On this day, 15 July, in 2005 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown announced that he had asked Sir Nicholas Stern to lead a major review of the economics of climate change, to understand more comprehensively the nature of the economic challenges and how they can be met, in the UK and globally.
Stern produced the report- released in late 2006, and this was for a while used as a “don’t worry, there’s now a report that shows business it should act, so, you know, business will defo act” kind of thing. And some nice diagrams.
Stern paid a flying visit to Australia, and the embattled Prime Minister John Howard dismissed him for being (checks notes) English. Yeah, it all got that crazy.
Why this matters.
These reports come and go. We should remember that when the next one comes along, as it soon will.
But the pictures were nice. This one got “traction.”
What happened next?
Yeah. You know what happened next. The UK Climate Change Act (2008). The stunning success that was the 2009 Copenhagen COP. The rapid decarbonisation of essential industry. The transformation of economies and societies to adapt to inevitable change, and mitigation to minimise the damage, reparations for those affected. The land of milk and honey, the sunny uplands. Er, yeah, nah.