Two decades ago, economist Sir Nicholas Stern was asked by then chancellor Gordon Brown to carry out a review on the economics of climate change. The 700-page document that he produced would become a landmark shift in how climate change is framed: that it is an economic issue, and not just an environmental issue; that the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of action; and that climate change is "the greatest market failure the world has seen".
The Stern Review would go on to shape UK and EU climate policy for decades, helping to mainstream key decarbonisation tools such as carbon pricing and green investment. The years since have seen the price of green technologies plummet and major achievements like the 2015 Paris Agreement, which has given the world a framework for decarbonisation. But there has also been another, less positive story: of emissions continuing to rise year-on-year, and of extreme weather resulting from the climate crisis shifting from a future problem to a present emergency.
