John Beddington is the chief scientific adviser to the UK Government and professor of applied population biology at Imperial College London. He has a background in both economics and ecology and his research focuses on their application in resource management.

Please tell us about your role and that of the Government Office of Science

I am responsible for all science and technology across government. Its an enormously wide area and the only way to make it work is through good networks. Each major department and most of the key agencies (for example MI5, the Foreign Office, the Food Standards Agency, etc.) have a Chief Scientific Advisor, and I have regular meetings with the chief scientific advisors and the chief executives of the research councils. We also have good links to learned societies and academia, for example the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Academy of Medical Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, and so on. The Government Office of Science includes several groups which perform various functions including horizon scanning, quality assurance of science and engineering in government and the key global issues. A swine flu emergency advisory group has been established to provide advice to COBRA [the UK government's national emergencies committee]. 

These groups are working on reports on climate change, water, health and wellbeing, sustainable energy management in the built environment, the future of food and farming, and one just starting on international migration. All key government departments will have a mandatory science review carried out by the assurance group. 

What do you think will be the main sticking points in the negotiations at the 2009 UN climate change summit in Copenhagen? 

The fundamental sticking points will be to do with political attitudes. One problem is equity - the developed world has had the benefit of using fossil fuels over a long time period, and the developing world has not. There needs to be some mechanism which is satisfactory to all parties, and will reduce fossil fuel usage (especially in India and China) without being inequitable. 

It is also important to note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments have been shown to be overly optimistic. Since 2004 [when the latest data included in the IPCC's 2007 report was collected], data on CO₂ emissions, data on the Greenland ice cap and Arctic sea-ice cover, and a whole series of more technical datasets have shown that things are looking worse [than the 2007 report predicted]. The UK Climate Projections 2009 report showed that greenhouse gas emissions that are out there already will affect the climate until 2040 - we're not going to change that, but there is a real possibility that Copenhagen could make an enormous contribution towards the aim of limiting the total temperature rise to 2°C and the CO₂ concentration to about 450ppm. That would be a major achievement. However, it will be enormously difficult; vast investment in current technologies and a serious investment in development of new technologies will be required.

Has the change in the US administration been important?

Yes, enormously so! We now have a US administration that puts science and technology at the highest level - Steven Chu at the Department of Energy is a Nobel Prize winner in physics, John Holdren [Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy] is an enormously eminent person on both climate change and nuclear issues, their equivalent of our Council for Science and Technology has another Nobel Prize winner in the medical field in Harold Varmus - so we have an indication there that they are taking science seriously. The move towards recognising science and toward evidence-based policy by the Obama regime has been a sea-change. 

We are here at a renewable energy conference - do you think that there are promising energy technologies that could help reduce CO₂ which are ready to go to market?

We are here at a renewable energy conference - do you think there are promising energy technologies out there that could help reduce CO₂? 

Concentrated solar power is a known technology, pilot plants are being established in some locations. Photovoltaics are being developed but are unlikely to be commercially viable in the UK. 

The be-all-and-end-all of technology, however, is carbon capture and storage. We have got to work out a way of cleaning up coal and capturing the CO₂ because coal is going to continue to be used. 

In other areas, issues of food, water, energy security and climate change cannot be addressed in isolation; a recent example is biofuels - we must consider the impact of growing biofuel crops on the food supply. Additionally, agricultural problems cannot be treated without consideration of water supply, and one cannot address water problems without considering climate change, and so on. 

Lastly, do you think it's possible to limit the rise in global mean temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels? 

I don't know, but I hope so!