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Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change
We need to act five times faster to avoid dangerous climate change. As Greenland melts, Australia burns, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, we think we know who the villains oil companies, consumerism, weak political leaders. But what if the real blocks to progress are the ideas and institutions that are supposed to be helping us? Five Times Faster is an inside story from Simon Sharpe, who has spent ten years at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy. In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change, science is pulling its punches, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles, and economics has been fighting for the other side. This provocative and engaging book sets out how we should rethink our strategies and reorganise our efforts in the fields of science, economics, and diplomacy, so that we can act fast enough to stay safe.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published June 6, 2023
87 people are currently reading
1,176 people want to read
About the author
Simon Sharpe
1 book2 followersSimon Sharpe is Director of Economics for the Climate Champions Team and a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. He has published influential reports and created ground-breaking international projects in climate change risk assessment, economics, and diplomacy.
He played a leading role in the UK’s Presidency of the COP26 climate change talks in 2020-21, as Deputy Director of the UK government’s COP26 Unit, where he created global campaigns that led to significant international agreements on ending coal power, moving to zero emission vehicles, and protecting forests. His other roles in government included leading international climate change strategy, establishing low-carbon growth as a priority in the UK’s industrial strategy, and serving as head of private office to a Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change. He also served on diplomatic postings in China and India.
In 2013-15, he created an international climate change risk assessment project, working with experts from the UK, USA, China, India, and other countries. In addition to influencing the understanding and assessment of climate change risk in its partner countries, its findings were extensively cited by the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary General. It also inspired new thinking in the academic community, with a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change using it to argue that ‘climate science needs to take risk assessment much more seriously’. More recently, he has worked with partners in the UK, China, India and Brazil to create the world’s first government-backed project to apply complexity economics to climate change. His paper on economic tipping points, ‘Upward-scaling tipping cascades to meet climate goals: plausible grounds for hope’, was the most downloaded paper in Climate Policy journal in 2021.
He played a leading role in the UK’s Presidency of the COP26 climate change talks in 2020-21, as Deputy Director of the UK government’s COP26 Unit, where he created global campaigns that led to significant international agreements on ending coal power, moving to zero emission vehicles, and protecting forests. His other roles in government included leading international climate change strategy, establishing low-carbon growth as a priority in the UK’s industrial strategy, and serving as head of private office to a Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change. He also served on diplomatic postings in China and India.
In 2013-15, he created an international climate change risk assessment project, working with experts from the UK, USA, China, India, and other countries. In addition to influencing the understanding and assessment of climate change risk in its partner countries, its findings were extensively cited by the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary General. It also inspired new thinking in the academic community, with a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change using it to argue that ‘climate science needs to take risk assessment much more seriously’. More recently, he has worked with partners in the UK, China, India and Brazil to create the world’s first government-backed project to apply complexity economics to climate change. His paper on economic tipping points, ‘Upward-scaling tipping cascades to meet climate goals: plausible grounds for hope’, was the most downloaded paper in Climate Policy journal in 2021.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 21, 2023
Five Times Faster is both a history of global climate change and adjacent politics and a proposal of a better framework for approaching them in the future. The book is far easier to read and understand than one might expect, being centred on Sharpe's own experience working on national and international climate diplomacy and explained in terms quite accessible to anyone somewhat interested in these themes.
From rethinking the science, where the author explains the need do reframe the scientific investigation and communication in order to transmit to the political agents and even the general public exactly what we are going through, the potential risks and actions we may take to avoid them. As someone with enough scientific background I can certainly confirm that a question or point of view can influence quite a lot the way one interprets the data and even the way the future investigation follows from it.
In the economics chapter, Sharpe goes to the roots of current political economy discourse to illustrate how we are caged in a system that forces interpretations and expectations that are completely at odds with what climate science and experience in political intervention show us. I'd add that equilibrium economics is just blatantly the wrong set up for us to live in. Just reset this game and start over.
In diplomacy we're shown how conversations between nations and between governments or organizations and the industrial and financial actors happen. Sharpe's experience really shines here and the stories he tells are quite informative and very supportive of the importance he attributes to the need to reframe how these things are done.
All in all, a good book to understand how we're living decades after we've found out about human-driven climate change and still locked in some of the most basic and obvious fights, problems, tendencies and that really has a proposal for a better way to work on what we need to do to better our chances.
From rethinking the science, where the author explains the need do reframe the scientific investigation and communication in order to transmit to the political agents and even the general public exactly what we are going through, the potential risks and actions we may take to avoid them. As someone with enough scientific background I can certainly confirm that a question or point of view can influence quite a lot the way one interprets the data and even the way the future investigation follows from it.
In the economics chapter, Sharpe goes to the roots of current political economy discourse to illustrate how we are caged in a system that forces interpretations and expectations that are completely at odds with what climate science and experience in political intervention show us. I'd add that equilibrium economics is just blatantly the wrong set up for us to live in. Just reset this game and start over.
In diplomacy we're shown how conversations between nations and between governments or organizations and the industrial and financial actors happen. Sharpe's experience really shines here and the stories he tells are quite informative and very supportive of the importance he attributes to the need to reframe how these things are done.
All in all, a good book to understand how we're living decades after we've found out about human-driven climate change and still locked in some of the most basic and obvious fights, problems, tendencies and that really has a proposal for a better way to work on what we need to do to better our chances.
June 5, 2023
This book persuasively explains how asking the wrong questions makes it impossible to put the right information in the hands of policymakers when it comes to climate change. It's wordy, which makes it a bit of a slog for laypeople. But it does a great job of reframing the approach governments need to take to solve this urgent problem.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
September 9, 2023
A book on climate change that's actually somewhat hopeful?! I was surprised too.
May 27, 2023
A fascinating insight into the science, economics, diplomacy of climate change from someone who has lived the frontline of international diplomacy. Sharp outlines where rethinking is required and gives real-world examples which are inspiring both in the change achieved and the clarity on principles needed to deliver similar results in other sectors.
March 22, 2024
The topics covered were fascinating and contained new insights for me and fellow readers. A new way for us to think about risk assessment, science, tipping points, economics, diplomacy and international relations. A proposal that diplomacy is a way forward to meet the Paris Agreement to keep global warming to 1.5. Clearly written in an engaging style from personal experience - not a scientist or climate activist but a civil servant engaged in diplomacy. An insider insight to the negotiations around COP26. A straightforward appraisal of UK’s role in diplomacy and the lead it took in changing the basis for negotiations between states. So why not 5*? Not for the content - all excellent. It was what wasn’t said. No discussion of biodiversity. Of the role of lobbyists, or the media. Of the oceans. Of the fast fashion industry - one of the greatest polluters and responsible for such destruction to people and planet globally. Or alternative economic theory like Doughnut Economics and Modern Monetary theory. I wanted at least an acknowledgment of these topics and players. The power of the financial sector, the fossil fuel players, agribusiness is hardly mentioned and are powerful enough to derail diplomacy. The mess caused by neo-liberalism and bureaucracy is hinted at but not explored. I found Sharpe over-optimistic and maybe a little smug. I could hear him briefing ministers. So not 5* but I’m really glad I’ve read the book as were my fellow readers in my climate bookclub. We all enjoyed the book and learnt a lot so don’t be put off by the rating. Try it for yourself. Worth it for the debunking of neo-classical economics and the explanation of tipping points.
