"I don't think there's any right to emit, I think there's a right to development," said former World Bank chief economist Lord Nicholas Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics. “To emit is to damage – I don’t see that there's a right to damage.” Stern spoke about the economics of climate change, alternative energies, the carbon bubble and the growing global population before accepting the 2013 Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication. Few people have impacted the discussion of the economics of carbon pollution more than Stern, who authored the highly influential 2006 “Stern Review,” which concluded that the costs of inaction were far greater than the costs of action when it comes to climate change. “Having no policy of any serious strength on climate change is essentially to do nothing about the biggest market distortion, the biggest market failure the world has ever seen,” he said. The $10,000 Stephen Schneider Award is given every year in memory of the late Stanford researcher Stephen H. Schneider, a founding father of modern climate science. The award recognizes people that create new understanding in the physical and social sciences, and communicate to a broad public. Lord Nicholas Stern, former World Bank Chief Economist, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on December 11, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices