By Daniel Politi, Slate, Posted Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, at 11:11 AM ET

Nicholas Stern, the author of a 2006 report commissioned by the British government on climate change that has been used as a reference ever since, says he now realizes he “underestimated the risks” of rising temperatures. In an interview with the

, Stern, who is one of the world’s leading environmental economists, says that had he known then what he knows now, he would have been “a bit more blunt” about the risks that climate change poses to the economy.