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Sir David King
Online presentation You can download the PowerPoint presentation here (32MB) which includes the audio. Science and sustainability Sir David’s talk covers the challenges to be faced by the 9.5 billion humans who will live on Earth by 2050: the increasingly scarce water resources, environmental and health challenges, terrorism, and of course climate change. Science and technology, he says, will have to focus on the specific solutions. We will need for genetic modification to get “more crop per drop” of water. We will need better disease discovery for quick recognition of pandemics. And for all of this we need smart investment in science. The UK has been through a long period of underinvestment in science, but there has also been a massive transformation in the last 20 years. Universities are no longer ivory towers, but are instead central to clusters of small high tech companies. Greenhouse gas emissions, says Sir David, are the biggest challenge our civilization has ever had to face up to collectively. We’ll need every single tool we have to manage this. But some tools will come at a greater cost than others. The most expensive change to make – avoiding deforestation in Asia – will cost 40 Euros per tonne of C02 . Others, such as energy efficiency measures, will actually create wealth. It is for this reason that Sir David does not think this need be a great challenge to the global economy.
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Chief UK science advisor Sir David King spoke at Te Papa on 10 October 2007, on Science and Innovation as a driver of sustainability – reflections on the UK experience.