Global Climate Change: The Pragmatist's Guide to Moving the Needle

Book Synopsis: Climate change is transforming Earth. By the end of this century, it will likely be approximately 2°C warmer than it is today — and it could turn out to be a lot worse. Warming will cause great miseries, especially in some specific poor countries. What can we do to help slow down global warming — to move the needle? So far, much climate activism has been ineffective. Individual carbon-footprint activism has not and cannot greatly change the global climate trajectory. Nor does it matter much what the worldwide social cost of carbon or the optimal level of a carbon tax should be — the subjects of much acrimonious debate — simply because there is no world government. Nor is it realistic to believe that international negotiations will lead to major emission cuts. And even the painful economic sacrifices proposed by international agreements could slow global warming by only about 0.3-0.5°C by 2100. Moreover, expecting sustained painful sacrifices is unrealistic. Both activists and skeptics alike have trouble coming to grips with reality. The activists who imagine that important decision makers will accept significant local pain on behalf of broader global climate objectives are as unrealistic as the skeptics who claim humanity would not be better off with fewer fossil-fuel emissions. What ultimately matters is not what the world should do, but what its important decision-makers will do. And just who these decision-makers are might surprise readers. The OECD is no longer important enough to be able to solve the world’s climate problem. Non-OECD countries will soon house more than four-fifths of the world’s population and emit more than three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gases. We shouldn’t blame them, either. Many are poor and merely want to offer their people the same modern standards of living that we in the OECD have already been enjoying for decades. Unfortunately, the dilemma remains that our collective worldwide problem cannot be solved by “blame games,” by guilt feelings in and goodwill by OECD countries, by development aid, or by mandated emission reductions and belt-tightening. Not all is lost. The most pressing task now is the intelligent phasing out of fossil fuels. We should subsidize research in all aspects of clean energy, particularly storage. When it arrives, cheaper clean energy will displace most fossil fuels all over the world — and thus truly move the needle. Global Climate Change contains the authors’ best efforts to simplify and shed light on the relevant data primarily from an economics perspective. It provides objective quantitative assessments of the issues with a focus on common sense. It tells the unvarnished truth in the most accurate and objective manner possible. It holds no cows sacred. Whether truths are inconvenient or unwelcome is irrelevant. This book may well appeal to and offend readers of all stripes. The authors welcome the debate.

About the Authors

Ivo Welch is the J. Fred Weston Professor of Economics and Finance and Bradford Cornell is Professor Emeritus at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. They have been teaching a course based on this book at UCLA and UCSD for a few years now. Neither has ever been supported by fossil-fuel or climate-activist organizations. For more information, see http://climate-change.world/.

Special Continous Updating Note

This book is regularly updated to reflect current developments and clarifications. Check the date on the first inside book page. A book no older than 6 months should not have changed dramatically. A book older than 6 months is more like an older edition.