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Net Zero: How We Stop Causing Climate Change

Shortlisted for the Wainwright Environmental Prize 2021

What can we really do about the climate emergency? 
The inconvenient truth is that we are causing the climate crisis with our carbon intensive lifestyles and that fixing – or even just slowing – it will affect all of us. But it can be done.

In Net Zero, economist 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 and 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 must find it. Everything is at stake."

"Dieter Helm is one of Britain's foremost experts on energy economics and he has written a terrific book on the next agenda item once the Covid emergency has passed. It is also an angry book … A fine overview of our climate policy failures and the options for doing better." Sunday Independent

Published September 2020. Now updated and available in paperback, September 2021.  

Hardback: Click to order.

Paperback: Click to order.
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Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside

Finally, a practical, realistic plan to rescue, preserve and enhance nature.

News about Britain’s wildlife and ecosystems tends to be grim. In Green and Prosperous Land, Oxford economist and Natural Capital Committee chair Dieter Helm shares his radical but tangible plan for positive change. This pragmatic approach to environmentalism includes a summary of Britain’s green assets, a look towards possible futures and an achievable 25-year plan for a green and prosperous country.

The bold generational plan assesses the environment as a whole, explains the necessity of protecting and enhancing our green spaces and offers a clear, economically viable strategy to put Britain on a greener path. Helm’s arguments expose the economic inefficiencies in our environmental policies and thus highlight the need for change. Leaving behind the current sterile and ineffective battle between the environment and the economy, this revolutionary plan champions the integration of the economy and the environment together to deliver sustainable, eco-friendly economic growth.

There is hope, and there is time, but we must act now.

Published 2019, William Collins

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Talking Economics Podcast: Listen here to my Introduction to Green and Prosperous Land

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Burn Out: The Endgame for Fossil Fuels

An energy revolution is under way with far-reaching consequences for nations, companies, and the way we address climate change

Low oil prices are sending shockwaves through the global economy, and longtime industry observer Dieter Helm explains how this and other shifts are the harbingers of a coming energy revolution and how the fossil fuel age will come to an end. Surveying recent surges in technological innovations, Helm’s provocative new book documents how the global move toward the internet-of-things will inexorably reduce the demand for oil, gas, and renewables—and prove more effective than current efforts to avert climate change.
 
Oil companies and energy utilities must begin to adapt their existing business models or face future irrelevancy. Oil-exporting nations, particularly in the Middle East, will be negatively impacted, whereas the United States and European countries that are investing in new technologies may find themselves leaders in the geopolitical game. Timely and controversial, this book concludes by offering advice on what governments and businesses can and should do now to prepare for a radically different energy future.

"Dieter Helm has redefined the study of energy economics. His must-read new book is a prescient and gripping analysis of the trends which are reshaping our world ", Edward Lucas, Senior Editor, The Economist

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Published 2017, Yale University Press

 

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Natural Capital: Valuing The Planet

Hard-hitting recommendations for what must be done to manage global natural capital and reverse environmental destruction

Natural capital is what nature provides to us for free. Renewables—like species—keep on coming, provided we do not drive them towards extinction. Non-renewables—like oil and gas—can only be used once. Together, they are the foundation that ensures our survival and well-being, and the basis of all economic activity. In the face of the global, local, and national destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems, economist Dieter Helm here offers a crucial set of strategies for establishing natural capital policy that is balanced, economically sustainable, and politically viable.
 
Helm shows why the commonly held view that environmental protection poses obstacles to economic progress is false, and he explains why the environment must be at the very core of economic planning. He presents the first real attempt to calibrate, measure, and value natural capital from an economic perspective and goes on to outline a stable new framework for sustainable growth. Bristling with ideas of immediate global relevance, Helm’s book shifts the parameters of current environmental debate. As inspiring as his trailblazing The Carbon Crunch, this volume will be essential reading for anyone concerned with reversing the headlong destruction of our environment.

"The book is a valuable contribution, written by an author who knows his subject and cares deeply about his message", Nick Hanley, Nature

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Published 2016, Yale University Press

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The Carbon Crunch - Revised and Updated

In a new edition of his hard-hitting book on climate change, economist Dieter Helm looks at how and why we have failed to tackle the issue of global warming and argues for a new, pragmatic rethinking of energy policy.
 
"An optimistically levelheaded book about actually dealing with global warming. " Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"[Dieter Helm] has turned his agile mind to one of the great problems of our age: why the world’s efforts to curb the carbon dioxide emissions behind global warming have gone so wrong, and how it can do better. "Pilita Clark, Financial Times

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Published 2015, Yale University Press

 

 

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