Professor John Sweeney:

Politics is about the allocation of scarce resources and we are talking about one of the scarcest resources around at the moment. Ultimately, the decision has to be made on the basis of democratically elected politicians rather than scientists. Nonetheless, it is very useful for scientific input to inform policy. Unfortunately, scientific input has not informed policy on this topic effectively over the years. That is something about which I have a great deal of regret. If we had a better funnel of scientific information going to politicians over the years it would have been better because scientists by their nature are not particularly good communicators. We write our papers, go to conferences and exist in our own bubbles but we do not necessarily get trained in the articulate skills politicians have. We are at a disadvantage, especially in comparison with other very powerful vested interest groups that have very different experiences in the debating halls, literature and societies that scientists generally do not access.

It is very important that we improve science communication in this area. Those of us who have laboured for many years trying to do that recognise the difficulties there are but, nevertheless, there are possibilities here. I mentioned already that modellers get bad press in climate science. In fact, the models in climate science are much more certain and closer to the mark than those we find in the economist's world, for example. There are opportunities here for looking in a more integrated way at trade-offs between different models. As I mentioned already, the European Commission has been very active in promoting integrated climate models that take into account mitigation, adaptation and socioeconomic models. I have been a little involved in some of that. There is scope for looking at things in more detail, in that kind of integrated way, rather than the silo approach of sectors that has characterised our look at this operation so far. Perhaps that is a way in which the scientific community might also bring the options to the decision-makers. Ultimately, it has to be the political system that decides. We can improve from a scientific point of view by gaining access to the political decision-making system and there is a willingness to do that among most of the academics I encounter. However, we will not usurp or take away the ultimate choice that has to be made and the leadership that has to be provided by the political system.