This week’s ship.energy podcast guest is Simon Sharpe, Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute and Director of Economics for the Climate Champions Team. He is the author of ‘Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change’, which has been longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2023.

In the podcast, Simon discusses his work and his book, in which he investigates the policy, economic and diplomatic avenues to accelerating the energy transition to reduce emissions by 8% a year instead of the current 1.6% a year in order to achieve the 1.5 Celsius cap on global average temperature increases. 

Simon was previously Deputy Director of the UK government’s COP26 Unit, where he led international campaigns on energy, transport, land use, science and innovation.  His other roles in government included leading international climate change strategy, developing the approach to clean growth in the UK’s industrial strategy, and serving as head of private office to Ministers of State for Energy and Climate Change.  He has also served on diplomatic postings to China and India.  

Simon has published academic papers on climate change science and economics, and policy reports on climate change risk assessment, economics, and diplomacy.  His current focus is on the Breakthrough Agenda – a process to strengthen international collaboration to accelerate transitions in each emitting sector of the global economy; and on projects to apply new economic thinking to climate change policy, including the Economics of Energy Innovation and System Transition (EEIST) project, working with China, India and Brazil.