Technical solutions to the threat of climate change are not difficult to imagine. Existing technologies could eliminate most or all greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, transportation, and other carbon-intensive activities. Progress in this direction would undoubtedly spur the development of even better and cheaper techniques for reducing emissions in the future.

Yet ambitious measures to reduce carbon emissions are all too rare in reality. The obstacles to climate protection are primarily economic and political, rather than technological. Powerful interests strongly prefer the status quo to massive investment in emission reductions. Debates over equitable sharing of the costs of climate protection, both internationally and intranationally, have stymied many efforts to move forward on this urgent issue.

This book presents our research related to these themes, addressing the joint problems of climate and global equity. The articles included here, almost all from peer-reviewed journals, argue that the impacts of inaction on climate change will be far worse than the costs of ambitious climate policies, and that progress toward global equity is indispensable to the attempt to stabilize the climate.

The book is divided into four sections. The first presents our general economic perspectives on climate and equity. “Climate Economics in Four Easy Pieces” is a short summary of a framework for analysis, incorporating four fundamental principles that should shape the field: the importance of future generations, the central role of the risks of catastrophic outcomes, the impossibility of monetization of all important impacts (and hence the impossibility of traditional cost–benefit analysis), and the reasons why damage costs are worse than protection costs. “Carbon Markets Are Not Enough” argues that, especially for developing countries, carbon prices must be combined with extensive nonprice policies in order to create equitable, development-oriented climate policies. “Modeling Pessimism” suggests that many climate scenarios assume slow growth for low-income countries, a cynical assumption which has the effect of reducing projected global emissions. It outlines the policy adjustments that would be needed for emission reduction in an equitable world, where many developing countries achieve high rates of growth. “The Tragedy of Maldistribution” proposes a new approach to the question of equity, treating it as a public good that is an important component of sustainability.