In 1990, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first assessment report laying the foundation for scientific knowledge on climate change and highlighting the crucial role of international cooperation in limiting its consequences. Nearly 30 years later, despite growing warnings from the scientific community over the risks associated with climate change, it must be acknowledged that little effort has been made to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and evidence of the climate crisis is becoming increasingly visible, reinforcing the need for a rapid and massive decline in GHG emissions at the global level.
This is the focal point of the book which stresses that the global collective action against climate change is “the most complex political and economic problem the world has ever faced”. The editors gathered contributions from leading academics and practitioners to help us understand the main challenges facing mitigation policies and the tools to address them. The book’s 12 chapters are well organised in four parts: the energy transition, the pricing of carbon emissions, the enforcement of climate agreements, and the role of sustainable finance.
At the time of writing this review, the COP 24 is opening in Katowice, Poland, a coal-mining city in a country where coal still accounts for nearly 80% of electricity production. A couple of months earlier, the IPCC made public a special report drawing the emission pathways consistent with a global warming of 1.5°C and recalling the urgency to move forward on climate change. This is precisely the book’s purpose. Its strength is that it brings together theoretical, empirical and practical contributions that cover a broad set of climate-related issues and provides us with the key factors to address them in the most desirable and efficient way. I guess every negotiator at the UN should have a copy in their hands.
Boris Solier, Co Manager of the Energy Transitions program
Coping with the climate crisis. Mitigation policies and global coordination
from R. Arezki, P. Bolton, K. El Aynaoui, M. Obstfeld published by Columbia University Press (214 pages)
Please find a long summary made also by Boris Solier published in Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy, Volume 8 Number 1