Do politicians understand just how difficult it could be, just how devastating rises of 4C, 5C or 6C could be? I think, not yet

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.

Rising sea levels will result in tens to hundreds of millions more people flooded each year with a warming of 3 or 4°C. There will be serious risks and increasing pressures for coastal protection in South East Asia (Bangladesh and Vietnam), small islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and large coastal cities, such as Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Calcutta, Karachi, Buenos Aires, St. Petersburg, New York, Miami and London.

As an undergraduate, I did maths and physics. That doesn't make me a scientist. So I try to read and understand and talk to scientists.

Adaptation is the only means to reduce the now-unavoidable costs of climate change over the next few decades

You'd see more floods like you've seen in Mozambique in 2000, you'd see more droughts like you saw in Kenya in the late 1990s, there would be a serious threat to the water flow down the Nile on which 10 countries depend.

We will not overcome world poverty unless we manage climate change successfully. I've spent my life as a development economist, and it's crystal clear that we succeed or fail on winning the battle against world poverty and managing climate change together. If we fail on one, we fail on the other.