The characters:
Who’s shaping the debate - the obvious and the ones you might not know

How much are your grandkids worth?

How do you explain this in 30 seconds? We’ll have a go. In 2006 Nicholas Stern published the first economic report into climate change, a document that is still considered seminal. Given his position (he was a senior advisor to Gordon Brown) it acted as a rallying cry for urgent action on climate change. Failure, he argued, could lead to economic woes rivalling that of the world wars and the Great Depression. He was all for a carbon tax.

Economists were divided - not over the existence of global warming, but over how fast and how big the change had to come - some felt Stern was too dramatic. In a speech on Stern’s report, the Yale economic bastion William Nordhaus commented that the British government’s opinion on climate change is ‘no more infallible than was its pre-war view about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq’. #micdrop #ouch.

It boiled down to one question; how much do you negatively impact this generation, to save a future one? More specifically, it’s about discount rates: is $1 spent making someone’s life better in 100 years worth the same $1 as making someone's life better now? In very basic terms: Stern - yes; Nordhaus - no. Further complicating the debate is the fact that the science increasingly shows it may not be about your grandkids anymore - it’s also about the value we put on the world we live in and retire into.

‘Stubborn optimist’ with balls of steel

Tasked with delivering a successful Paris COP after the ‘elitist’ mess of Copenhagen, which she pulled off - despite tense negotiations, recent terrorist attacks in Paris and a bomb found in the conference centre Metro station at the pivotal point (she made the difficult decision not to halt proceedings).

A Costa Rican diplomat (her father was three times president there) who served as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010-2016 describes her as a ‘stubborn optimist’ and co-founded the Global Optimist Group (some great content and podcasts).

If you want a quick, simple vision of what 2050 could look like if we get our act together, versus what it looks like if we don't, then read Chapter 2 of the book she co-wrote in 2020 with Tom Rivett-Carnac, The future we choose.

Mike versus coal

Waged a war on coal. He made the fight about American health; coal makes the air dirty, Americans breathe it in, people die before they should. His efforts helped close over 60% of all US coal plants since 2011 and over 50% of European ones since 2016.

And how do you deal with climate change in America with a Trump White House? You talk about bottom up tactics - about leadership from business and the public. Another increasingly climate focused CV:

- Chair of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
- President of the board of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
- Co-chairs the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy
- Co-chairs the “America Is All In” coalition
- Global advisor to the Earthshot prize
- UN Special Envoy and climate ambition and solutions

At the UN Secretary-General’s request, he formed the Climate Finance Leadership Initiative with other private sector leaders to quicken investments in climate solutions.

Climate of Hope, written with Carl Pope, is another good quick read. Not our top choice, if you were short on time, but it does mix public policy thoughts and practical solutions - and was probably quite an important tome to be published in 2018 America.

Unruly thorns and animal poo

The aptly named Isabella Tree turned the family estate, Knepp Castle, previously an unprofitable 3,500 acre intensive farm, into Britain’s first lowland rewilding project. 70 miles of fences were torn down, longhorn cattle and tamworth piggies introduced, and then they let nature takeover.

Remove the wildflower meadow idyll from your mind when you hear the term rewilding (or wilding, as Isabella would put it). Think midges, thorny scrub, unruly blackberries and animal poo - of all shapes and sizes. But that mix - alongside letting native ponies, pigs, cattle and other grazing animals free roam, rut and gobble - allows the crucial bugs, beetles, worms, fungi etc. to flourish. And, following them, have come the turtle doves, nightingales, owls and purple emperor butterflies.

Her book about the experience, Wilding, will make you look at the oak trees, fields and hedgerows you pass differently (and it has some great pig anecdotes).

Clue: not the 9th century king with a penchant for croissants...

He’s a rapper, filmmaker and climate activist.

His lyrics tackle the environmental impact of climate change and his recent film ‘The world is (y)ours’ considers climate change from the perspective of first- and second-generation immigrants in the UK. He is a regular speaker at climate change and science events and describes himself as ‘probably the biggest nature geek out of London’. One of his driving ambitions is to help people of colour to become more involved in climate activism and the environment and consider the natural world as something they can enjoy, influence and protect.