All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group Is a Cross-Party ...

cannot carry on not putting environmental issues at the heart
of that.
PROFESSOR PIDGEON: That is interesting because we
have heard in the evidence and here today the word "process"
suggested on a number of occasions. I think part of the
suggestion is that there is no simple solution that you can
state now. This has to be a process and it has to be
continually reflected upon both by Government and all the
parties involved, which I guess is congruent with that.
DR CLAYTON: One of the pieces of written evidence that
we have received proposes a number of statements on which
a consensus could be built. In other words, a succession of
statements and one could decide to agree or not as the case
may be. If that list of statements ran from targets through to
means, would there be a case for a referendum on that sort of
issue, do you think, to involve the public more in what could
be agreed widely?
MS WALLEY: I do not know. I think sometimes
referendums can be very divisive because referendums are
always incredibly likely to end up either being for or against
something. I think, in a way, if you look at how you start to
build a consensus -- I mean, I have not thought this through
so I am just really speaking off the top of my hat -- but I
think that, for something of this magnitude, we have to start
by identifying what we can do together and what everybody
around the table, whoever those people are around the table,
can sign up to, and then concentrating on what it is possible
to do, and then use that as a kind of foundation stone for what
the next thing is that might be more likely to be feasible.
DR CLAYTON: I was thinking of the statements being
separately judgeable, so to speak, so you could get an idea of
how far people were prepared to go.
MS WALLEY: I do not know. I am not a great believer of
referendums, in one sense. We have had very divisive
referendums on whether or not there should be, for an
example, an elected Mayor or not. In a way the public debate
that then took place very quickly got either for or against. I
think that what we are dealing with is something which is just
so multifarious, there are so many different aspects to it, that
it is not quite as black and white as that. For example, one of
the things that I would perhaps want to see more of is that I
have been very familiar with the work of citizens juries with
Doctor Wakeford, who has actually developed those, and
those seem to be a much more inclusive way of, through
information and through informed opinion, assisting people
to reach conclusions relating to particular problems or
challenges that present themselves. I do not think
referendums have the same opportunity for sharing of
information. So, therefore, I would just put a question mark
against referendums at this stage.
PROFESSOR WHITBY: A number of people have
submitted evidence and suggested that we could have a body
equivalent to the Bank of England, an independent body,
appointed by the Government who might actually manage the
rationing or otherwise of carbon across the community. Do
you have a view whether that is a practical idea or whether
this is something that should remain within Government?
MS WALLEY: I think, drawing on the evidence that Peter
gave just now in terms of some of our Environmental Audit
Select Committee inquiries, I think we have definitely
identified the need for some kind of institution that could be
the depository, if you like, of expertise in terms of nature, in
terms of assessment, so it may well be an organisation of that
kind, if it was subscribed to. We would have to have a
legitimacy, a political legitimacy about it.
PROFESSOR WHITBY: I think it has a political legitimacy,
albeit that it is this Government that has given it its
independence, but the reality is could this be something that
could be, to some extent, removed from Government with a
mandate to deliver the reduction?
MS WALLEY: I certainly think it would be well worth
exploring, yes.
DR CLAYTON: How far do you think we can go purely
with technological fixes and how far with behavioural
changes?
MS WALLEY: Personally, I would like to think that we
would go a really long way with technological fixes. I have
had close links with the new environmental technologies
industries for many years, in the sense that I have kept
abreast of work that has been done there. It just makes sense
that, when it comes to fuel or when it comes to energy and
other issues, that that could take a huge part of the change
behaviour that we all want to see. When I spoke to my son
last night about this inquiry today -- and he is actually doing
a human ecology course at Strathclyde -- his perspective was
slightly different. He perhaps would say, if he was sitting
here, that we should be much more looking to have perhaps
less technology and perhaps adapt to what nature and the
world and the planet is telling us. But I certainly think that
we have to pursue the technological solution, provided that
that is not a flawed technological solution.
PROFESSOR WHITBY: In the sense of the question, it was
a little bit about proportions. I share with you a great belief in
technology, but, relatively speaking, it is a question about
new technologies and how much it might be due to human
behaviour.
MS WALLEY: It has to be about human behaviour, and I
think that was the thing came across talking to Lester Brown.
If and when climate change catches up with us, in the sense
that we are at the eye of the storm of it, as it were, it will not
be a question of technological; it is about how we then react
to the resources of the planet. In a way, I suppose I still have
my ideas after nineteen years here, there has to be some way
in which we can change our behaviour as a result of
understanding the risks and the threats that we face, and
change our behaviour in order that we are much more
working with the planet, really. That is about human
behaviour and about human changes. But, given that we are
all brought up in a totally consumer materialistic world, the
challenge of that, given that we are not facing in this country
at least that kind of pressing problem, it is an absolutely
monumental Herculean task for us to confront, I think. I am
pessimistic about this.
DR CLAYTON: I would like to ask you about the ENV
group that Mr Ainsworth told us about which tries to link
departmental responsibility in climate change. I wonder
whether you can tell us a bit more about your views on this?
MS WALLEY: I have to say that I do not know very much
about how it operates, despite having interviews in the course
of different committee inquiries with various green Ministers.
I think that one of the things that I find is that Ministers come
and Ministers go and Ministers get reshuffled. It is almost as
though the one that gets the short straw is the one that
becomes the green Minister. Somehow or another, without
having that leadership from within the very heart of
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