The Carbon Connection: Climate Change Solutions for our Energy, Economic and Geopolitical Challenges - Hardcover

The oil shock, the credit crunch and the near-collapse of global climate negotiations demand a radical rethink of current policies. Michael Grubb and his co-authors present a path to tackling climate change that can also enhance international and energy security, and help global financial and political adjustment to the rise of the emerging economies.

Bringing together insights from contemporary development, management and behavioural sciences, the book develops a new planetary economics. As carbon becomes an increasingly limited and valuable global resource, it can also serve as an anchor point for adjusting global financial imbalances. This book shows that low carbon economies can have a long-run competitive advantage because of their higher efficiency and reduced exposure to oil instability. The key to making this transition lies in the integrated use of innovation policy, carbon pricing and consumer empowerment.

The triad of interlinked solutions presented in this book can create a tipping point towards energy and climate security. A coalition of countries that spearhead this agenda will benefit most from it – the powerful combination of benefits it offers will make it impossible, ultimately, for any country to stand aside.

Professor Michael Grubb is Chair of the international research organization Climate Strategies, headquartered at Cambridge University where is also a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Economics. His former positions include Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust, Professor of Climate Change and Energy Policy at Imperial College London, and head of Energy and Environment at Chatham House, and he continues to be associated with these institutions. In 2008 he was appointed to the UK Climate Change Committee, established under the UK Climate Change Bill to advise the government on future carbon budgets and to report to Parliament on their implementation.