October 23, 2024
It’s very hard to write a good climate policy book; so much has already been said and the discourse on how to address climate change is often premised on technical details. Sharpe’s book is mainly valuable as a perspective from a civil servant’s point of view.
It does a decent job of covering in a simple way some of the economic theory. It provides a critique worth heeding regarding one type of economic analysis. There is some degree of straw-manning (which the author acknowledges).
But the discussion over-extrapolates from a few recent papers (from outside of economics) to make questionable claims with high confidence. There are statements so simplistic as to be cringe inducing such as that economists do not know what a feedback is.
One section tries to present a welfare analysis of subsidies and carbon prices (a topic that has been extensively studied in the field) while ignoring the difference between government revenues and producer revenues (ending with the strange claim that subsidies cost less than a carbon price).
It does a decent job of covering in a simple way some of the economic theory. It provides a critique worth heeding regarding one type of economic analysis. There is some degree of straw-manning (which the author acknowledges).
But the discussion over-extrapolates from a few recent papers (from outside of economics) to make questionable claims with high confidence. There are statements so simplistic as to be cringe inducing such as that economists do not know what a feedback is.
One section tries to present a welfare analysis of subsidies and carbon prices (a topic that has been extensively studied in the field) while ignoring the difference between government revenues and producer revenues (ending with the strange claim that subsidies cost less than a carbon price).
October 19, 2023
The book touches on a very important topic and raises awareness about the need to act much faster to fight global warming. It also makes valid criticisms, particularly on economics establishment.
However, I'm giving it three stars mostly because I found it difficult to read -- I often struggled to remain focused when he was revisiting for the tenth time the same initiative of Norway to introduce electric cars. In addition, it spends zero efforts to discuss the negative impacts of the proposed solutions, such as the massive pressure on the earth from mining to extract the materials necessary for electrification.
However, I'm giving it three stars mostly because I found it difficult to read -- I often struggled to remain focused when he was revisiting for the tenth time the same initiative of Norway to introduce electric cars. In addition, it spends zero efforts to discuss the negative impacts of the proposed solutions, such as the massive pressure on the earth from mining to extract the materials necessary for electrification.
September 18, 2023
Review of Five Times Faster by Simon Sharpe
Simon Sharpe is a UK civil servant who has spent 10 years working on climate change. He has now written an important book that’s been well and widely reviewed. He is an engaging speaker who can be heard via you-tube. Sharpe adopts a slogan on a sign carried by a 7-year old protester outside the UK Parliament: “We’ll stop protesting when you stop being so shit.” He writes: “This book is about why we are still being so shit about dealing with climate change.” (Page 3) Considering his long history of climate change diplomacy, this is quite courageous as well as alarming. His reasons, stated and argued in 300 pages, does not target the politicians as I would have expected, but blames the way scientific data is routinely presented by climate scientists (though Sharpe would never use that word ‘blame.’), and uses the whole mid-section of the book to criticize ‘Economics’ in nine chapters starting with “Worse than Useless.” The third part of the book is “Diplomacy,” starting with “A Foreseeable Failure,” which provides a sense of bleakness and the difference between expectations and results over ten tough years. And yet he makes the best of it and sets out a hopeful vision for the future, even though in the real world carbon emissions have grown steadily over the same time period and use of fossil fuels shows no signs of slowing down.
His title “Five Times Faster” is justified by the claim that over twenty years, emissions have decreased by “a measly 1.5% per year,” but the magic number - as he puts it: “the just about safe and stable” number - must be 8%. He provides three sources for this statement, all of which I checked but was none the wiser. However, I can easily understand why ‘heads of state,’ indeed policy-makers generally, are baffled by the IPCC Reports, which are the major instruments by which climate scientists communicate with politicians. Each report is several thousand pages long, but are conveniently summarized in a 48-page 28,000 word “Summary for Policy Makers.” As policy makers are people too, I assumed that the Summary would be like what Jeremy Irons, playing the ultimate boss in the movie “Margin Call,” asked for: “Please, speak as you might to a young child, or a golden retriever…” But not a bit of it, and here is an example of what the scientists present to policy makers to guide them:
“GHG emissions trends over 1990–2019 vary widely across regions and over time, and across different stages of development, as shown in Figure SPM.2. Average global per capita net anthropogenic GHG emissions increased from 7.7 to 7.8 tCO2-eq, ranging from 2.6 tCO2-eq to 19 tCO2-eq across regions. Least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have much lower per capita emissions (1.7 tCO2-eq and 4.6 tCO2-eq, respectively) than the global average (6.9 tCO2-eq), excluding CO2-LULUCF.18 (high confidence) (Figure SPM.2) {Figure1.2, Figure 2.9, Figure 2.10, 2.2, Figure TS.4}”
“Projected cumulative future CO2 emissions over the lifetime of existing and currently planned fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement exceed the total cumulative net CO2 emissions in pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot. They are approximately equal to total cumulative net CO2 emissions in pathways that limit warming to 2°C (>67%). (high confidence) {2.7, 3.3}”
Sharpe criticizes this presentation of predictive data not on grounds of its incomprehensibility but because he thinks that policy makers want actual risk assessments not reams of data. Either way, it seems a vast disconnect exists between scientists and politicians. Sharpe is well aware and writes informatively of his ten years of trying to bridge that gap. The gross figures relating to greenhouse gas emissions are testament to that failure. Recently, the U.S. has been hit with devastating fires in Hawaii - we will rebuild, say the brave homeowners; but not insured by us, say the property insurers, who have all but withdrawn from Florida and may withdraw from Hawaii - flooding in the Nevada desert at the Burning Man festival, hurricanes in California, torrential storms and flooding in Florida, heat waves and fires in Canada, the list goes on all over the world. Sharpe says that politicians want to know about risk - what’s the worst that can happen? So that they can prepare, but they don’t get that from the climate scientists. He makes a convincing case.
