Dear Jason

Thank you for your email. 

As promised, the participants in the meeting held on 5 February made a report to Council on our conversation. Council welcomed the fact that the meeting had taken place, and agreed with us that your letter and participation had provided a useful challenge and opportunity to reflect on the Society’s profile and activity in the climate change domain. 

As we discussed, the Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity and as such, its most important roles in this domain are in promoting high quality research work and in securing a richer evidential base to seek to create system level change by directly influencing policy makers and decision-makers of all kinds.

As you know, the Society funds outstanding researchers in all disciplines, including climate science. It has conducted a series of policy projects aiming at synthesising the evidence with issues presented by transition to net zero. A number of reports have followed from these, from a Geoengineering the climate: science, governance and uncertainty | Royal Society report (2009), to our Large-scale electricity storage report (2023) that considered the use of large-scale electricity storage when power is supplied predominantly by wind and solar.  The Royal Society, as you would expect, has also been actively responding to open government consultations on the net zero transition: for example the role of hydrogen in achieving net zero (2021) and decarbonising heat in homes (2020). As well as influencing at national scale the Society has worked actively with counterparts to influence internationally, for example working with other national academies to influence G7 and G20 processes ( 

The Royal Society and partner science academies launch G7 science agenda ahead of UK hosted leaders’ summit | Royal Society) and most recently working with Lord Stern and other experts on how the economics discipline can improve its assessments of the impacts of climate change to better account for the latest climate science. Building on this report, the Royal Society and International Science Council co-hosted an official United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) side event at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates: Climate change economics: Summary report | Royal Society

Other programmes in the Society’s portfolio also play a part and the Society has published accessible Q&A material on scientific aspects of climate change and biodiversity specifically . The Society conducts extensive public engagement with science activity, and our schools programmes are particularly important here – we fund (“Tomorrow’s climate scientists”) multiple school practical science projects that explore aspects of climate change and biodiversity loss: https://royalsociety.org/grants/partnership-grants/unique-scheme-benefits/tomorrows-climate-scientists/#:~:text=An%20extension%20to%20the%20Partnership,address%20climate%20and%20biodiversity%20issues. 

I can report on a number of further developments since our meeting: 

The launch of a pilot scheme that will see research scientists work collaboratively with local communities to address climate change and biodiversity: Royal Society launches pilot scheme to engage with local communities on climate change and biodiversity loss | Royal Society

A number of the exhibits at this year’s Summer Science Exhibition in July will also address environmental challenges: https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/summer-science-exhibition/all-exhibits/.  In addition, we have announced our new Places of Science grant recipients, many of whom are working on climate change impacts at a local level https://royalsociety.org/news/2024/03/places-of-science-2024/  There are also some forthcoming relevant scientific meetings. https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/scientific/

The Society has overhauled its website in ways that help synthesise all this work more effectively and more prominently. The website gives a clearer thematic treatment to the Society’s work, and you will see that “Key work on climate change” is now a prominent feature on the home page: www.royalsociety.org .

The Society embarked last year on a programme to review its own environmental impact, and has now commissioned an independent study of its own carbon and biodiversity footprints with a view to reducing these. 

The Society’s policy work continues to develop a richer evidential base. We have an ongoing project for example examining how to reduce the carbon footprint of the chemical industry. We continue to convene meetings bringing together scientists and the finance sector to examining how the sector can better account for environmental impacts, indeed we  – along with the New York Stock Exchange – were the conveners for the recent launch of the beta framework for the Task Force on Nature Related Financial Disclosures, and are currently partnering with the City of London on a series of meetings bringing scientists and financiers together to explore methodologies for measuring and monitoring the finance sector’s environmental impacts. 

Council took the view that whilst we continue our programme of policy and influencing work on climate, low carbon technologies, and biodiversity amongst other areas with a view to bringing the best available evidence to bear to bring about system level change, it would not be appropriate for the Society to make a specific condemnation of any one sector within a complex system where multiple actors need to engage urgently with these challenges. We are however working now on sharpening the Society’s communications on all of our evidential work so that we can be as influential as possible on these issues in the run-up to the forthcoming general election.

Council and my colleagues who joined us at our meeting would like to convey our gratitude to you for the opportunity to reflect on the Society’s role and what might be done to enhance our activity regarding this most urgent question.  

Jon.

Prof Jon Keating FRS

Treasurer