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Climate change is profoundly altering our world in ways that pose major risks to human societies and natural systems. We have entered the Climate Casino and are rolling the global-warming dice, warns economist William Nordhaus. But there is still time to turn around and walk back out of the casino, and in this essential book the author explains how. Bringing together all the important issues surrounding the climate debate, Nordhaus describes the science, economics, and politics involved-and the steps necessary to reduce the perils of global warming. Using language accessible to any concerned citizen and taking care to present different points of view fairly, he discusses the problem from start to finish: from the beginning, where warming originates in our personal energy use, to the end, where societies employ regulations or taxes or subsidies to slow the emissions of gases responsible for climate change. Nordhaus offers a new analysis of why earlier policies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, failed to slow carbon dioxide emissions, how new approaches can succeed, and which policy tools will most effectively reduce emissions. In short, he clarifies a defining problem of our times and lays out the next critical steps for slowing the trajectory of global warming

Climate change is profoundly altering our world in ways that pose major risks to human societies and natural systems. We have entered the Climate Casino and are rolling the global-warming dice, warns the author. But there is still time to turn around and walk back out of the casino, and in this book the author explains how. Bringing together all the important issues surrounding the climate debate, this book describes the science, economics, and politics involved - and the steps necessary to reduce the perils of global warming. Taking care to present different points of view, the author discusses the problem from start to finish: from the beginning, where warming originates in our personal energy use, to the end, where societies employ regulations or taxes or subsidies to slow the emissions of gases responsible for climate change. The author offers a new analysis of why earlier policies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, failed to slow carbon dioxide emissions, how new approaches can succeed, and which policy tools will most effectively reduce emissions. This book clarifies a defining problem of our times and lays out the next critical steps for slowing the trajectory of global warming.

"As scientific and observational evidence on global warming piles up every day, questions of economic policy in this critical environmental topic have taken center stage. But as author and prominent Yale economist William Nordhaus observes, the issues involved in understanding global warming and slowing its harmful effects are complex and cross disciplinary boundaries. For example, ecologists see global warming as a threat to ecosystems, utilities as a debit to their balance sheets, and farmers as a hazard to their livelihoods." "In this important work, William Nordhaus integrates the entire spectrum of economic and scientific research to weigh the costs of reducing emissions against the benefits of reducing the long-run damages from global warming. The book offers one of the most extensive dynamic analyses of greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change and provides the tools to evaluate alternative approaches to slowing global warming."--Jacket

Although the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol focused world attention on the global climate, it was just one step in the ongoing process of addressing climate change in all its facets. Research by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been ongoing since 1988. An extensive IPCC Working Group report published in 1995 examined the economic and social aspects of climate change. In this volume, eminent analysts assess that IPCC report and address the questions that emerge from it. The result is an instructive and cogent look at the realities of climate change and some methods (and difficulties) of dealing with them. William Nordhaus's introduction establishes the context for the book. It provides basic scientific background on climate change, reviews the IPCC's activities, and explains the genesis of the analyses. Subsequent contributions fall into two categories. Early chapters review analytical issues critical to social and economic understanding of climate change. A second set of chapters address specific economic questions surrounding climate-change policy. The result is an original and significant contribution to the evolving debate on this crucial hot-button topic.