Synopses & Reviews
In a new edition of his hard-hitting book on climate change, economist 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.
“An optimistically levelheaded book about actually dealing with global warming.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“[Dieter Helm] has turned his agile mind to one of the great problems of our age: why the world’s efforts to curb the carbon dioxide emissions behind global warming have gone so wrong, and how it can do better.”—Pilita Clark, Financial Times
Review
“Helms credentials couldnt be more impressive…This intelligent though depressing tome should inform future debates.”—
Publishers WeeklyReview
“An optimistically levelheaded book about actually dealing with global warming.”—
Kirkus, starred review
Review
"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
Review
“Dieter Helms 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
Review
“Dieter Helms 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. Helms book should be compulsory reading for the entire political class as well as the bureaucratic elite and the commentariat.”—David Marquand, New Statesman
Review
"A devastating analysis of why the world has failed to do much about global warming - and a plan for how markets can help governments do much better."—David G. Victor, author of Global Warming Gridlock
About the Author
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.