.
RH: Well the Treasury Select Committee said you had a reckless business model,
the board.
MR: In retrospect, that was in retrospect. That was the point. But the Treasury Select
Committee failed to learn the crucial lesson from us, even though they spent three
hours grilling me and others, and that is that this could happen to any mortgage
banks, and so other mortgage banks expanded their business after what happened
to us, and a year later exactly the same thing happened to them.
By then of course, the Bank of England had learned how to cope with it over a
weekend rather than let it turn into a run on the high street, but thats a different story.
My point is that I learnt from the Northern Rock crisis that just because everybody
says something, doesnt mean you should believe it. And thats whether theyre
saying youre risk free or whether youre saying youre risky. Think for yourself, thats
the conclusion.
RH: Of course, and you do. But as an evolutionary biologist, you are massively
more influential than any individual climate scientist that I can think of, with your
columns, your quite evident influence on Rupert Murdoch, your place in the Lords. It

would be slightly unusual for somebody, a climate scientist, to come into your area of
evolutionary biology and attain such a degree of prominence.
MR: But hang on, Roger
RH: Not unprecedented, but unusual.
MR: Im not an evolutionary biologist. I gave that up in 1983 when I finished my PhD.
Ive written books about it since then, Ive got another one coming out shortly, The
Evolution of Everything.
RH: What would you describe yourself as?
MR: I would describe myself as a commentator on science. Ive been a science
journalist since 1983, on and off. There have been times when Ive been full time,
there have been times when Ive been freelance, times when Ive been doing other
things, and Ive been a commentator on the climate debate since 1987. Well thats
actually 26 years. So when people say Ive just breezed in and expressed some
opinions on this, no. And I think its vital that we dont pull credentialism here and say,
No ones allowed to comment on anything. I get really furious flack for even
suggesting that I have a view on climate science and climate policy, but it affects me
as much as anyone else. Im a citizen, arent I? Im allowed to express my view and I
feel that the world is making a historic mistake in taking this issue too seriously, and
as a result neglecting some much more important environmental problems.
I mean invasive species are what are causing extinctions all around the world, habitat
loss is still a problem. If you look whats happening to coral reefs, theyre being
devastated, but not by climate change, not by ocean acidification; by runoff and overfishing and all these other different things.
RH: Im glad you mentioned that because Im interested in ocean acidification, Ive
done some work on it, and as part of a mini documentary I was making last year I
thought, I really want to test this and I read one of your articles saying, Actually Ive
just read this paper on ocean acidification written by Terry Hughes in Australia and it
shows that the amount of coral will remain the same under an acidification scenario
so I thought, OK, Im going to check this out. So I went with a BBC crew to Australia
and interviewed this guy, and he said, Yes, that is absolutely true. The amount of
coral will remain exactly the same. And he went on to say, But the branching corals

Hoegh-Guldberg
[71]: This
Commented [71]:

is a case of cherry-picking. Local

factors are important but are not the whole story. Ocean
warming has driven increasingly frequent and severe
mass coral bleaching events with devastating impacts
on the world's coral reefs. For example, in 1998, a cycle
of heat stress across the world's coral reefs removed
16% of the world's corals. Many places have not
recovered and we are facing another major event next
year.
Ridley elects to ignore the majority of the literature which was assessed during the latest IPCC (AR5 WG2
Chp30 p4). According to the vast majority of literature which is what the IPCC based it conclusions on: "Coral
reefs within CBS, SES, and STG are rapidly declining
as a result of local stressors (i.e. coastal pollution,
overexploitation) and climate change (high confidence).
Elevated sea temperatures drive impacts such as mass
coral bleaching and mortality (very high confidence),
with an analysis of the Coupled Model Intercomparison
Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) ensemble projecting the loss
of coral reefs from most sites globally by 2050 under
mid to high rates of ocean warming (very likely).
{29.3.1.2, 30.5.3-4, 30.5.6; Figure 30-10; Box CC-CR}"
Elsewhere In the executive summary:
"Global warming will result in more frequent extreme
events and greater associated risks to ocean
ecosystems (high confidence). In some cases (e.g.,
mass coral bleaching and mortality), projected
increases will eliminate ecosystems, and increase risks
and vulnerabilities to coastal livelihoods and food
security (e.g., CBS in Southeast Asia; SES, CBS, and
STG in the Indo-Pacific) (medium to high confidence).

Commented
[72]: This is incorrect and ignores tens of
Gattuso
[72]:
papers about coral bleaching. It is correct that
overfishing and the input of dissolved and particulate
matter from land are important local stressors. There is
however considerable evidence that ocean warming is
the major cause of coral bleaching and has already led
to the demise of a large number of reefs. Also, the 50%
decrease in coral cover in the best protected areas of
the Great Barrier Reef clearly demonstrate that local
factors do not explain the global demise of coral reefs.
These are observations, not model-based projections.

and the fan corals, the sort of things that provide the habitat for all the tropical
fisheries that we so love with coral reefs, they will all disappear. He hadnt
mentioned that in his paper, because thats not what the paper was addressing, it
was addressing mass, it wasnt addressing diversity.
MR: So I did accurately report his paper.

Hoegh-Guldberg
[73]:
Commented [73]:

But cherry-picked the literature.

RH: You did accurately report it, but his paper didnt mention the crucial bit, which is
the things that make coral reefs special will disappear
MR: I think its very unlikely, because Ive been reading a much wider ocean
acidification literature, I dont remember which paper that was, but I read papers
since then, Ive read other papers and in particular I read a meta-analysis, and I think
the article youre referring to particularly placed emphasis on a meta-analysis. Now a
meta-analysis is an analysis of different studies, and this looked at 327 different
studies of ocean acidification covering 45 different species, and came to the
conclusion that this was not going to be such a big problem as the literature was
assuming, and said there is very little evidence that were going to see huge and
damaging changes from ocean acidification in the next century, there are several

Commented
[74]: Very few of the almost 600 papers on
Gattuso
[74]:
the biological response to ocean acidification are not
based on field observations and experiments.

reasons for this. One is that the variation were talking about is very small, its from a
pH of about 8.2 to about 7.9 during this century.
RH: But faster than weve seen for many millions of years.

