The St. James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium programme was designed by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research with the support of an esteemed Advisory Group. 

The programme recognised that the structure of any global climate deal must consider a range of key issues of mitigation and adaptation. These include the critical drivers of climate change, including deforestation, as well as the instruments of economic policy – whether taxes or cap-and-trade schemes – that will shape the supply and demand for energy sources.

The energy mix is another critical driver, being affected by the implementation at scale of existing technologies such as coal-fired power stations and nuclear, as well as the development and introduction of new technologies including renewables and CCS, and a plethora of others many under the banner of geo-engineering. The transmission of energy through super-smart grids is also being explored. All of these issues, as well as the approaches to behaviour change across society, were discussed and debated over the course of the three days.