When it comes to the climate, Peter Betts is one of the most important people you’ve probably never heard of. If the world does manage to avoid the worst ravages of global heating, it will be thanks in part to the countless late nights he spent in windowless rooms, arguing over the placement of commas in impenetrable legal text.
Betts would probably have disagreed. He disliked ostentation and grand statements, preferring to get on unfussily with his job – for years, he was the UK’s main negotiator on climate, and leader of the EU’s team on the 2015 Paris agreement.
