Action on climate change and new approaches to growth: marking the 20th anniversary of the Stern Review
Speakers
Chair
30 October 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review at the Royal Society by Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown and the Secretary of State for the Environment David Miliband, together with Nicholas Stern. A key conclusion from the review was that the cost of inaction on climate change was much greater than the cost of action. The world has changed radically in the two decades since. The science is ever more worrying; the technology has advanced faster than anticipated; the geopolitical context is more complex. This anniversary event will examine what has happened in the intervening years, what we have learnt and where we can go from here.
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Miatta Fahnbulleh, will make keynote remarks and Professor Stern will set out his response.
Meet our speakers and chair
LSE alumna Miatta Fahnbulleh was appointed Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on 20 July 2026. She was previously Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government between 6 September 2025 and 12 May 2026. She was previously Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero between 9 July 2024 and 6 September 2025. She was elected as the MP for Peckham in July 2024.
Nicholas Stern is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Chair of the Global School of Sustainability, and Head of the India Observatory at the London School of Economics. President of the British Academy, July 2013 – 2017, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014.
Elizabeth Robinson is Professor of Environmental Economics at the Department of Geography and Environment, and Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. She is also the theme co-lead for the Building Sustainable Societies theme at LSE’s Global School of Sustainability.
More about this event
The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment was established in 2008 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The Institute brings together international expertise on economics, as well as finance, geography, the environment, international development and political economy to establish a world-leading centre for policy-relevant research, teaching and training in climate change and the environment. It is hosted by the Global School of Sustainability at LSE and is funded by the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.
The Global School of Sustainability at LSE (GSoS) is the interdisciplinary centre for sustainability research impact at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). GSoS works in partnerships to advance pioneering sustainability research, global policy engagement and world-leading educational opportunities. Grounded in LSE’s interdisciplinary excellence across the social sciences, GSoS’s global networks target the systemic challenges to sustainability embedded in the world’s economies, politics and societies.
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