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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.