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Climate change is a matter of extreme urgency. Integrating science and economics, this book demonstrates the need for measures to put a strict lid on cumulative carbon emissions and shows how to implement them. Using the carbon budget framework, it reveals the shortcomings of current policies and the debates around them, such as the popular enthusiasm for individual solutions and the fruitless search for 'optimal' regulation by economists and other specialists. On the political front, it explains why business opposition to the policies we need goes well beyond the fossil fuel industry, requiring a more radical rebalancing of power. This wide-ranging study goes against the most prevalent approaches in mainstream economics, which argue that we can tackle climate change while causing minimal disruption to the global economy. The author argues that this view is not only impossible, but also dangerously complacent.
List of contents
Introduction: When Alligators go north; Part I. Carbon Accounting for Planet Earth: Part II. The Risks of Climate Change, or Why Carbon Budgets Need to Be Binding: Part III. Measurement: Myths and Distractions: Part IV. It's About Fossil Fuels: Part V. Costs and Consequences: Part VI. The Carbon Policy Toolkit: Part VII. The Global Dimension: Part VIII. Political Economy for Alligators.
About the author
Peter Dorman is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
Summary
An authoritative survey of the science and economics of climate policy. Challenges common assumptions about the policies needed to forestall a climate catastrophe, their costs and the obstacles to enacting them.
Foreword
Integrating science, economics and policy, this book explains the urgency of sticking to a strict carbon budget.
