Five Times Faster
Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change – Updated Edition

Policy insider's compelling argument to tackle climate change five times faster, including a new chapter and updates throughout.

Simon Sharpe (Author)

9781009568517, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 7 November 2024

452 pages
19.8 x 13 x 2.5 cm, 0.47 kg

We need to act five times faster to avoid dangerous climate change. This is an inside story from Simon Sharpe, who has spent ten years at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy. In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change, science is pulling its punches, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles, and economics has been fighting for the other side. This provocative and engaging book sets out how we should rethink our strategies and reorganise our efforts in the fields of science, economics, and diplomacy, so that we can act fast enough to stay safe. This edition has been brought up-to-date throughout, and includes a new chapter on how international cooperation on climate change can be reconciled with economic and geopolitical competition. It also includes a response to the question the book has most often provoked: 'How can I help?'

1. Introduction
Part I. Science: 2. Looking up at the dam
3. Knowing the least about what matters most
4. Telling the boiling frog what he needs to know
5. Runaway tipping points of no return
6. The meaning of conservative
7. More than science
8. Tell the truth
Part II. Economics: 9. Worse than useless
10. The allocation of scarce resources
11. The configuration of abundance
12. Not just fixing the foundations
13. Investing with our eyes open
14. Regulating for a free lunch
15. Stuck in first gear
16. Runaway tipping points of no return, revisited
17. Revolutionary
Part III. Diplomacy: 18. A foreseeable failure
19. The greatest public relations gamble in history
20. System change, not climate change
21. Better late than never
22. From coal to clean power
23. From oil to electric vehicles
24. From deforestation to sustainable development
25. The Breakthrough Agenda
26. Competition and cooperation
27. Tipping cascades
 28. Epilogue. Appendix: How you can help.

Subject Areas: International environmental law [LBBP]