Dieter Helm - Net Zero

CONTENTS

Professor Dieter Helm is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Official Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford. He specialises in the environment, notably in climate change, biodiversity, water, energy and agriculture. Previous books have included: Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for rescuing the British Countryside, Burn Out: The Endgame for Fossil Fuels, The Carbon Crunch and Natural Capital: Valuing the Planet. In December 2015, Dieter was reappointed as Independent Chair of the Natural Capital Committee. He is also an Honorary Vice President of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.

What can we really do about climate change?

Thirty years ago, world leaders vowed to reduce carbon emissions. Thirty years later, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere continues to grow. At the same time, the Earths ability to absorb carbon continues to be degraded.

Today, the Paris Agreement target of halting global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees is unattainable and 3 degrees has become a demanding aspiration. As Extinction Rebellion and climate protestors call for action, the inconvenient truth is that we are the ones causing the climate crisis with our carbon intensive lifestyles.

In Net Zero the economist Professor Dieter Helm addresses the action we all need to take to tackle the climate emergency: personal, local, national and global. Reducing our own carbon consumption is the first step. Helm argues that we, the ultimate polluters, should pay based on how much carbon the products we buy produce. We need a carbon price, and one that applies to everything and everywhere, from flights, to food and farming.

The goal of net zero carbon emissions needs a rethink. This book sets out how to do it in a plan that could and would work. Do this and we make no further contribution to global warming, in a way that embraces sustainable economic growth and does not harm other aspects of the environment in the process. There is a solution and we cannot waste the next thirty years.

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