He also makes a convincing case about current (classical) economic theory, which in the interests of time and space I will not summarize. It’s worth reading and not too long. And there is a growing literature on the same subject. He mounts a trenchant criticism against William Nordhaus, scion of Harvard and Nobel-prize winner who considered that global warming of 3 degrees celsius should be considered quite acceptable by the turn of the century based on a cost-benefit analysis. Even though climate science consider a 3 degree rise would be catastrophic. Even today, we don’t much see estimates of what any given disaster is going to cost, like the Hawaii fires, perhaps because economists factor in the cost of rebuilding as a economic “good.” So a total loss of many people’s wealth is actually a boon under the theory of “creative destruction.”
In his Epilogue, Sharpe accurately summarizes his 300-page book, emphasizing major points. He tells us that climate scientists have so far not developed “proper climate change risk assessments that make clear to heads of government the full extent of the threat.” He does not shrink from our predicament, and says avoiding dangerous climate change “might just conceivably be possible,” but concedes that “the inertia of the UN negotiations process “makes it ever more impenetrable to outsiders.” And also to insiders, it seems. He acknowledges we are in a desperate situation, but finally offers that change “may be difficult but is not impossible. We have done it before and can do it again.” To this end, which is nothing more or less than our survival, Sharpe has made this valuable contribution.
Simon Sharpe is a UK civil servant who has spent 10 years working on climate change. He has now written an important book that’s been well and widely reviewed. He is an engaging speaker who can be heard via you-tube. Sharpe adopts a slogan on a sign carried by a 7-year old protester outside the UK Parliament: “We’ll stop protesting when you stop being so shit.” He writes: “This book is about why we are still being so shit about dealing with climate change.” (Page 3) Considering his long history of climate change diplomacy, this is quite courageous as well as alarming. His reasons, stated and argued in 300 pages, does not target the politicians as I would have expected, but blames the way scientific data is routinely presented by climate scientists (though Sharpe would never use that word ‘blame.’), and uses the whole mid-section of the book to criticize ‘Economics’ in nine chapters starting with “Worse than Useless.” The third part of the book is “Diplomacy,” starting with “A Foreseeable Failure,” which provides a sense of bleakness and the difference between expectations and results over ten tough years. And yet he makes the best of it and sets out a hopeful vision for the future, even though in the real world carbon emissions have grown steadily over the same time period and use of fossil fuels shows no signs of slowing down.
His title “Five Times Faster” is justified by the claim that over twenty years, emissions have decreased by “a measly 1.5% per year,” but the magic number - as he puts it: “the just about safe and stable” number - must be 8%. He provides three sources for this statement, all of which I checked but was none the wiser. However, I can easily understand why ‘heads of state,’ indeed policy-makers generally, are baffled by the IPCC Reports, which are the major instruments by which climate scientists communicate with politicians. Each report is several thousand pages long, but are conveniently summarized in a 48-page 28,000 word “Summary for Policy Makers.” As policy makers are people too, I assumed that the Summary would be like what Jeremy Irons, playing the ultimate boss in the movie “Margin Call,” asked for: “Please, speak as you might to a young child, or a golden retriever…” But not a bit of it, and here is an example of what the scientists present to policy makers to guide them:
“GHG emissions trends over 1990–2019 vary widely across regions and over time, and across different stages of development, as shown in Figure SPM.2. Average global per capita net anthropogenic GHG emissions increased from 7.7 to 7.8 tCO2-eq, ranging from 2.6 tCO2-eq to 19 tCO2-eq across regions. Least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have much lower per capita emissions (1.7 tCO2-eq and 4.6 tCO2-eq, respectively) than the global average (6.9 tCO2-eq), excluding CO2-LULUCF.18 (high confidence) (Figure SPM.2) {Figure1.2, Figure 2.9, Figure 2.10, 2.2, Figure TS.4}”
“Projected cumulative future CO2 emissions over the lifetime of existing and currently planned fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement exceed the total cumulative net CO2 emissions in pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot. They are approximately equal to total cumulative net CO2 emissions in pathways that limit warming to 2°C (>67%). (high confidence) {2.7, 3.3}”
Sharpe criticizes this presentation of predictive data not on grounds of its incomprehensibility but because he thinks that policy makers want actual risk assessments not reams of data. Either way, it seems a vast disconnect exists between scientists and politicians. Sharpe is well aware and writes informatively of his ten years of trying to bridge that gap. The gross figures relating to greenhouse gas emissions are testament to that failure. Recently, the U.S. has been hit with devastating fires in Hawaii - we will rebuild, say the brave homeowners; but not insured by us, say the property insurers, who have all but withdrawn from Florida and may withdraw from Hawaii - flooding in the Nevada desert at the Burning Man festival, hurricanes in California, torrential storms and flooding in Florida, heat waves and fires in Canada, the list goes on all over the world. Sharpe says that politicians want to know about risk - what’s the worst that can happen? So that they can prepare, but they don’t get that from the climate scientists. He makes a convincing case.
He also makes a convincing case about current (classical) economic theory, which in the interests of time and space I will not summarize. It’s worth reading and not too long. And there is a growing literature on the same subject. He mounts a trenchant criticism against William Nordhaus, scion of Harvard and Nobel-prize winner who considered that global warming of 3 degrees celsius should be considered quite acceptable by the turn of the century based on a cost-benefit analysis. Even though climate science consider a 3 degree rise would be catastrophic. Even today, we don’t much see estimates of what any given disaster is going to cost, like the Hawaii fires, perhaps because economists factor in the cost of rebuilding as a economic “good.” So a total loss of many people’s wealth is actually a boon under the theory of “creative destruction.”
In his Epilogue, Sharpe accurately summarizes his 300-page book, emphasizing major points. He tells us that climate scientists have so far not developed “proper climate change risk assessments that make clear to heads of government the full extent of the threat.” He does not shrink from our predicament, and says avoiding dangerous climate change “might just conceivably be possible,” but concedes that “the inertia of the UN negotiations process “makes it ever more impenetrable to outsiders.” And also to insiders, it seems. He acknowledges we are in a desperate situation, but finally offers that change “may be difficult but is not impossible. We have done it before and can do it again.” To this end, which is nothing more or less than our survival, Sharpe has made this valuable contribution.
January 30, 2025
Simon Sharpe has written a damn useful book on climate change – smart, innovative and original. A public servant and diplomat, Sharpe reoriented his career from counter-terrorism to climate change after being (somewhat inexplicably) motivated by a dry online presentation that convinced him of the profound urgency of the climate crisis. I’m glad he made the switch, because he brings a unique mix of pragmatism, urgency and incisiveness to climate policy.
The book is structured around three main aspects of the climate crisis—science, economics, and diplomacy. These reflect Sharpe’s own career: he’s delivered some pretty hefty reports reframing climate science, debated the economics of climate as the head of the private office for the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, and led major campaigns for the UK Government as part of their COP charm offensive. All three areas offer great potential for acceleration but, he argues, that at the moment we’re asking the wrong questions, leading us to set up the wrong institutions and inevitably proposing the wrong answer to the climate challenge.
