Rethinking Climate Policy

Jean-François Mercure is Professor of Climate Policy at the University of Exeter's Business School, UK. He was Senior Climate Economist at the World Bank. He researches the economics of climate change and advises on policymaking. He has lectured at University of Cambridge, Radboud University and University of Exeter. He is an economist, innovation scholar and complexity scientist, and works on varied topics from energy systems to quantitative finance to geopolitics. He has authored over eighty peer-reviewed articles and the textbook Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance (2022). Hector Pollitt is Senior Climate Economist at The World Bank, focusing on climate policy solutions in East and South East Asia. He was previously the head of modelling and Chief Economist at Cambridge Econometrics, a consultancy based in the UK. He has twenty years of experience working with macroeconomic models and providing policy advice on climate policy to national governments and international organisations. He has co-edited two books on sustainability policy in East Asia and has co-authored more than forty peer-reviewed journal articles.

• 1. What is the economic challenge of climate action?; 2. Seeking innovation, not optimality; 3. Economic resources are created, not allocated; 4. The transition in context: the six great waves of innovation; 5. The lifecycle of products and sectors; 6. The sunrise: A new technological constellation; 7. The sunset: Deindustrialisation and post-industrial decline; 8. The great transformation of our time; 9. Instability is the true cost of the transition; 10. Rethinking climate policy.

‘This is a valuable contribution to a hugely important debate, articulating the need for governments and legislators to help manage risks to ensure all groups in society can share the returns in an equitable and fair zero-carbon transition.’ Baroness Hayman, GBE, former Lord Speaker; Chair, Peers for the Planet