As scientific and observational evidence on global warming piles up every day, questions of economic policy in this central environmental topic have taken center stage. But as author and prominent ...Yale economist William Nordhaus observes, the issues involved in understanding global warming and slowing its harmful effects are complex and cross disciplinary boundaries. For example, ecologists see global warming as a threat to ecosystems, utilities as a debit to their balance sheets, and farmers as a hazard to their livelihoods.
In this important work, William Nordhaus integrates the entire spectrum of economic and scientific research to weigh the costs of reducing emissions against the benefits of reducing the long-run damages from global warming. The book offers one of the most extensive analyses of the economic and environmental dynamics of greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change and provides the tools to evaluate alternative approaches to slowing global warming. The author emphasizes the need to establish effective mechanisms, such as carbon taxes, to harness markets and harmonize the efforts of different countries. This book not only will shape discussion of one the world's most pressing problems but will provide the rationales and methods for achieving widespread agreement on our next best move in alleviating global warming.
This book takes an innovative approach to studying international climate governance by providing a critical analysis of climate leadership, pioneership and followership across the globe. The volume ...assesses the interactions between climate leaders, pioneers and followers, across multilevel and/or polycentric climate governance contexts. Examining the state and sub-state levels in both the Global South and Global North, as well as regional, supranational EU and international climate governance levels, the authors explore 16 countries across Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Central and North America, plus the European Union. Each chapter employs a comprehensive and consistent framework for analyzing leadership and pioneership, as well as followership. The findings provide new insights into the strategies and actions of sub-state, state-level, and supranational leaders and pioneers. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in environmental politics and climate change governance, as well as those interested in political elites, EU studies and, more broadly, comparative politics and international relations.
Climate Crisis Economics draws on economics, political economy, scientific literature, and data to gauge the extent to which our various communities – political, economic, business – are making the ...essential leap to a new narrative and policy approach that will accelerate us towards the necessary transition to a decarbonized economy and sustainable future.The book draws out policies and practices with both national and local examples, which will demonstrate various complementary approaches that are empowering states and people as they seek to pursue the carbon neutral goal. The author delineates a climate crisis economics approach that is fit for purpose and which can help achieve necessary climate change goals in the decades ahead. Ensuring economic and ecological sustainability is neither easy nor cost-free; there is no single solution to the climate crisis. All aspects of our economies, policies, business, and personal practices must come into alignment in order to succeed. Frustratingly, we know what is needed and we have many of the technologies and systems to make the leap to a carbon neutral economy, yet we still fail to act with alacrity. Leaders, communities, and businesses must shift their narratives in how they talk about and think about the climate crisis. In doing so, in making the narrative leap to a new understanding about what is possible and necessary, we can stop endangering our common future and single, fragile, global habitat, and instead set the stage for Green Globalisation 2.0 and a new, sustainable industrial revolution.Climate Crisis Economics will appeal to academics, students, investors, and professionals from varying disciplines including politics, international political economy, and international economics. Written in an accessible voice, it draws on work in fields outside of and in addition to politics and economics to make a case for climate crisis economics as an approach to addressing the climate change challenge ahead.