Sir David King | |
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.jpg) King in 2019 | |
| Born | David Anthony King (1939-08-12)12 August 1939 (age 85)[1] |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Education | St John's College, Johannesburg[1] |
| Alma mater | University of the Witwatersrand (BSc; PhD 1963) |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | A Study Of The Ammonia Synthesis Over Vanadium Nitride, Correlated With The Structure Of The Catalyst (1963) |
| Website | www |
Sir David Anthony King (born 12 August 1939)[1] is a South African-born Britishchemist, academic, and head of theClimate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG).
King first taught atImperial College, London, theUniversity of East Anglia, and was then Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry (1974–1988) at theUniversity of Liverpool. He held the1920 Chair of Physical Chemistry at theUniversity of Cambridge from 1988 to 2006, and wasMaster ofDowning College, Cambridge, from 1995 to 2000: he is nowemeritus professor. While at Cambridge, he was successively afellow ofSt John's College, Downing College, andQueens' College. Moving to theUniversity of Oxford, he was Director of theSmith School of Enterprise and the Environment from 2008 to 2012, and a Fellow ofUniversity College, Oxford, from 2009 to 2012. He was additionally President ofCollegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, Italy (2008–2011), andChancellor of the University of Liverpool (2010–2013).
Outside of academia, King wasChief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of theGovernment Office for Science from 2000 to 2007. He was then senior scientific adviser toUBS, a Swiss investment bank and financial services company, from 2008 to 2013. From 2013 to 2017, he returned to working with the UK Government as Special Representative for Climate Change to theForeign Secretary. He was also Chairman of the government'sFuture Cities Catapult from 2013 to 2016.
King was born on 12 August 1939 in South Africa, son of Arnold Tom Wallis King, of Johannesburg, director of a paint company, and Patricia Mary Bede, née Vardy.[2][3][4] His elder brother, Michael Wallis King (born 1937), was director of theFirstRand bank and vice-chair of the multinational mining companyAnglo American plc.[5] King was educated atSt John's College, an all-boys private school inJohannesburg. He studied atUniversity of the Witwatersrand, graduating with aBachelor of Science (BSc) degree and then aDoctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1963.[6]
After his PhD, King moved to the United Kingdom where he was a Shell Scholar at Imperial College, London, from 1963 to 1966.[6] He was then alecturer in the School of Chemical Sciences of the University of East Anglia from 1966 to 1974.[6][7] He was appointed Brunner Professor ofPhysical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 1974. He was a member of the National Executive of theAssociation of University Teachers from 1970 until 1978, and served as its president for the 1976/77 academic year.[6]
In 1988, King was appointed 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He subsequently served as Head of theUniversity's Department of Chemistry from 1993 to 2000, and was its director of research from 2005 to 2011. When he first moved to Cambridge in 1988, he was elected aFellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He moved from St John's when he was elected Master of Downing College, Cambridge, in 1995. He stepped down as Master in 2000, and was then a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 2001 to 2008.[6]
From 2008 to 2012, King was Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.[1] He was also a Fellow of University College, Oxford, from 2009 to 2012.[6] He was President of Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, Italy, from 2008 to 2011,[6][8] and was Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 2010 to 2013.[6][9]
King has published over 500 papers on his research in chemical physics and on science and policy.[1][10]
During his time at Cambridge, King had, together withGabor Somorjai andGerhard Ertl, shaped the discipline ofsurface science and helped to explain the underlying principles ofheterogeneous catalysis. However, the 2007Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Ertl alone.[11]
King was the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of theGovernment Office for Science from October 2000 to 31 December 2007, under prime ministersTony Blair andGordon Brown.[12] In that time, he raised the profile of the need for governments to act onclimate change and was instrumental in creating the £1 billionEnergy Technologies Institute. In 2008 he co-authoredThe Hot Topic on this subject.[13]
During his tenure as Chief Scientific Adviser, he raised public awareness for climate change and initiated several foresight studies. As director of the government's Foresight Programme, he created an in-depthhorizon scanning process which advised government on a wide range of long-term issues, from flooding to obesity.[14][15] He also chaired the government's Global Science and Innovation Forum from its inception. King advised the government on issues including:the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic 2001; post 9/11 risks to the UK;GM foods; energy provision; and innovation and wealth creation. He was heavily involved in the government's Science and Innovation Strategy 2004–2014. He suggested that scientists should honour aHippocratic Oath for Scientists.[citation needed]
In April 2008, King joined UBS, a Swiss investment bank, as senior science advisor.[6][16] He left UBS to return to the UK government when he was appointed the Foreign Secretary's Special Representative for Climate Change in September 2013.[10][17]
From 2013 to 2016, King was the first chairman of the Future Cities Catapult, a government-funded body conducting research intosmart cities.[18][19]