Sharpe opens his book with some valuable reflections on climate science, which he argues is foundationally focused on careful scientific inquiry rather than maximizing policy-relevant advice. This leads to a systematic prioritization of confidence over relevance. For example, scientists have chased ever-increasing certainty about humanity’s role in causing climate change, making much of science’s increasing confidence of the impact of human impact on the climate – from ‘discernable’ to ‘extremely likely’. While this ever-increasing confidence may be scientifically important, it tells us little of value for policy making. Governments need to know about worst case scenarios - increases in floods, supercharged fires and crop destruction. But too often climate science has focused on what’s novel and what’s certain, rather than what’s most salient for action. As an alternative, Sharpe advocates risk assessment frameworks used by the Intelligence Community, which prioritize understanding the worst-case scenarios rather than finding solace in increasing certainty of things we already knew.
I’m a bit torn here. I can see Sharpe’s point that climate science – or at least the areas that interface with policy, such as the IPCC - need to be driven primarily by policy utility. There’s no point in focusing on minuscule improvements in certainty about wood combustion processes when the house is burning. But I’m also extremely frustrated by the enduring use of very high emissions scenarios that portent impossible worlds, particularly the use of RCP 8.5. Reality is scary enough, but I often see studies that make their case through fundamentally unrealistic scenarios that see a manyfold increase in coal, peak oil leading to synfuels and a total dearth of renewable deployment.
This isn’t the world we’re living in, and when you make your case by relying on such scenarios, you’re just doing bad science. While scientists can well be accused of chasing unhelpful levels of accuracy, the same could be said of advocates chasing highly unlikely extreme events projections – both pushing in the wrong direction. Sharpe dismisses this by reminding us that Trump got elected and noting how many elections there are till 2100 – and by implication how high emissions could climb. But this isn’t how the energy transition works – and simply uttering Trump’s name doesn’t create a license just to conjure up implausible scenarios.
So, while I think Sharp’s contribution on climate science is really useful, and that reframing climate policy around risk assessments is a damn good idea (and one that I’ve embraced), I think we need to balance that with the need to focus on likely impacts and not get caught in doom spirals. This probably reflects the scope of discussion that Sharpe’s engaged in – this is very much a book worried about having better conversations within Government, with little concern for how that leaks out into the far messier world of public discourse.
Sharpe also has some extremely useful thoughts on diplomacy. Sharpe contends that COPs have become bloated and sclerotic because they were designed the wrong way. The goal – a global deal to cut emissions – is simply too large, requiring an impossible level of consensus built into decision-making that is effectively impossible to achieve. The COP structure aimed to solve everything at once and, in doing so, solved very little.
Instead, Sharpe argues, international agreements need to be grown over time and through collaboration. This starts by developing a shared understanding of a problem, moving towards piloting solutions and then galvanizing delivery through cooperation. They should involve the key actors that can make a difference, rather than focusing on universality.
Climate change negotiations have taken a very different approach – “the scope for cooperation was set at its maximum possible extent: the whole problem of climate change”. Every country was included, every sector addressed and the timescale set well beyond any Government’s lifespan. The civil servants charged with this insurmountable position were often given scope to actually negotiate and instead are sent to COP with strict riding instructions. It’s no surprise this has yielded deeply unsatisfactory outcomes.
But COPs aren’t without value, and Sharpe had a great vantage point to see how that value can be generated. The Presidency of the COP should create a global champion for action. This champion has a year (or two, in the UK’s case) to methodically build momentum in the lead-up to COP, and leverage its own ambition and convening power to lock-in commitments. After all, the Paris Climate Accord is ultimately a “PR gamble”, with countries competing to burnish their credentials.
Sharpe argues that there are three gains that should be the focus of international cooperation – “faster innovation, larger economies of scale and level playing fields where they are needed”. This requires the climate problem to be broken into parts and for players to be carefully selected. We don’t need ‘a festival of initiatives’ – we need institutions that can sustain cooperation.
The UK did an excellent job of this, with envoys travelling the world to drum up commitments and pressuring Governments to bring their best show to Glasgow. But they also did something else – they forged a different model of international cooperation, one built around bespoke on forests, transport and coal-to-clean transitions – all institutions focused on discrete problems with the most important players at the table. These generated some significant commitments, and provided a focus that was far less obvious at other COPs.
Sharpe’s final target is economics, a discipline he eviscerates as trying dumb-down the human experience and transmit hopelessly inaccurate policy prescriptions. As a result, mainstream economics has advocated for climate policy that catastrophically discounts the future and puts forward minimalist solutions that come nowhere close to the market-transformation we need and fail to properly understand momentum or feedback loops. Fundamentally, this is because economics has a built-in blind spot – seeing the economy as static, self-correcting and rational.
For example, he deconstructs the argument for an economy-wide cap-and-trade as simply unlocking the cheapest, smallest and least impactful reductions – delaying the fundamental changes we need and ultimately costing more. Instead, we need to understand feedbacks and momentum. After all, minimizing effort at the start of a journey and minimizing effort over an entire trip are not the same thing. We need to identify the feedbacks that can make change happen more quickly, and push those now. This, too, accords with the physics of the atmosphere, because emissions are cumulative and the more we pump up into the sky, the worse the impacts.
In place of mainstream economics, Sharpe advocates Mazzucato’s focus on ‘grand challenges’, with Governments identifying the direction of travel and pushing hard. We’ve seen this in UK with offshore wind and in Norway with electric vehicles. But to be successful, this takes judgement, clear-eyed assessments of whether a country can compete (a perspective so often lacking in those who want to establish a solar industry) and a willingness to take action. Sharpe also argues that we shouldn’t be scared of regulation, particular where it drives a learning effect and innovation. All of this is very useful, particularly as the current political approach to climate wither under sustained attack by Trump et al.
But for all the Big P Politics, the book is ultimately a technocrat talking to other technocrats. The fix for diplomacy is better diplomacy. The fix for economics is better economics. The fix for science is better (largely impenetrable) reports. Public opinion, communities, workers and broader processes of political change don’t play much of a role in Sharpe’s approach. Politically possibility is understood as what could fly within Government circles while being effective, which implies (rather implausibly) that good policy will be good politics. But the acceleration he’s calling for will create a backlash, and the improvements he’s proposing to climate policy will be unlikely to guard against this. I think Sharpe could have stretched himself with a final chapter on the politics of climate change – how to make his ideas resilient to political winds and actually win some votes in the process.
Sharpe’s work is a true piece of climate scholarship. He’s not an economist, scientist, or diplomat looking into the problem of climate change. He’s someone focused on climate change. looking at the attempts of economists, scientists, and diplomats. He’s done an excellent job of showing how they can do better. Interestingly, the concept of going ‘five times faster’ to stop climate change is far less core to the book than the title might suggest. As a result, the book is nowhere near the final word on how to go Five Times Faster, but it’s certainly deeply solid and useful.
