Science and technology will have to be regeared to meet global challenges, and this would require overcoming a technological and institutional inertia which existed, said former scientific adviser to the British government, Sir David King.

Speaking at a lecture at Wits University in Johannesburg on Monday, King reiterated that “science, technology and engineering took us to major industrial revolution, and now we need a smart, green, advanced manufacturing sector, to take us to the next revolution”.

He noted that while climate change was the biggest challenge facing humankind since the industrial revolution, it also presented the biggest opportunity. “We have got to turn this whole thing on its head, and take advantage of this opportunity presented us.”

The cost of moving towards a ‘low-carbon’ or clean technology growth path was often cited as one of the major drawbacks to meeting the challenge of climate change, but King emphasised that it was not a cost on the economy to manage ecosystem services, but rather the opposite.

“We must put a price on our use of ecosystems, and if an operation or production of a good or service has a detrimental effect on an ecosystem, it must have a higher price,” he stated.

AFRICA’S CENTURY

He also said that this ‘modern development’, which was relevant to the future, was still being discussed, but should be spearheaded by Africa.

“This is the century of Africa. It is time for Africa to produce what it has always promised to produce. Africa can leapfrog in terms of development. Africa can learn from our [industrialised countries] mistakes, and develop for the 21st century,” King enthused.

King is currently working with the government of Rwanda on development plans for the city of Kigali, which is expected to increase from a population of about one-million today to about five-million by 2050.

“It’s exciting to work in Africa now. It’s a takeoff place,” he asserted.

King added that scientific advisers to governments were needed in Africa more so than anywhere else, because of the challenges the continent has to face – particularly in agriculture. “The idea of a scientific adviser must be pushed through very hard,” he said.

This was necessary because there was a need for a kind of ‘translational’ capacity, which could make sense of the research done by scientists and experts, for government officials required to make decisions. King said that the knowledge base in universities was moving so fast and governments were simply unaware of it.

Scientific advisers to governments were vital because governments would have to pass progressive regulations in order to stimulate cleaner development.

“We need regulatory interventions. Because markets are full of failures, and governments must drive innovation through regulation. Governments have to implement both regulations and obligations to drive the private sector to deliver solutions into the market place,” King said.

He stressed that solutions developed by scientists were of no use if they did not end up in the market place.

King also said that there was a need to reassess how money was spent and budgets were allocated, and that there was a need to move away from “historical precedent determining future spending”.

The US was said to have spent some $3-trillion on the war in Iraq – which King believed was in pursuit of oil – and he argued that this money could have been spent on ‘decarbonising’ the economy. “The US could have decarbonised their economy with less than a tenth of that money.”

Further to the need to regear science and technology to address environmental challenges, King said that there were major cultural challenges that would need to be overcome in order to deal with the impacts of climate change.

“We will need to balance national perceptions with global priorities,” said King, adding that he watched the global climate change conference discussions every year with “a sinking heart”.

He also argued that there were shifts in economic thinking that were required, particularly the idea that unfettered consumerism was the instrument of economic growth.

“The idea that consumerism is all we need – and is the measure of wellbeing needs to change. We have become slaves to a word – ‘GDP [gross domestic product] growth’ as a measure of success.”

If one was looking for an alternative way to measure the wealth of a nation, it should take into account growth in human capital and skills development, growth in infrastructure and built capital, growth in cultural capital, and protection of environmental capital.