Out of the frying pan

7:00am Friday 1st February 2008

REG LITTLE talks to Sir David King, the UK's former chief scientific adviser, who is heading Oxford University's newly-created enterprise and environment school

WHEN Sir David King spoke, Tony Blair listened and then frequently acted.

The great political cliché of the Blair premiership was that spin doctor Alastair Campbell was the second most powerful man at Whitehall.

But when it came to combating climate change, the future of nuclear power in the UK and controlling foot-and-mouth disease, it was to a chemistry professor that the New Labour Prime Minister turned.

The advice from Sir David, after his appointment as the UK's chief scientific adviser, would often do precious little to boost New Labour's ratings in the opinion polls, or improve John Prescott's temper come to that.

You do not win many votes by proposing new nuclear power stations or killing badgers.

Yet it is difficult to think of a time in our history when cool scientific advice was more needed in Government.

Three years ago, Sir David caused a furore by describing climate change as "the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious than the threat of terrorism".

Few would argue with that assessment today.

Sir David has just stood down from his influential position at the heart of Government, leaving Westminster to work from an office in George Street, an Oxford road more associated with anti-social pub crawls than scientific advancement.

He may no longer have such direct contact with Downing Street, but he believes his new job in Oxford is of real long-term importance in addressing the environmental problems threatening Planet Earth.

Sir David this month took up his appointment at Oxford University's newly-created Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, an £80m project bringing together researchers, policy makers and global businesses.

Once established, he maintains the new Oxford school will be capable of developing practical solutions to the greatest environmental challenges to have faced mankind.

"It will be a world leader," he told me. "It will conduct inter-disciplinary research to find private sector solutions to environmental problems, bringing together academics with Government and industry."

As the scientist credited with persuading the Government to accept the urgency of the climate change situation, it was never likely he would be attracted to heading an academic debating group.

If nothing else, the timing of his arrival in a city that has been bracing itself for a second wave of flooding in six months must, has confirmed his belief that climate change is there for everyone to see - and polar bears will not be the only ones to suffer.

Already, he has started to focus on raising the £70m still needed, with the new school to be built in the city centre, possibly on the Radcliffe Infirmary site or near the railway station.

One of his last reports for the Government was a landmark study on obesity, which involved 220 academics whose expertise extended far beyond medical science.

It appears his approach in Oxford will be the same, ensuring experts in many fields, such as law, economics and philosophy, have a foothold in the school.

Climate change is simply too big an issue to be left to environmental scientists and lobby groups. The mission is to make green mainstream.

His enthusiasm for pulling together experts and business leaders is less well known than his reputation for strongly opinions on big issues such as genetically modified crops, and then publicly defending them.

Such an approach meant facing the full fury of John Prescott, who as Deputy Prime Minister oversaw the development of the Government's nuclear policy.

They famously clashed when Prescott demanded that Sir David should feel bound by Cabinet collective responsibility.

Sir David argued that it would be absurd to pretend that he had changed his mind when the scientific world already knew his position in favour of nuclear power.

The Deputy Prime Minister reportedly went ballistic, thumping the table, before Paul Boateng, then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, came to the scientist's aid, arguing that Sir David's freedom to put his case would win, not diminish, public trust.

A year later he received an apology from Prescott.

Today, it is clear he also won the bigger argument, with the Government approving a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The Business Secretary, John Hutton, told MPs last month that the Government would be publishing plans to encourage the private sector to build more nuclear power stations - a green light for the construction of more nuclear power stations.

Fears that one of the nuclear power stations might built in the Didcot area were fuelled by a paper from energy analyst Ian Jackson, who reported that both Harwell and Didcot met key criteria, such as location history and ease of connection to the national grid. The operator of Didcot Power Station and the UKAEA at Harwell recently discounted the idea of either site being shortlisted.

With nuclear power having been the bete noire of environmental groups over decades, Sir David has had a pivotal role in "reselling" it to the public.

For him, nuclear power offers the only hope of reducing carbon emissions and meeting carbon dioxide targets.

"In principle," he says, "nuclear power should generate no carbon emissions because it doesn't involve burning any fossil fuels. It is the most economic and is one of the very few technologies that are currently ready to go."

He argues that while uranium is not renewable, the current stocks are sufficient to last for several centuries, even if the industry expands rapidly.

Sir David is also satisfied that significant advances have been made in the safety of nuclear power plant designs, with 'walk away safety' meaning machines shut themselves down if anything goes wrong.

While not everyone will thank him for 'pushing Tony Blair's nuclear button', Sir David certainly can claim credit for moving climate change up New Labour's agenda.

"I think the full significance of climate change and what decisions were required only began to dawn on the Cabinet slowly."

He is, nevertheless, satisfied that the UK ended up filling the vacuum of leadership left by America's having turned its back on climate change, with the possible exception of California.

Sir David was delighted to receive a call from Arnold Schwarzenegger, inviting him to address a meeting on the UK's strategy.

He recalls being impressed by the big governor's no-nonsense approach.

"When I said that the UK had committed unilaterally to reducing its emission by 60 per cent by 2050, Schwarzenegger's response was 'we'll reduce by 80 per cent'. That's the sort of bidding war we should all be getting into."

I wondered whether he would miss being at the very heart of Government, or feel relief to be among be among academics at Oxford?

"I think I had the best job at Westminster," he replied without pause. "It was good because I had the attention of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. As chief scientific adviser, I was well-placed to raise the profile of scientific issues."

Sir David was parachuted into Government by Tony Blair in 2000, moving to Westminster from Cambridge, where he was master of Downing College and head of the university's chemistry department.

He believes the foot-and-mouth crisis marked something of a watershed, for the Cabinet came to respect and increasingly rely on the information that Sir David was able to present from computer modelling as the best way forward.

From his Oxford office he will be closely watching whether the Government will be accepting his advice on the slaughter of badgers in order to control cattle TB.

Sir David told ministers that killing badgers would be necessary to prevent the spread of TB among cattle. He still believes the culls should be focused on areas like Devon, where TB in the badger population is rife.

"We are culling 20,000 cattle a year as soon as they are detected with TB but are not culling badgers with TB. It doesn't make much sense to me. We can expect a decision to be made on this quite soon."

The issue of GM crops also represents unfinished business for him.

His parting shot as he stood down from Government was to urge Gordon Brown to revisit the issue of genetically modified crops.

In his view, GM technology could bring about a green revolution capable of providing enough food for the global population, which is due to exceed nine billion by 2050.

His ability to put his case directly to the public is vividly shown in his new book, The Hot Topic, published this week. The book, co-written with Gabrielle Walker, who presents BBC Radio 4's Planet Earth Under Threat, sets out how to tackle global warming and still keep the lights on.

Now his energies will be fully focused on shaping the direction of the university's newest school, with the founding benefaction coming from the Martin Smith Foundation.

It should change the take of generations of students on climate change, studying a wide range of subjects. But he is unlikely to settle for that.

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