CSIRO climate cuts will cost Australia dear, world scientists warn government

Extract from The Guardian

More than 600 international experts have condemned the ‘illogical’ plans to restructure CSIRO, which one described as Australia’s ‘national treasure’

The letter signed by 600 world experts says the CSIRO cuts jeopardise Australia’s ability to meet the Paris climate targets. Photograph: Li Genxing/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Michael Slezak and Calla Wahlquist

Monday 8 February 2016 14.05 AEDT 

More than 600 climate scientists from around the world have signed a letter to the Australian government protesting against the cuts to climate research at the CSIRO, calling for the lost capabilities to be re-housed elsewhere.
As the letter circulates building signatures, Australian scientists gathering at the country’s largest climate conference in Melbourne made a similar call.
The proposed cuts will see up to 350 jobs go at the national science agency in the next two years and are expected to affect climate change research with most of the jobs going from the CSIRO’s oceans and Antarctica climate monitoring divisions.

Jean Palutikof, who is director of national climate change adaptation research facility at Griffith University, said the CSIRO strategy of focusing on how Asutralia should adapt to and mitigate climate change, without studying what those changes were, was illogical.

More than 200 scientists donned blue armbands at a protest against CSIRO cuts outside the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society’s annual conference in Melbourne on Monday. Photograph: Calla Wahlquist for Guardian Australia/Calla Wahlquist

“Headless chickens comes to mind,” said Palutikof, who has worked with the UN on climate change adaptation. “How can you understand what you have to do if you don’t understand what you’re adapting to?”
The letter signed by international scientists says the cuts will make the targets agreed to in Paris in December harder to achieve. It cites article 7.7.c of the Paris Accord, which directly calls for strengthening of scientific knowledge of climate change.
“CSIRO’s decision to slash climate research capacity will severely curtail Australia’s capacity to deliver on key promises of the Paris agreement,” the letter says.

It suggests the cuts will cost Australian society. “The societal benefits of climate science will far outweigh the likely high costs of reacting to future climate change instead of strategically planning for it.”
It argues that cancelling CSIRO’s climate modelling work would end up costing the economy. “Without committing to the development of next generation climate modelling and climate monitoring, billions of dollars of public investment on long term infrastructure will be based on guesswork rather than on strategic and informed science-driven policy.”
The letter says that if the CSIRO does proceed with the cuts, then the country urgently needs to find a new home for the capabilities that will be lost. “If these climate science research cuts at CSIRO proceed without being filled elsewhere, then Australia will not develop its capability to assess the accelerating risks associated with climate change.”
Dave Schimel, chief adviser on carbon cycle science at NASA’s jet propulsion lab in California, was outraged by the cuts. “This is a national treasure for Australia,” he said. “From the perspective of an international scientist with a 30 year history of collaboration, this is a little like selling off the Library of Congress or the British Museum.
“Historically, there have been two groups that have really been the heart and soul of climate science on the planet. This is one of them ... the international carbon community right now is in shock.”
As the joint conference of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the Australian Research Council’s centre of excellence for climate system science began in Melbourne on Monday, scientists were meeting to register their disappointment in the cuts.
“We’re hopeful that this capacity stays in Australia,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick from the University of New South Wales, who helped to organise the protest. “The universities can’t pick that up, the bureau [of meteorology] can’t pick that up. So if worst comes to worst ... the next case is having the capacity in a different type of organisation... I’m not sure how that could happen.”
More than 200 scientists donned arm-bands the blue of the CSIRO logo on Monday and staged a protest outside the conference in Melbourne on Monday to object to the cuts.
Dr Peter Stott, who leads the Climate Monitoring and Attribution team at the UK Met Office, said the cuts would have a global impact.
“It is very concerning that such a decision could be made because it shows a lack of understanding of what you need to do to get the information we need to mitigate or react to climate change,” Stott said.
Stott said the suggestion by CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall that the science of climate change was “settled” was “totally wrong.”
“What we need to know now is how do we manage climate change,” Stott said.
Melbourne University’s Professor David Karoly, who was one of the authors of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 and is a Climate Change Authority board member, said the cuts “directly impact Australia’s ability to meet its obligations under the Paris Accord”.
Karoly said that Australia could not fulfil those obligations without the work of the CSIRO unless there was a significant investment in other organisations, such as the Bureau of Meteorology, to allow them to take over the work.
Dr John Church, a CSIRO research fellow, said that the CSIRO had shirked its duty to the Australian people in announcing these cuts and that the only option was for another research organisation to step in.
“This is a decision to cease all climate change research at CSIRO,” Church said, later clarifying by saying that an 80% cut to climate change research jobs was effectively ceasing all research.
“This is are where the Australian people need active and ongoing science research into the future.”
Prof Roger Jones, research fellow with the Victoria Institute of Strategic Studies and another IPCC author, said that the cuts would amount to losing 2,000 years of experience from climate change research in Australia.
“We know from recent events around Australia that we can experience significant shifts in climate in short periods of time,” he said. “Understanding how these shifts come about could be worth billions of dollars to Australia.”