The book is structured around three main aspects of the climate crisis—science, economics, and diplomacy. These reflect Sharpe’s own career: he’s delivered some pretty hefty reports reframing climate science, debated the economics of climate as the head of the private office for the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, and led major campaigns for the UK Government as part of their COP charm offensive. All three areas offer great potential for acceleration but, he argues, that at the moment we’re asking the wrong questions, leading us to set up the wrong institutions and inevitably proposing the wrong answer to the climate challenge.
Sharpe opens his book with some valuable reflections on climate science, which he argues is foundationally focused on careful scientific inquiry rather than maximizing policy-relevant advice. This leads to a systematic prioritization of confidence over relevance. For example, scientists have chased ever-increasing certainty about humanity’s role in causing climate change, making much of science’s increasing confidence of the impact of human impact on the climate – from ‘discernable’ to ‘extremely likely’. While this ever-increasing confidence may be scientifically important, it tells us little of value for policy making. Governments need to know about worst case scenarios - increases in floods, supercharged fires and crop destruction. But too often climate science has focused on what’s novel and what’s certain, rather than what’s most salient for action. As an alternative, Sharpe advocates risk assessment frameworks used by the Intelligence Community, which prioritize understanding the worst-case scenarios rather than finding solace in increasing certainty of things we already knew.
I’m a bit torn here. I can see Sharpe’s point that climate science – or at least the areas that interface with policy, such as the IPCC - need to be driven primarily by policy utility. There’s no point in focusing on minuscule improvements in certainty about wood combustion processes when the house is burning. But I’m also extremely frustrated by the enduring use of very high emissions scenarios that portent impossible worlds, particularly the use of RCP 8.5. Reality is scary enough, but I often see studies that make their case through fundamentally unrealistic scenarios that see a manyfold increase in coal, peak oil leading to synfuels and a total dearth of renewable deployment.
This isn’t the world we’re living in, and when you make your case by relying on such scenarios, you’re just doing bad science. While scientists can well be accused of chasing unhelpful levels of accuracy, the same could be said of advocates chasing highly unlikely extreme events projections – both pushing in the wrong direction. Sharpe dismisses this by reminding us that Trump got elected and noting how many elections there are till 2100 – and by implication how high emissions could climb. But this isn’t how the energy transition works – and simply uttering Trump’s name doesn’t create a license just to conjure up implausible scenarios.
So, while I think Sharp’s contribution on climate science is really useful, and that reframing climate policy around risk assessments is a damn good idea (and one that I’ve embraced), I think we need to balance that with the need to focus on likely impacts and not get caught in doom spirals. This probably reflects the scope of discussion that Sharpe’s engaged in – this is very much a book worried about having better conversations within Government, with little concern for how that leaks out into the far messier world of public discourse.
Sharpe also has some extremely useful thoughts on diplomacy. Sharpe contends that COPs have become bloated and sclerotic because they were designed the wrong way. The goal – a global deal to cut emissions – is simply too large, requiring an impossible level of consensus built into decision-making that is effectively impossible to achieve. The COP structure aimed to solve everything at once and, in doing so, solved very little.
Instead, Sharpe argues, international agreements need to be grown over time and through collaboration. This starts by developing a shared understanding of a problem, moving towards piloting solutions and then galvanizing delivery through cooperation. They should involve the key actors that can make a difference, rather than focusing on universality.
Climate change negotiations have taken a very different approach – “the scope for cooperation was set at its maximum possible extent: the whole problem of climate change”. Every country was included, every sector addressed and the timescale set well beyond any Government’s lifespan. The civil servants charged with this insurmountable position were often given scope to actually negotiate and instead are sent to COP with strict riding instructions. It’s no surprise this has yielded deeply unsatisfactory outcomes.
But COPs aren’t without value, and Sharpe had a great vantage point to see how that value can be generated. The Presidency of the COP should create a global champion for action. This champion has a year (or two, in the UK’s case) to methodically build momentum in the lead-up to COP, and leverage its own ambition and convening power to lock-in commitments. After all, the Paris Climate Accord is ultimately a “PR gamble”, with countries competing to burnish their credentials.
Sharpe argues that there are three gains that should be the focus of international cooperation – “faster innovation, larger economies of scale and level playing fields where they are needed”. This requires the climate problem to be broken into parts and for players to be carefully selected. We don’t need ‘a festival of initiatives’ – we need institutions that can sustain cooperation.
The UK did an excellent job of this, with envoys travelling the world to drum up commitments and pressuring Governments to bring their best show to Glasgow. But they also did something else – they forged a different model of international cooperation, one built around bespoke on forests, transport and coal-to-clean transitions – all institutions focused on discrete problems with the most important players at the table. These generated some significant commitments, and provided a focus that was far less obvious at other COPs.
Sharpe’s final target is economics, a discipline he eviscerates as trying dumb-down the human experience and transmit hopelessly inaccurate policy prescriptions. As a result, mainstream economics has advocated for climate policy that catastrophically discounts the future and puts forward minimalist solutions that come nowhere close to the market-transformation we need and fail to properly understand momentum or feedback loops. Fundamentally, this is because economics has a built-in blind spot – seeing the economy as static, self-correcting and rational.
For example, he deconstructs the argument for an economy-wide cap-and-trade as simply unlocking the cheapest, smallest and least impactful reductions – delaying the fundamental changes we need and ultimately costing more. Instead, we need to understand feedbacks and momentum. After all, minimizing effort at the start of a journey and minimizing effort over an entire trip are not the same thing. We need to identify the feedbacks that can make change happen more quickly, and push those now. This, too, accords with the physics of the atmosphere, because emissions are cumulative and the more we pump up into the sky, the worse the impacts.
In place of mainstream economics, Sharpe advocates Mazzucato’s focus on ‘grand challenges’, with Governments identifying the direction of travel and pushing hard. We’ve seen this in UK with offshore wind and in Norway with electric vehicles. But to be successful, this takes judgement, clear-eyed assessments of whether a country can compete (a perspective so often lacking in those who want to establish a solar industry) and a willingness to take action. Sharpe also argues that we shouldn’t be scared of regulation, particular where it drives a learning effect and innovation. All of this is very useful, particularly as the current political approach to climate wither under sustained attack by Trump et al.
