Lord Nicholas Stern, author of 2006’s grim Stern Review on the economics of climate change, now says he and his team underestimated the risks of global warming. He’s released a follow-up report that urges a quicker timeline to address the problem.

The new report highlights the Key Elements of a Global Deal that will need to take place in order to mitigate climate change. This report, published by the London School of Economics, is meant to help steer the conversation and prepare the international climate community for the upcoming talks at next year’s 15^th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Lord Stern explained last month that analytical foundations for discussions of a global deal are needed so that a coherent agreement can be reached at the Copenhagen meetings next December. "This paper is a contribution to that task. It offers a sense of direction and a basis for discussion and further work, rather than attempting a very formal description of a global deal" he said.

One of the key themes elaborated in the report is that developing countries need to be at the center of the process of constructing a global deal. In addition, the three guiding principles of the report are: effectiveness, in terms of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions; efficiency, in terms of avoiding climate change in the most cost-effective way; and equity, in terms of making sure that relative living standards, historical responsibility and providing fair opportunity for sustainable development are all built into whatever deal is struck.

While Stern's reports have not been without controversy, the Brits -- and Europe in general -- continue to pave a fairly progressive path on climate change policy. While the British established a Climate Change Levy on fossil fuels and non-renewables in 2001, Congress still hasn’t extended the meager renewable energy Investment and Production Tax Credits set to expire at the end of this year. While our European buddies were discussing the economics of halving carbon emissions by 2050 in 2006, Bush didn’t utter the phrase "global warming" until 2008.

In other words, perhaps Lord Stern should deliver this new report to the White House himself.