Brussels
A MEETING called last week to celebrate European achievements in global
climate research turned into a deathbed vigil as a stream of scientists and
officials warned of an impending collapse in budgets for studies of climate and
the global environment.
鈥淛ust doing good science right now is not enough to save you,鈥� said
Jean-Pierre Contzen of the European Commission鈥檚 Joint Research Centre in
Brussels. Governments are no longer interested in global environmental issues,
he said. 鈥淐limate change seems very far away. Only local pollution problems
concern them, and economics dominates everything.鈥�
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At the meeting, which was organised by the Commission, climate researchers
complained about the parochialism of much European research, and Europe鈥檚
failure to contribute fully to international research programmes. But Contzen
saw no hope of any improvement on that front. He argued that the only way
European climatologists could ensure continued funding was to investigate the
local effects of global change. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 wish to create panic, but we must
demonstrate to our political masters that global change research helps policy
makers take decisions now, that it has immediate use.鈥�
Paul Gray, director of the Commission鈥檚 environment and climate research
programme, agreed. He said researchers must recruit industries that are
vulnerable to climate change, such as tourism, to argue the case for research
into future climate. 鈥淲e have to show that their decisions often depend on
global research.鈥�
鈥淭here is a vacuum in policy making at the moment,鈥� said Gray. But European
officials warned privately that the commissioner for research, former French
prime minister Edith Cresson, has little time for the environment. 鈥淚ndustry is
all that matters at the minute,鈥� said one.
Many believe Cresson wants to amalgamate the independent environment and
climate programme, which has a five-year budget of 532 million Ecus (拢426
million), with technological research.
杏吧原创s at the meeting complained that long-term research was ill-served
by the Commission鈥檚 policy of running research projects for two years only. They
called for a rolling climate research programme, similar to the JET European
fusion project, and for block-funding of centres of research excellence that
could then pursue their own agendas. Euan Nisbet, coordinator of European
research into methane, the second most important greenhouse gas, said his unit
had just lost its funding. This was despite his belief that his work could lead
to quick cuts in global emissions. 鈥淢ethane work round the world is collapsing,鈥�
he said.
Researchers also pointed out that large amounts of data collected by European
remote-sensing satellites are not analysed. Hartmut Grassl of the World Climate
Research Programme in Geneva said that the European Space Agency had no
responsibility for evaluating Earth data from its satellites, such as ERS-1. It
had been left to Japanese researchers to collate and publish its images of
tropical forests, he said.
Other material never emerged from the data jumble. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a scandal, the
amount of space data hanging around not being used,鈥� said John Houghton,
chairman of the science panel of the UN鈥檚 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.