But for all the Big P Politics, the book is ultimately a technocrat talking to other technocrats. The fix for diplomacy is better diplomacy. The fix for economics is better economics. The fix for science is better (largely impenetrable) reports. Public opinion, communities, workers and broader processes of political change don’t play much of a role in Sharpe’s approach. Politically possibility is understood as what could fly within Government circles while being effective, which implies (rather implausibly) that good policy will be good politics. But the acceleration he’s calling for will create a backlash, and the improvements he’s proposing to climate policy will be unlikely to guard against this. I think Sharpe could have stretched himself with a final chapter on the politics of climate change – how to make his ideas resilient to political winds and actually win some votes in the process.
Sharpe’s work is a true piece of climate scholarship. He’s not an economist, scientist, or diplomat looking into the problem of climate change. He’s someone focused on climate change. looking at the attempts of economists, scientists, and diplomats. He’s done an excellent job of showing how they can do better. Interestingly, the concept of going ‘five times faster’ to stop climate change is far less core to the book than the title might suggest. As a result, the book is nowhere near the final word on how to go Five Times Faster, but it’s certainly deeply solid and useful.
May 6, 2024
We are fiddling while the world burns, that is essentially the starting point of Five Times Faster by Simon Sharpe. Fortunately it is not all doom and gloom. Sharpe takes the reader through the science behind global warming and why things may be considerably worse than the IPCC analysis hence the need to move ‘five times faster’ to avoid some pretty terrible consequences. This is clearly a book with a purpose but it is not just castigating the reader on climate change but also helping to point to where the solutions are, what might be done differently in future to enable us to go ‘five times faster’.
This is an excellent and easy to understand overview of the issues, politics and policies of climate change. The book is split into three sections; Science, Economics, and Diplomacy. I found the section on the science alarming, fully justifying why Sharpe is advocating the need for going 5x faster in reducing carbon emissions. It is interesting how the science is often moderated and made less alarming for government consumption due to the need for consensus and multiple studies. It is however on economics where Sharpe is most damning. He demolishes the use of economic equilibrium policy for looking at the costs and how to respond to climate change. I found this a compelling case. And while the focus is on climate change there is wider value to this book in that you learn a lot about how science and economics are seen and used in public policymaking - which applied far beyond policy around the climate. The diplomacy section had least that was shocking but in some ways the most interesting as this is where Sharpe himself has perhaps been closest to the action over the last decade.
There is of course a lot of technical stuff in here - we are tackling several very technical topics. However Sharpe writes in a way that makes it easy to understand - this I imagine is necessary when explaining things to ministers. It might be too boiled down if you are someone who already is interested in climate change but for anyone who has not read much on it before will find the explanations very good and helpful. The writing even has a wry sense of humour; [on the transition from horses to cars] “They [government] did not just put a tax on horseshit and hope for the best.”(p.120)
That said, I do sometimes have issues with Sharpe’s viewpoints. For example in my view he is too damning of carbon pricing systems and misses some considerations. While not keen on either a carbon tax or a cap and trade system he prefers a carbon tax as creating positive feedbacks while trading negative feedbacks. But he ignores some key elements; first that the government sets the tax/price or the carbon budget. The biggest risk therefore is not choosing the worse of two systems but of setting this at too low a level. And oddly for someone who bangs on about the dynamism in systems he ignores that the level government sets the tax/price/budget will vary. This both means that the negative feedbacks can be mitigated, and perhaps more importantly creates a consideration as to how easy it is to reduce the price/budget. It is a political decision. Given the negative perception of taxes it is far easier to see a Finance Minister getting traction proclaiming “And we are cutting the tax on carbon benefiting our businesses and putting money back into the pockets of consumers” than “And we will be interfering in the carbon market to increase carbon budgets so that it is cheaper for businesses to produce”. Sharpe’s negativity on these two options also seems to ignore that it might be better to work from both ends of the problem; yes it might be better to take a targeted subsidising approach for many areas but you can't target everywhere so it might be better to be using this broad brush approach to be (to steal a sub heading from p182) “Pushing from all points in the system”. But this is quibbling.
The only bit I was less sure about was that the last section somewhat muddies the picture Sharpe is trying to paint. Here Sharpe seems to have conflicting priorities. On the one hand he appears to want to keep the narrative that we need to move 5x faster. On the other hand, Sharpe wants to show that the UK COP presidency in which he was involved made significant progress. Of course this is not completely incompatible but it did mean when Sharpe was pointing to all the progress I was wondering ‘well does that mean we only need to go 4x faster now?’ He does eventually bring this section back into focus with bits on how we get to 5x faster - for example by making use of ‘tipping cascades’ to decarbonise sections of the economy resulting in decarbonisation gaining pace.
Good for a beginner on the subject, but also likely to be interesting if you have read other books on climate change and the response to it as well.
This is an excellent and easy to understand overview of the issues, politics and policies of climate change. The book is split into three sections; Science, Economics, and Diplomacy. I found the section on the science alarming, fully justifying why Sharpe is advocating the need for going 5x faster in reducing carbon emissions. It is interesting how the science is often moderated and made less alarming for government consumption due to the need for consensus and multiple studies. It is however on economics where Sharpe is most damning. He demolishes the use of economic equilibrium policy for looking at the costs and how to respond to climate change. I found this a compelling case. And while the focus is on climate change there is wider value to this book in that you learn a lot about how science and economics are seen and used in public policymaking - which applied far beyond policy around the climate. The diplomacy section had least that was shocking but in some ways the most interesting as this is where Sharpe himself has perhaps been closest to the action over the last decade.
There is of course a lot of technical stuff in here - we are tackling several very technical topics. However Sharpe writes in a way that makes it easy to understand - this I imagine is necessary when explaining things to ministers. It might be too boiled down if you are someone who already is interested in climate change but for anyone who has not read much on it before will find the explanations very good and helpful. The writing even has a wry sense of humour; [on the transition from horses to cars] “They [government] did not just put a tax on horseshit and hope for the best.”(p.120)
That said, I do sometimes have issues with Sharpe’s viewpoints. For example in my view he is too damning of carbon pricing systems and misses some considerations. While not keen on either a carbon tax or a cap and trade system he prefers a carbon tax as creating positive feedbacks while trading negative feedbacks. But he ignores some key elements; first that the government sets the tax/price or the carbon budget. The biggest risk therefore is not choosing the worse of two systems but of setting this at too low a level. And oddly for someone who bangs on about the dynamism in systems he ignores that the level government sets the tax/price/budget will vary. This both means that the negative feedbacks can be mitigated, and perhaps more importantly creates a consideration as to how easy it is to reduce the price/budget. It is a political decision. Given the negative perception of taxes it is far easier to see a Finance Minister getting traction proclaiming “And we are cutting the tax on carbon benefiting our businesses and putting money back into the pockets of consumers” than “And we will be interfering in the carbon market to increase carbon budgets so that it is cheaper for businesses to produce”. Sharpe’s negativity on these two options also seems to ignore that it might be better to work from both ends of the problem; yes it might be better to take a targeted subsidising approach for many areas but you can't target everywhere so it might be better to be using this broad brush approach to be (to steal a sub heading from p182) “Pushing from all points in the system”. But this is quibbling.
