Nicholas Stern quotes

The basic scientific conclusions on climate change are very robust and for good reason. The greenhouse effect is simple science: greenhouse gases trap heat, and humans are emitting ever more greenhouse gases. (Nicholas Stern)
Science and policy-making thrive on challenge and questioning; they are vital to the health of inquiry and democracy. View quote
Nicholas Stern
If you look at all the serious scientists in the world, there is no big disagreement on the basics of this... it would be absolute lunacy to act as if climate change is not occurring. View quote
Nicholas Stern
How is it that, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, there are still some who would deny the dangers of climate change? Not surprisingly, the loudest voices are not scientific, and it is remarkable how many economists, lawyers, journalists and politicians set themselves up as experts on the science. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks. View quote
Nicholas Stern
I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating. I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food. View quote
Nicholas Stern
To claim the World Bank is just an extension of U.S. foreign policy is just wrong. View quote
Nicholas Stern
The greenhouse effect is something you can observe experimentally - and most people have observed the greenhouse effect themselves, in greenhouses. Yes? View quote
Nicholas Stern
The one way of guaranteeing to fail is to assume that we will. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Adaptation is a vital part of a response to the challenge of climate change. (Nicholas Stern)
The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change presents very serious global risks, and it demands an urgent global response. View quote
Nicholas Stern
My father's generation's crisis was fighting fascism. Ours is fighting climate change. It is much harder because you can't see it, it is not an obvious threat. But the solution is in our hands. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Unfortunately, the current pace of progress is not nearly rapid enough, with many rich industrialised countries being slow to make the transition to cleaner and more efficient forms of economic growth. View quote
Nicholas Stern
I've never really had much of a career plan, and interesting opportunities kept cropping up. View quote
Nicholas Stern
I think that once people understand the great risks that climate change poses, they will naturally want to choose products and services that cause little or no emissions of greenhouse gases, which means 'low-carbon consumption.' This will apply across the board, including electricity, heating, transport and food. View quote
Nicholas Stern
A diet that relies heavily on meat production results in higher emissions than a typical vegetarian diet. Different individuals will make different choices. However, the debate about climate change should not be dumbed down to a single slogan, such as 'give up meat to save the planet.' View quote
Nicholas Stern
If coal is going to be used, the only response - because it is the dirtiest of all fuels - is that we have to learn how to do carbon capture and storage and we have to learn how to do it quickly on a commercial scale. View quote
Nicholas Stern
It's very important that there should be cross-fertilisation between government and academia. Both parties can benefit from having a better understanding of how the other works. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Those who say that climate change doesn't exist are being understood as the flat-earthers that they are, as the people who deny the link between smoking and cancer, as the people who denied the link between HIV and AIDS. View quote
Nicholas Stern
We run enormous risks and we know what kind of reductions of greenhouse gases are necessary to drastically reduce risks. Reducing emissions by half by 2050 is roughly in the right ballpark. It would bring us below 550 ppm. (Nicholas Stern)
Looking back, I underestimated the risks. The planet and the atmosphere seem to be absorbing less carbon than we expected, and emissions are rising pretty strongly. Some of the effects are coming through more quickly than we thought then. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. View quote
Nicholas Stern
Climate change and global poverty are two sides of the same coin. Both challenges must be addressed together. If we fail on one, we will also fail on the other. View quote
Nicholas Stern
There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now. View quote
Nicholas Stern