Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics at UN Climate Champions

Five Degrees of Change

Having trained as a physicist, Simon Sharpe decided to join the British civil service back in 2009 because he wanted the opportunity to solve “big problems”.

Sharpe has since become something of a climate missionary within the British government, working on climate change at several different departments over the years, from energy to enterprise, and even representing the UK at the UN climate negotiations.

Sharpe has now written a book called Five Times Faster, based on the simple premise that if global warming is to be kept below safe levels, then we will have to reduce emissions five times faster in the next decade than we have done in the previous decade.

For his policy changes, he chose to develop risk assessment in the climate science space, to shift our economic modelling away from dated techniques to ones more consistent with a diverse and changing economy, and to move climate diplomacy towards getting agreement on action in individual sectors.

For his personal change he chose to increase biodiversity in his garden and to take a zero emissions approach to his barbeque.