Mr. Stewart Lockie, Director of the Cairns Institute at James Cook University
Thank you. It is an honour and pleasure to address this meeting.
I would like to start by endorsing the comments of my colleague Professor Kasuga about the importance of
multidisciplinary, global research programs like Future Earth. These are critical both for the knowledge they
provide directly and for their contribution to mobilizing scientific effort more broadly. All countries should be
looking to programs like Future Earth and considering their implications for national research priorities and
investment.
As we embark on the journey to 2030 we will quite rightly build statistical capacity and report data across a wide
range of indicators relevant to sustainable development goals and targets. These data provide the foundation for
monitoring and accountability. But it is important to remember that indicators have their limits. In isolation,
indicators don’t tell us about:
The underlying causes of social, economic and environmental change;
How specific policies and programs influence development outcomes; or
What is over the horizon that might support or threaten the sustainability agenda.
For this level of understanding we rely on complementary science programs, and by science here I of course refer
to all the sciences – social, natural, engineering, and so on.
I don’t have long so I won’t peel off a long list of issues relevant to the future of the sustainable development
agenda. For these, I commend to you Chapter 5 of the 2016 Global Sustainable Development Report. In this short
presentation I want to provide just two examples of issues that potentially challenge our existing understanding of
the relationships between social, environmental and economic change and which therefore illustrate the
importance of strengthening the science-policy interface.
Example 1.
The mass coral bleaching which has played out over the last few months demonstrates that preparation for the
future must take account of the fact we are already living with profound environmental change.
While key ecosystems in all regions of the world are under pressure I wish to cast a spotlight on the particular
impacts of climate change in the tropics. As existing climate zones shift poleward, people and ecosystems in the
equatorial tropics face the prospect of climate states that have never before been experienced by human
communities. At the same time, the semi-arid dry tropical edge is expanding. The implications for built
environments, agriculture and food security, biodiversity conservation, and so on, are immense.
Complicating this further, global population growth is concentrated in the tropics. By 2050, it is forecast that over
50% of the world’s population and two thirds of the world’s children will live in the tropics. Meanwhile, progress
on poverty alleviation in the tropical zone lags significantly behind the rest of the world. And as we all well know,
poverty is strongly associated with vulnerability to disaster and infectious disease. It can be argued that tropical
infectious diseases are primarily the product of poverty, not temperature or precipitation, but they will impact
more people nonetheless unless progress is made on all fronts.
Achieving the SDGs requires a relentless focus on understanding relationships between environmental, social and
economic change that may otherwise go unrecognized. Investment in science and technology must reflect the
unique characteristics and needs of all climate zones. Existing investment is weighted overwhelmingly to the
temperate zone with tropical regions accounting for an estimated 5% of global research and development
expenditure and 10% of science and engineering graduates. This imbalance must be addressed.
Example 2.
While we are relatively comfortable, I think, considering the implications of such profound environmental change
for settlements and infrastructure. Even agriculture. But we are much less comfortable contemplating the
implications of systemic environmental change for less intensively managed ecosystems such as protected areas
and, for want of a better word, wilderness. We have little choice though, if we are to maintain the integrity of
ecosystem processes, minimize biodiversity loss, and indeed protect any of the values we associate with
ecosystems, but to give careful consideration of how to assist their adaptation to change.
This raises concern that ideas like ‘assisted adaptation’ might be used to justify a weakening of ecosystem
conservation measures. For this reason, the question of how ecosystems might be supported to adapt needs to be
accompanied by the question of how ecosystem adaptation can best be governed. For every biological or
ecological question there is a philosophical and an institutional question.
People, similarly, need support to assist adaptation. And they need support to pursue different development
aspirations and pathways.
UN agreements such as the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People rest on the principle there is no one
model of the ideal society. The Declaration states very clearly that indigenous people have a right to selfdetermination,
to decide for themselves what they want out of the development project.
It is not being indigenous that makes a person vulnerable to poverty. It is the denial of access to political
authority, secure property rights, and other resources. This is true of women, people living with disability, and so
on.
Among the resources that either alleviate or deepen vulnerability we must count access to appropriate
technology. By ‘appropriate’ I don’t mean small-scale or low tech. I mean fit for purpose. And in the context of
sustainable development, I mean the institutional and scientific capacity to integrate technology in systems of
production that support ecological function and social inclusion.
This calls for institutional innovation and scientific capacity building which is, again, specific to the needs of
particular communities and particular environments.
With these comments in mind, I commend the intent to support the sustainable development agenda with a
strong science-policy interface and look forward to further discussion about the role of science in the HLPF.
There is a great deal we do not yet know about the intersections of social, economic and environmental change,
or the effectiveness of policy interventions operating at these intersections. As the science-policy interface
develops, it must be just as focused on directing research and capacity building effort to areas of greatest need as
it is on informing policy-makers and other stakeholders. The relationships must be truly participatory and multidirectional.