The only bit I was less sure about was that the last section somewhat muddies the picture Sharpe is trying to paint. Here Sharpe seems to have conflicting priorities. On the one hand he appears to want to keep the narrative that we need to move 5x faster. On the other hand, Sharpe wants to show that the UK COP presidency in which he was involved made significant progress. Of course this is not completely incompatible but it did mean when Sharpe was pointing to all the progress I was wondering ‘well does that mean we only need to go 4x faster now?’ He does eventually bring this section back into focus with bits on how we get to 5x faster - for example by making use of ‘tipping cascades’ to decarbonise sections of the economy resulting in decarbonisation gaining pace.
Good for a beginner on the subject, but also likely to be interesting if you have read other books on climate change and the response to it as well.
February 17, 2025
An excellent book focused on climate science, economics, and diplomacy. Simon Sharpe has worked for several years on climate change policy for the United Kingdom. In the first part of the book, focused on science, he argues for the importance of climate risk assessments: whereas much climate modeling is focused on CO2 and meeting specific targets, with plenty of uncertainties around the specific impacts resulting from specific degrees of climate change, identifying and weighing those risks may be a better way to move forward understanding of climate change risks and advocating for more robust action.
In the second part of the book, Sharpe gets down to the basics as he argues that classical economic theory has too many holes to be useful especially when it comes to action regarding climate change. He argues for the importance of dynamic equivalency models over equilibrium models and for the benefits of industrial climate policies - including showing how regulations, incentives, and taxation can help green technologies to scale and reach tipping points that lead to a self-accelerating transition.
The third part of the book deals with diplomacy and argues that instead of international diplomacy focusing on country mitigation targets, we need more extensive and specific diplomatic efforts to focus on the specific sectors that we need to decarbonize - bringing around relevant industry players to invest in and regulate or otherwise move industries towards decarbonization. The COPs are not enough here. Sharpe briefly reviews some of the specific sectors and industries that need to decarbonize, recognizing that some are further along than others (electric vehicles being further along than green ammonia and other areas that are only at their starting points now). He also argues that electric vehicles are currently one of the most important factors in bending the curve of global emissions, because EVs will make batteries cheaper (thereby helping to decarbonize the power sector at the same time) and because EVs will shrink the global market for oil.
An interesting and worthwhile book and highly recommended for anyone concerned about the challenges of climate change and the green transition.
In the second part of the book, Sharpe gets down to the basics as he argues that classical economic theory has too many holes to be useful especially when it comes to action regarding climate change. He argues for the importance of dynamic equivalency models over equilibrium models and for the benefits of industrial climate policies - including showing how regulations, incentives, and taxation can help green technologies to scale and reach tipping points that lead to a self-accelerating transition.
The third part of the book deals with diplomacy and argues that instead of international diplomacy focusing on country mitigation targets, we need more extensive and specific diplomatic efforts to focus on the specific sectors that we need to decarbonize - bringing around relevant industry players to invest in and regulate or otherwise move industries towards decarbonization. The COPs are not enough here. Sharpe briefly reviews some of the specific sectors and industries that need to decarbonize, recognizing that some are further along than others (electric vehicles being further along than green ammonia and other areas that are only at their starting points now). He also argues that electric vehicles are currently one of the most important factors in bending the curve of global emissions, because EVs will make batteries cheaper (thereby helping to decarbonize the power sector at the same time) and because EVs will shrink the global market for oil.
An interesting and worthwhile book and highly recommended for anyone concerned about the challenges of climate change and the green transition.
November 12, 2023
This book, that I was fives times too slow to read, is a beautiful effort to bring order to such a complex problem as the global fight against climate change.
Backed by his expertise in the economy, communication and diplomacy of climate change, Simon Sharpe explains why he came to the conclusion that, in order for countries to make the changes necessary to halt greenhouse gas emissions and maintain us within safe/liveable temperature, we need a shift in our way of thinking.
This change must principally be made in the domains of science, economy, and diplomacy of climate change.
Because it is only by knowing what we risk that we can we act faster to avoid the worst, we need scientists that dare to communicate about the extent of the catastrophic risks that climate change could cause to the climate and the other Earth's systems.
We must be sure that politicians are well informed about those risks so that they are determined in their decisions.
We must also abandon the traditional way we link economy and equilibrium. This impedes to act faster in necessary transitions in energy, infrastructure, industrial systems, etc. We should instead see the economy like a complex adaptive system, like an ecosystem.
The author advocates for the need to get rid of our current reductionist tendency to treat every problem dissecting it to tiny bits and instead adopt a holistic view inspired by system thinking to find and implement new solutions. Encouraging examples from different countries that take advantage of their specificities show how transforming energy intensive sectors can be done.
Taking advantage of leverage and tipping points that appear along the way, unthinkable changes can happen much faster than we thought possible.
But there is no pre-existent and fixed way to do things. The path is made along the way.
I found this book highly important and a lot lighter to read that this condensed resume makes it look.
Backed by his expertise in the economy, communication and diplomacy of climate change, Simon Sharpe explains why he came to the conclusion that, in order for countries to make the changes necessary to halt greenhouse gas emissions and maintain us within safe/liveable temperature, we need a shift in our way of thinking.
This change must principally be made in the domains of science, economy, and diplomacy of climate change.
Because it is only by knowing what we risk that we can we act faster to avoid the worst, we need scientists that dare to communicate about the extent of the catastrophic risks that climate change could cause to the climate and the other Earth's systems.
We must be sure that politicians are well informed about those risks so that they are determined in their decisions.
We must also abandon the traditional way we link economy and equilibrium. This impedes to act faster in necessary transitions in energy, infrastructure, industrial systems, etc. We should instead see the economy like a complex adaptive system, like an ecosystem.
The author advocates for the need to get rid of our current reductionist tendency to treat every problem dissecting it to tiny bits and instead adopt a holistic view inspired by system thinking to find and implement new solutions. Encouraging examples from different countries that take advantage of their specificities show how transforming energy intensive sectors can be done.
Taking advantage of leverage and tipping points that appear along the way, unthinkable changes can happen much faster than we thought possible.
But there is no pre-existent and fixed way to do things. The path is made along the way.
I found this book highly important and a lot lighter to read that this condensed resume makes it look.
March 31, 2025
In another (non Trumpian) world this would be a fine read. Published in 2023 it does summarize the successful misinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry but completely ignores how the polarized political environment in the US will prevent the US (and thus likely the world) from meeting Paris Accord promises.
