The Carbon Crunch: How We're Getting Climate Change Wrong - and How to Fix it

The Carbon Crunch: How We're Getting Climate Change Wrong - and How to Fix it

by Dieter Helm (Author)

Synopsis

Despite commitments to renewable energy and two decades of international negotiations, global emissions continue to rise. Coal, the most damaging of all fossil fuels, has actually risen from 25 per cent to almost 30 per cent of world energy use. And while European countries have congratulated themselves on reducing emissions, they have increased their carbon imports from China and other developing nations, who continue to expand their coal use. As standards of living increase in developing countries, coal use can only increase as well - and global temperatures along with it. In this hard-hitting book, Dieter Helm looks at how and why we have failed to tackle the issue of global warming and argues for a new, pragmatic rethinking of energy policy - from transitioning from coal to gas and eventually to electrification of transport, to carbon pricing and a focus on new technologies. Lucid, compelling and rigorously researched, this book will have a lasting impact on how we think about climate change.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 26 Jul 2013

ISBN 10: 0300197195
ISBN 13: 9780300197198

Media Reviews
Helm's credentials couldn't be more impressive...This intelligent though depressing tome should inform future debates. -Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly An optimistically levelheaded book about actually dealing with global warming. -Kirkus, starred review Kirkus The Carbon Crunch is a powerful and heartfelt plea for hard-nosed realism. And it also suggests a worrying truth - that the environmental movement is often more interested in pursuing a soft-focus vision of a greener world than in actually fixing climate change. -Fred Pearce, New Scientist -- Fred Pearce New Scientist Dieter Helm's lucid assessment of the risks of climate change and what we can do about it, has attracted fierce criticism from Green groups - not for his diagnosis, with which they agree, but for his prescription. Helm is clear that man-made climate change is occurring; but he has no faith in renewables and argues that global agreements such as Kyoto are a waste of time ... Moreover, the best weapon against climate change is research and development - government-funded science will have to get us out of this, which means less cash for wind-farms. Sounds like common sense. -Brandon Robshaw, Independent on Sunday -- Brandon Robshaw Independent on Sunday Dieter Helm's The Carbon Crunch [is] a forensically deadly attack on the failures and obfuscations of current debates on global warming. The world, he shows, now faces a 'carbon crunch', from which there is no pain-free exit. Helm's book should be compulsory reading for the entire political class as well as the bureaucratic elite and the commentariat. -David Marquand, New Statesman -- David Marquand New Statesman
Author Bio
Dieter Helm, CBE, is professor of energy policy, University of Oxford and fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford. He is a member of the Economic Advisory Committee to the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and Chair of the Natural Capital Committee.