Alan Finkel tells Senate estimates he only found out about the shedding of 350 staff from climate change research when it was publicly announced
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| Australia's chief scientist, Alan Finkel. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP |
Australia's chief scientist, Alan Finkel, said he was not told about cuts to CSIRO's climate change research prior to it being publicly announced, and said continuing the organisation's work would not be simple.
At Senate estimates on Wednesday, Finkel was asked by Labor senator Kim Carr when he found out the CSIRO would be cutting 350 staff over two years from climate change research programs. "When they were publicly announced," Finkel responded.
Finkel said since the announcement he had been discussing with leaders of other research bodies, including universities and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), as to how the CSIRO's research could be maintained.
Director of the BoM, Rob Vertessy, told Senate estimates on Monday he was only told of the cuts 24 hours before they were publicly announced. Vertessy said if the CSIRO were to drop its climate modelling work "it would leave a hole in the national development capability".
Prior to being questioned, Finkel delivered a statement addressing the CSIRO cuts. "There is no question that Australia needs a continuous and highly effective commitment to climate science, both to meet our national needs and to fulfil our international commitments," he said.
"Our most immediate national concern must be to ensure that long-term data collections will be funded and staffed, and that the climate modelling capabilities developed by the CSIRO will continue to be made available for scientists to use and refine.
"I am pleased that the CSIRO has this week committed to working with stakeholders to develop a transition plan to maintain this capacity."
Finkel said other research institutions potentially had the capacity to take on some of the CSIRO cuts, but it would not be simple.
"I'm not saying it's a simple case of absorbing the changes that have happened. But I am saying that those changes are happening in the context of a lot of capacity ... I'm not in any way dismissing the significance of the changes at the CSIRO," he said.
Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW, told Guardian Australia on Tuesday there was no way a university could take on that responsibility.
"I mean I run a centre of excellence which is the best-funded university capability in the country and we do not remotely have the capability to be the custodians for the climate modelling systems," Pitman said. "We live and breathe on a three-year funding cycle with an 80% failure rate. You cannot run a national capability in that environment."
Last week chief executive of the CSIRO, Larry Marshall, told staff that 350 positions would be cut as the organisation moved away from researching climate change. Scientists around the world have since spoken out against the move.
On Monday, the World Climate Research Program, part of the World Meteorological Organisation, put out a statement criticising the cuts.
"We read that these cuts occur in the name of innovation," it said. "One can hardly imagine a worse and more backward step toward any of those laudable goals than ignoring climate and discarding climate research."
Paul Durack of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US has been collecting signatures from international climate scientists for an open letter to the Australian government calling for the CSIRO capabilities threatened by the cuts to be saved. More than 2,100 signatures have been collected so far.
The CSIRO Staff Association has lodged a formal dispute with management over the job losses, claiming CSIRO management breached their enterprise agreement by failing to consult with staff over changes that could impact on their jobs.
A spokesman for the association said a meeting of members next week would consider industrial action.
Links
- CSIRO chief defends climate research cuts as staff weigh up industrial action
- Analysis CSIRO climate cuts attack a national treasure when we need it most
- CSIRO chief defends climate research cuts as staff weigh up industrial action
- CSIRO climate cuts will cost Australia dear, world scientists warn government
- Senior CSIRO scientist derides chief executive's claim climate change is 'answered'
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