Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [397]
At every stage scientific discovery and knowledge set the requirements and the limits for the approach we should pursue towards the problems of the global environment. It was, for example, the British Antarctic Survey which discovered a large hole in the ozone layer which protects life from ultra-violet radiation. Similarly, it was scientific research which proved that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were responsible for ozone depletion. Convinced by this evidence, governments agreed first to cut and then to phase out the use of CFCs — for example in refrigerators, aerosols and air conditioning systems. From the time of the first international meeting and agreement in Montreal in 1987 until my last days in office when I was addressing the Second World Climate Conference in Geneva on the subject, I took the closest personal interest as the scientific evidence was amassed and analysed.
‘Global warming’ was another atmospheric threat which required the application of hard-headed scientific principles. The relationship between the industrial emission of carbon dioxide — the most significant though not the only ‘greenhouse gas’ — and climatic change was a good deal less certain than the relationship between CFCs and ozone depletion. Nuclear power production did not produce carbon dioxide — nor did it produce the gases which led to acid rain. It was a far cleaner source of power than coal. However, this did not attract the environmental lobby towards it: instead, they used the concern about global warming to attack capitalism, growth and industry. I sought to employ the authority which I had gained in the whole environmental debate, mainly as a result of my speech to the Royal Society in September 1988, to ensure a sense of proportion.
That speech was the fruit of much thought and a great deal of work. It was our outgoing ambassador at the UN, Sir Crispin Tickell, who first suggested that I should make a major speech on the subject. I decided that the Royal Society was the perfect forum. George Guise, who advised me on science in the Policy Unit, and I spent two weekends working on the draft. It broke quite new political ground. But it is an extraordinary commentary on the lack of media interest in the subject that, contrary to my expectations, the television did not even bother to send film crews to cover the occasion. In fact, I had been relying on the television lights to enable me to read my script in the gloom of the Fishmongers’ Hall, where it was to be delivered; in the event, candelabra had to be passed up along the table to allow me to do so. The speech itself triggered much debate and discussion, particularly one passage:
For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself… In studying the system of the earth and its atmosphere we have no laboratory in which to carry out controlled experiments. We have to rely on observations of natural systems. We need to identify particular areas of research which will help to establish cause and effect. We need to consider in more detail the likely effects of change within precise timescales.