Climate Crisis Economics, Stuart P.M. Mackintosh, Routledge, London and New York, 2022

For any stock pollutant problem, the longer oneleaves it without reducing emissions, the worse itgets. When the problem is on the scale of globalclimate change, crisis territory can be entered.This book explores the challenge of globalclimate change, with a focus on understandingthe situation we are in and how to get out of it.This book is highly textual and has a strongemphasis on real-world examples. If you arelooking for theoretical treatments of things suchas why carbon taxes are so highly effective or theadditionality problems of emissions offsets, thisis not the book. It instead provides an up-to-date,broad overview of the climate challenge andexplores what is needed to address it. Along theway it covers topics from green finance to greenindustrial policy, and the importance of leader-ship and climate-focused institutions.A key message is that an adequate response to acollective crisis requires ambitious governmentaction. This is in contrast to the current light-touch approach of Australias federal govern-ment, which has professed faith in so-called can-do capitalism to bring emissions down with aminimum of government intervention. But aseconomists know, capitalism can do so muchmore if the government helps out a little bypricing negative externalities. Once a price forgreenhouse gas emissions is in place, market-based economies have a strong profit motive totackle the problem at hand