Mike Berners-Lee and Simon Sharpe

Expert on sustainability and climate change Professor Mike Berners Lee and economist and climate champion Simon Sharpe discuss what urgently needs to change if we are to truly and honestly tackle the environmental threat to our planet.

Berners-Lee, a professor in the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University, says in A Climate of Truth: Why We Need It and How to Get It that we must step back to look at the challenge from new angles and dig deeper under the surface to find the root causes. He says radically higher standards of honesty from politics, media and business is the single most important thing for those seeking change. And he looks at what we can all do to maximise our impact and be part of the evolution that humanity urgently needs. Berners-Lee is also author of How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything and There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make-or-Break Years.

Sharpe is director of economics for the UN climate champions team and a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. He played a leading role in the UK’s presidency of the COP26 climate change talks in 2020-21. In Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change, he argues that while science is pulling its weight, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles and economics has been fighting for the wrong side. He says we must rethink our strategies in science, economics and diplomacy so that we can act fast enough to stay safe.