Hoegh-Guldberg
[75]: What
Commented [75]:

Ridley forgets to tell you is that

the pH scale is exponential. That is, that a change of
0.1 pH units is equivalent to a 30% increase in the
proton concentration or overall acidity!

MR: Hang on, hang on. But that is less than the variation between days at the intake
of the Monterrey Aquarium. That is much less than the variation between different
parts of the Pacific Ocean, between parts of coral reefs at different times of the day,
so many organisms are already experiencing over matters of hours and days, the
sort of changes that were talking about over decades, right? And if you go and look
at the actual studies, theres a recent study of a coral in the Caribbean which
deliberately put the CO2 pressure over the tank up to certain levels so as to mimic
what happened, and they got an increase in the rate of growth of this coral during the
as it were 21st century. Eventually, when they got to 2500 parts per million, it started
to drop. So what they said was it is unlikely that that sort of level of CO 2 is going to do
any harm.

Again, Ridley is cherry picking. It is

also confusing day-to-day variability with a shift in mean
conditions. Yes, coral reefs go through variability in pH
and carbonate chemistry, just like they do with respect
to temperature. However, it is the extreme conditions
and the average conditions which one experiences that
are important. One is only to look at the paper by Dove
et al (2014) to see what happens when you change the
average conditions while still maintaining the variability.
These sort experiments are very hard to argue against.
Naturally, Ridley doesn't mention them. He needs to
read and explain the results of studies like these ones
which he has so carefully not mentioned.

Hoegh-Guldberg
[76]:
Commented [76]:

Hoegh-Guldberg
[77]: Note:
Commented [77]:

The Dove et al. (2014) paper

and other ones like it show that you can have all the
variability you want in the system, but if average
conditions change, you get the loss of coral reefs.
Ridleys comments here are pretty baseless compared
to the majority of the literature - again, as summarised
by the IPCC.

RH: There was another paper saying that research typically didnt factor in
acidification with warming, and therefore the results would be much worse, but lets
not get stuck on the details of that, because I want to ask you a final question, this is
a question were asking all our interviewees, I think I know the answer already, its
what level of optimism have you got over this issue?
MR: <Laughs> Well, Ive got great optimism we will not see devastating climate
change or extreme weather within our lifetime, within our childrens lifetime, within
our grandchildrens lifetime. However, I have got some pessimism that the measures
we are taking today will do more harm than good, and that for example rushing into
biofuels all around the world, putting 5% of the worlds grain crop into cars rather
than peoples tummies, has probably killed 200,000 people a year. And I think thats
a pity.
RH: You could be optimistic that wed seen the end of those policies, which people
would say were knee jerk policies.

Carbon Brief [CB78]:

[78]:
Commented
This 200,000 figure appears in a
press release by the Association for American
Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), which is based on a
paper by Dr Indur Goklany published in the groups
official journal. See comment [35] above for more on the
AAPS, Goklany and his association with the Global
Warming Policy Foundation, a climate-skeptic lobby
group on whose advisory board Ridley also sits.

MR: But we havent seen the end of those policies. Theyre still going on. Were still
diverting 5% of the worlds grain crop into motorcars. Now its true that the price spike
that they caused is over, agricultural prices have dropped. The reason for that is
because were no longer putting more into motorcars, so the increase in yields that
were seeing all around the world, partly as a result of the CO2 fertilisation effect and
partly because of other technologies, the increase in yield is now able to feed the
world easily, even while we feed a twentieth of the worlds grain crop to motor cars.
RH: I just want to ask you one last thing. Youve changed your mind in the past about
climate change youve moved from one position to another. What would it take to
move you back again?

Commented
[RM79]: The fact that we are able to feed
R Myneni [79]:
the growing population has more to do with nutrient
(chemical) fertilizer application, irrigation, productive
breeds of crop varieties, etc. rather than CO2
fertilization. I know of no study that argued CO2
fertilization as the dominant reason for human food
security!

MR: Very rapid temperatures rise. If we see, over the next ten years, half a degree of
temperature increase globally
RH: But nobodys forecasting that.
MR: Indeed, but they were. I mean, at the moment Im concerned Im too much of a
lukewarmer and Im not enough of a sceptic the deceleration of climate change
over the last few years, its ticking up this year, but were making a big deal of it.

Commented
Chris
Hope [CH80]:
[80]: No-one should make a big deal out
of one year's climate. The problem is that sceptics and
lukewarmers have been making a big deal of the one
exceptional year of 1998 ever since; 'no temperature
rise for 16 years' and so on.

RH: The surface temperatures, the ocean is still warming, ice is still melting.
MR: Yeah, but the lower troposphere, which is where the theory says we should be
seeing the warming, is warming least of all! Thats the bit we should be seeing
warming, and thats warming least.
RH: So you want to be more sceptical rather than less?
MR: Well I dont want to be, I fear that I should have been.
RH: Matt Ridley, thank you very much.
<End of Interview>

[Carbon Brief Note: The timestamps on the comments are not representative of
when the remarks were made.]

Commented
[81]: This is out-dated science when
P Forster [81]:
satellite data was not corrected for known biases.
These biases have been corrected. Chapter 2 of AR5,
Fig 2.24 and 2.26/7 shows that the troposphere is
warming perfectly consistently with the surface.