In May 2020, in response to theCOVID-19 pandemic, King formed and ledIndependent SAGE, a committee of unpaid experts which acts as a "shadow" of the UK government'sSAGE group to address concerns of lack of transparency and political influence on that body.[20]
In his role as scientific advisor to the UK government King was outspoken on the subject of climate change, saying "I see climate change as the greatest challenges facing Britain and the World in the 21st century"[21] and "climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today – more serious even than the threat of terrorism".[22][23]
He strongly supports the work of theIPCC, saying in 2004 that the2001 synthesis report "is the best current statement on the state of play of the science of climate change, and that really does represent 1,000 scientists".[24]
King criticised theBush administration for what he saw as its failures in climate change policy, saying it is "failing to take up the challenge of global warming".[25]
In 2004, King gave evidence to a House of Commonsselect committee confirming his view that "on a global and geological scale that climate change is the most serious problem we are faced with this century", and illustrated it with a statement that "Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals".[26][27] TheIndependent on Sunday reported that King had at a later event compared current and projected carbon dioxide levels with the record over the past 60 million years, and in an indirect quote suggested King implied that Antarctica was likely to be the world's "only" habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked.[28] At the end of the 2007 programme "The Great Global Warming Swindle", broadcast onChannel 4,Fred Singer ridiculed the reported view of the "chief scientist"; King's complaint toOfcom that the programme was unfair and had not given a chance to clarify was upheld, despite Channel 4's arguments that King was not named and had not challenged earlier reporting.[29]
King became head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group in 2021, basing public meetings on a similar format to Independent SAGE, and publishing reports advising emission cuts andcarbon dioxide removal.[30] He promotes the CCAG's 4R planet pathway:Reducing emissions;Removing the excessgreenhouse gases (GHGs) already in the atmosphere;Repairing ecosystems; strengthening local and globalResilience against inevitable climate impacts.[31][32]
King toldThe Independent newspaper in February 2007 "he agreed that organic food was no safer than chemically-treated food" and openly supported a study by theManchester Business School that implicatedorganic farming practices in unfavourable CO2 comparisons with conventional chemical farming.
In an article published inThe Guardian in February 2009, King is quoted as saying that "future historians might look back on our particular recent past and see the Iraq war as the first of the conflicts of this kind – the first of the resource wars" and that this was "certainly the view" (that the invasion was motivated by a desire to secure energy supplies) he held at the time of the invasion, along with "quite a few people in government".[33]
King is a strong supporter ofnuclear electricity generation,[34] arguing that it is a safe, technically feasible solution that can help to reduce emissions from the utilities sector now, while the development of alternative low-carbon solutions is incentivised.[35] In the transport sector, King has warned governments that conventional oil resources are more scarce than they believe and thatpeak oil might approach sooner than expected.[36] Moreover, he has criticisedfirst generation biofuels due to the effect onfood prices and subsequent effect on the developing world. He strongly supportssecond generation biofuels, however, which are manufactured from inedible biomass such ascorn stover, wood chips or straw. These biofuels are not made from food sources[37] (seefood vs fuel).
King is a member of theGlobal Apollo Programme and headed its public launch in 2015. The programme calls for multinational research into reducing the cost of low-carbon electricity generation.
King is a Distinguished Supporter ofHumanists UK.[38]
In July 2020 King advocated for school closures in the UK until covid cases were reduced to 1 in a million.[39]
King wasknighted in the2003 New Year honours.[40] In 2009, he was made a Chevalier of theLégion d'Honneur by the French government.[10]
In 1991 he received the BVC Medal and Prize, awarded bythe British Vacuum Council.[citation needed] He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1991,[41] a Foreign Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002,[10] and an HonoraryFellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng) in 2006.[42]
King appears in the filmThe Age of Stupid, released in February 2009, talking aboutHurricane Katrina. He was portrayed byDavid Calder in the 2021BBC television filmThe Trick.[43]
By his first marriage, which ended in divorce, King has two sons. In 1983, he married, secondly, charity administrator and former head of a commercial law team,[44] Jane Margaret, daughter ofgeneral practitioner Hans Eugen Lichtenstein,OBE,[45] ofLlandrindod Wells,Powys, Wales, a Holocaust survivor from a family that owned leather goods shops and an umbrella factory inBerlin. They have a son and a daughter.[46][47]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Master ofDowning College, Cambridge 1995–2000 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor ofUniversity of Liverpool 2009–2017 | Succeeded by |
| Government offices | ||
| Preceded by SirRobert May | Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government 2000–2007 | Succeeded by |
| Professional and academic associations | ||
| Preceded by | President of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science 2007–2008 | Succeeded by |
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