Rethinking the science, economics and diplomacy of climate change

This lecture will argue that progress in the battle to avoid dangerous climate change is being held back by inappropriate ways of thinking about the problem and its solutions.

A reductionist tradition in economics has obstructed understanding of the system-level phenomena – innovation, structural change, and technology transitions – that are central to the task of moving away from fossil fuels.

Translated into the field of diplomacy, this has led to countries being treated as if they were entirely separate entities, each having full control over their emissions, instead of recognising the opportunities for cooperation to bring about systemic change in the global economy.

At the same time, a side effect of taking a system apart to study it is that we forget that we are part of it. When human agency and interests are left out of the picture, science fails to tell us the full extent of the risks that we face, and economics and diplomacy are blind to the ways that we can create self-accelerating progress toward solutions.

These failings are not inevitable. A different way of thinking, based on the understanding of complex systems, can bring to the foreground the feedbacks, tipping points, and system transitions in the climate and the economy that represent both the greatest dangers and the greatest opportunities for change.

Simon Sharpe

Simon Sharpe is Managing Director of S-Curve Economics, a non-profit research organisation dedicated to advancing understanding of the economics and diplomacy of the low carbon transition.

He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester, and author of ‘Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change’, which was listed by the Times and Financial Times as one of the best environment books of the year 2023.

He was previously Deputy Director of the UK government’s COP26 Unit, where he led international campaigns on energy, transport, land use, science and innovation.

His other roles in government included serving as head of private office to Ministers of State for Energy and Climate Change, and diplomatic postings to China and India. He has published academic papers and policy reports on climate change risk assessment, economics, decision-making, and diplomacy.