“Surely the biggest problem we have in the world is that we all die. But we don’t have a technology to solve that, right? So the point is not to prioritize problems; the point is to prioritize solutions to problems.”

If every country committed to spending 0.05 per cent of GDP on researching non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, that would cost $25 billion a year, and it would do a lot more than massive carbon cuts to fight warming and save lives.

My suggestion is that we should first work to ensure the Third World has clean drinking water and sanitation.

We need to invest dramatically in green energy, making solar panels so cheap that everybody wants them.

I tentatively believe in a god. I was brought up in a fairly religious home. I think the world is compatible with reincarnation, karma, all that stuff.

There is something wrong with saying we should start using renewables now, while they are still incredibly expensive.

On average, global warming is not going to harm the developing world.

The second thing is, if you want to do something about global warming, you have to think much more long-term.

The Kyoto treaty has an estimated cost of between US$150 and $350 billion a year, starting in 2010.

We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN.

I found university a little dispiriting. I thought I would enter the great halls of Plato, but instead I entered the halls of an intellectual sausage factory. I wanted to do something not on the main course, and chose the environment.

Across Europe, there are six times more cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths…by 2050…Warmer temperatures will save 1.4 million lives each year.

Of course, the world is full of problems. But on the other hand it’s important to get the sense… are we generally moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?

The only thing that will really change global warming in the long run is if we radically increase the speed with which we get alternative technologies to deal with climate change.

To prepare adequately for the challenge of global warming, we must acknowledge both the good and the bad that it will bring.

Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can’t use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/AIDS prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation.

So it’s mainly a question of helping the Third World overcome the effects of global warming.