Thank you.
I would like to start by endorsing the comments of my colleague Professor Kasuga about the importance of
multidisciplinary, global research programs like Future Earth. These are critical both for the knowledge they
provide directly and for their contribution to mobilizing scientific effort more broadly. All countries should be
looking to programs like Future Earth and considering their implications for national research priorities and
investment.
As we embark on the journey to 2030 we will quite rightly build statistical capacity and report data across a wide
range of indicators relevant to sustainable development goals and targets. These data provide the foundation for
monitoring and accountability. But it is important to remember that indicators have their limits. In isolation,
indicators don’t tell us about:
The underlying causes of social, economic and environmental change;
How specific policies and programs influence development outcomes; or
What is over the horizon that might support or threaten the sustainability agenda.
For this level of understanding we rely on complementary science programs, and by science here I of course refer
to all the sciences – social, natural, engineering, and so on.
I don’t have long so I won’t peel off a long list of issues relevant to the future of the sustainable development
agenda. For these, I commend to you Chapter 5 of the 2016 Global Sustainable Development Report. In this short
presentation I want to provide just two examples of issues that potentially challenge our existing understanding of
the relationships between social, environmental and economic change and which therefore illustrate the
importance of strengthening the science-policy interface.
Example 1.
The mass coral bleaching which has played out over the last few months demonstrates that preparation for the
future must take account of the fact we are already living with profound environmental change.
While key ecosystems in all regions of the world are under pressure I wish to cast a spotlight on the particular
impacts of climate change in the tropics. As existing climate zones shift poleward, people and ecosystems in the
equatorial tropics face the prospect of climate states that have never before been experienced by human
communities. At the same time, the semi-arid dry tropical edge is expanding. The implications for built
environments, agriculture and food security, biodiversity conservation, and so on, are immense.
Complicating this further, global population growth is concentrated in the tropics. By 2050, it is forecast that over
50% of the world’s population and two thirds of the world’s children will live in the tropics. Meanwhile, progress
on poverty alleviation in the tropical zone lags significantly behind the rest of the world. And as we all well know,
poverty is strongly associated with vulnerability to disaster and infectious disease. It can be argued that tropical
infectious diseases are primarily the product of poverty, not temperature or precipitation, but they will impact
more people nonetheless unless progress is made on all fronts.
Achieving the SDGs requires a relentless focus on understanding relationships between environmental, social and
economic change that may otherwise go unrecognized. Investment in science and technology must reflect the
unique characteristics and needs of all climate zones. Existing investment is weighted overwhelmingly to the
temperate zone with tropical regions accounting for an estimated 5% of global research and development
expenditure and 10% of science and engineering graduates. This imbalance must be addressed.
Example 2.
While we are relatively comfortable, I think, considering the implications of such profound environmental change
for settlements and infrastructure. Even agriculture. But we are much less comfortable contemplating the
implications of systemic environmental change for less intensively managed ecosystems such as protected areas
and, for want of a better word, wilderness. We have little choice though, if we are to maintain the integrity of
ecosystem processes, minimize biodiversity loss, and indeed protect any of the values we associate with
ecosystems, but to give careful consideration of how to assist their adaptation to change.
This raises concern that ideas like ‘assisted adaptation’ might be used to justify a weakening of ecosystem
conservation measures. For this reason, the question of how ecosystems might be supported to adapt needs to be
accompanied by the question of how ecosystem adaptation can best be governed. For every biological or
ecological question there is a philosophical and an institutional question.
People, similarly, need support to assist adaptation. And they need support to pursue different development
aspirations and pathways.
UN agreements such as the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People rest on the principle there is no one
model of the ideal society. The Declaration states very clearly that indigenous people have a right to selfdetermination,
to decide for themselves what they want out of the development project.
It is not being indigenous that makes a person vulnerable to poverty. It is the denial of access to political
authority, secure property rights, and other resources. This is true of women, people living with disability, and so
on.
Among the resources that either alleviate or deepen vulnerability we must count access to appropriate
technology. By ‘appropriate’ I don’t mean small-scale or low tech. I mean fit for purpose. And in the context of
sustainable development, I mean the institutional and scientific capacity to integrate technology in systems of
production that support ecological function and social inclusion.
This calls for institutional innovation and scientific capacity building which is, again, specific to the needs of
particular communities and particular environments.
With these comments in mind, I commend the intent to support the sustainable development agenda with a
strong science-policy interface and look forward to further discussion about the role of science in the HLPF.
There is a great deal we do not yet know about the intersections of social, economic and environmental change,
or the effectiveness of policy interventions operating at these intersections. As the science-policy interface
develops, it must be just as focused on directing research and capacity building effort to areas of greatest need as
it is on informing policy-makers and other stakeholders. The relationships must be truly participatory and multidirectional.
Thank you.