300 pages; 14 pages notes; 12 pages 'select bibliography'; 5 pages index (but poorly done)
There's a whole useful chapter exposing the errors in Nordhaus's (Nobel Econs) cost/benefit analysis of funding mitigation earlier than later.
"Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change" - it does have interesting insights from his (limited?) perspective, but w/o addressing climate change denial as part of the ideology split world-wide, the 'rethink' is incomplete.
300 pages; 14 pages notes; 12 pages 'select bibliography'; 5 pages index (but poorly done)
There's a whole useful chapter exposing the errors in Nordhaus's (Nobel Econs) cost/benefit analysis of funding mitigation earlier than later.
"Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change" - it does have interesting insights from his (limited?) perspective, but w/o addressing climate change denial as part of the ideology split world-wide, the 'rethink' is incomplete.
January 29, 2025
A real practical guide to what must be done to save us. Not about turning the thermostat down or eating vegan, but about what governments can and must do to change all the big stuff. Simon Sharpe has worked in the heart of the UK government on climate change, attending many big meetings including COP26, and really knows his stuff. He's been successful in getting his ideas applied in the international energy markets, demonstrating that they work on a big scale. He ends with a list of what we can all do that is not about a personal carbon footprint (apparently invented by an oil company!).
Big stuff for a big problem.
Big stuff for a big problem.
February 9, 2024
This book was awesome, and showed some real ways to address climate change to avoid the extermination of life on earth, or at least the extermination of human life.
That said, the book could have benefited from summaries at various points of specific actions that individuals could take. Of course, the main actions need to be done by political and business leaders, mostly governmental, but citizens can make specific demands, and the book’s very thorough approach made the complexity clear, but did not make it easy to pull out specific things to say in letters, protests, and emails.
That said, the book could have benefited from summaries at various points of specific actions that individuals could take. Of course, the main actions need to be done by political and business leaders, mostly governmental, but citizens can make specific demands, and the book’s very thorough approach made the complexity clear, but did not make it easy to pull out specific things to say in letters, protests, and emails.
October 10, 2024
How does this book have such low readership? Sharpe provides an insightful look into the policy solutions possible to the climate crisis. I'm removing a star because he does not focus on the negatives of the policies (increased load on electrical grids, unethical practices of mining rare earth minerals, etc) and advocates very strongly for electric cars rather than recognizing the need for more public transit and walkable/bikable cities. The book occasionally gets dry or repetitive, but that's just the nature of policy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
August 7, 2023
Perhaps one of the best books I have read on addressing the climate crisis. Sharpe digs over the core of academic, economic, and diplomatic systems, considering how (negative) tipping points in the earth system may be avoided by (positive) tipping points within our own institutions. Highly recommended book to anyone thinking about how they can be the most effect lever for change within their own spheres of influence.
December 29, 2023
Excellent insights on science and economics
I really liked the sections on science and economics but less enthusiastic on the diplomacy elements. The reason that coal died in UK is in part to do with how a coal plant functions as base-load and cannot function as mid-merit. That has major impacts on the tipping point insights which were missed. Loved the economics insights
I really liked the sections on science and economics but less enthusiastic on the diplomacy elements. The reason that coal died in UK is in part to do with how a coal plant functions as base-load and cannot function as mid-merit. That has major impacts on the tipping point insights which were missed. Loved the economics insights
August 13, 2023
The first section tells how the author has over a long career in government tried and failed to get politicians, government planners, and even scientists to take climate change seriously enough to do a proper, thorough risk analysis. Almost invariably the people he talked to threw up their hands, couldn't deal with complexities and feedbacks, and did not want to upset people around them or perturb their career paths.
That's the interesting part of the book. The rest is climate policies themselves, which are covered much better in books specifically about climate science. As written, I found the latter parts dull and mostly skipped through them.
That's the interesting part of the book. The rest is climate policies themselves, which are covered much better in books specifically about climate science. As written, I found the latter parts dull and mostly skipped through them.
January 30, 2024
One of those books that you need to read again. An excellent perspective that reframes climate change risk. Perhaps the best book I have read over the years on this subject.
When can we get a paperback?
When can we get a paperback?
June 5, 2024
Very disappointed and gave up after 100 pages. Felt like there was a lot of detail about negotiations from 10 years ago but not enough current debate or future solutions. Clearly other people have enjoyed it so perhaps I'm wrong. Credit to the PR team for getting it noticed.
June 24, 2024
I read this and accept I am probably not the target audience but this was incredibly tough to read and I felt like I was reading a student’s dissertation.
Some parts engaging but much of it skippable.
Some parts engaging but much of it skippable.
August 6, 2024
5 stars!! Sharpe is not afraid to challenge the conventional routines and circumstance that have held us back from making more progress towards fighting climate change within science, economics, and diplomacy. Let's ask the right questions, coordinate efforts and make something happen!!
June 4, 2024
An excellently articulated and clear perspective, with a systemic perspective, that recognizes the importance of leverages, engaging with the world as is, the importance of state policy. Great read.
February 23, 2025
Had op bepaalde thema's wat beknopter kunnen zijn, maar een paar vernieuwende manieren om naar de dingen te kijken, dus zeker een aanrader!
August 3, 2024
I really enjoyed this book. I wish more people like Simon Sharpe had the ear of policy-makers and decision-makers. It gave me hope that we can actually make the transition to a more sustainable economy. I preferred the sections on science and economics; the diplomacy of climate change is interesting but so frustrating!
A few things I learned include: carbon tax is better than cap and trade because cap and trade has balancing feedbacks that negate the benefits. Also, economists use the wrong kind of equilibrium economics models; agent-based models are better. This book echoes a theme in Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics that the way economics is taught in universities needs to be changed to break the hegemony of a narrow neoliberal capitalist paradigm.
Things I found annoying about this audiobook version narrated by Michael Langan: 1) The way the narrator lowers his voice when reading footnotes. Just say: “Footnote” and read normally. 2) Reading out full URLs. These could be cited in the accompanying PDF instead.
Humble-brag disclosure: I built the author, Simon Sharpe’s, website for this book and have also done some web development for his literary agent, Maggie Hanbury. This is, however, an independent review.
A few things I learned include: carbon tax is better than cap and trade because cap and trade has balancing feedbacks that negate the benefits. Also, economists use the wrong kind of equilibrium economics models; agent-based models are better. This book echoes a theme in Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics that the way economics is taught in universities needs to be changed to break the hegemony of a narrow neoliberal capitalist paradigm.
Things I found annoying about this audiobook version narrated by Michael Langan: 1) The way the narrator lowers his voice when reading footnotes. Just say: “Footnote” and read normally. 2) Reading out full URLs. These could be cited in the accompanying PDF instead.
Humble-brag disclosure: I built the author, Simon Sharpe’s, website for this book and have also done some web development for his literary agent, Maggie Hanbury. This is, however, an independent review.
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