Table of Contents

Unabated climate change
Nations are failing to contain climate change
Unlikely to keep global warming below 2 degrees
Consequences of GHG’s excess
Passing the peak of CO2 emissions won’t start curbing CO2 concentration
GHG emissions: mostly energy to power the economy
Economic activity and GHG emissions
Shares of GHG emissions by economic sector
Main culprit: fossil fuels as energy source
Electricity is only a fraction of global energy

No, clean energies can’t easily replace fossil fuels
Mandatory clean energies?
Solar and wind energies can’t swiftly replace dirty power plants
Other renewable energies: only small scale
Nuclear energy can’t replace dirty power plants
Next generations of nuclear energy aren’t ready to replace dirty power plants
Production of clean electricity must dramatically scale up
Devices running on fossil fuels must switch to electricity or clean fuels
No, borrowing can’t bankroll it all
Splurging with borrowing to solve it all?
Borrowing like crazy would lead to inflation
Since the 1980s: borrowing under surveillance
The money illusion
No, overtaxing high incomes is not a panacea
Increasing taxes on high wages and corporate profits?
Not too far: heavy taxation is a political threat
High income taxes and the stagflation of the 1970s
Since 1980, cutting tax rates… for more(!) fiscal revenues
Cutting income tax rates to stem the economic crisis
Cutting tax rates on capital gains for a new economy
The recovery has not lifted low wages
A comeback of high tax rates won’t fix global warming or inequality
No, a wealth tax won’t fund the green transition
Congress must just pass a new wealth tax?
Rich’s cash is gone (in loans or investments)
Non-cash assets can’t be taxed easily
A high wealth tax is not realistic
Asset confiscation won’t revive the economy
Switzerland: wealth tax success in a low tax country
Alternative tax on wealth: the capital gains tax
Inescapable tax on wealth: the estate tax
No miracle from plundering the rich
No, corporations can’t fix it alone
Shouldn’t the government order corporations to clean up the planet?
Energy-efficiency: a few easy regulations
Tightening the screw too fast: bankruptcies guaranteed
Costs passed onto consumers?
Corporations can’t fix the climate alone
No, frugality is not the remedy
Frugality with quotas per household?
Energy quotas: circumvented by the rich
Energy quotas would burden low‑income households
Strict quotas could disrupt demand and employment
Frugality is not exactly the goal
Endless economic growth is not absurd
Not less, but more for a green transition

COP21 pushing markets to join in
COP21 is not an economic policy per se
A global market without carbon border adjustments
Pressuring governments to act
Trying to convince markets of an ineluctable shift
Government’s carrot: subsidies
Subsidies to attract participants
Only to nurture green products
Extension of subsidies: cost concerns
Extension of subsidies: market distortion
Extension of subsidies: complex and unfair for consumers
Government’s stick: carbon‑pricing
Carbon-pricing: fines for consuming fossil fuels
Carbon-pricing method 1: the carbon tax
Carbon-pricing method 2: cap-and-trade
Carbon-pricing: wishful guidelines
Carbon-pricing: mind-boggling to implement
Carbon-pricing: experiments are dragging on
Carbon-pricing: blocked by voters discontent with low wages
Carbon-pricing finally implemented… by geopolitics after 2020
US and EU emissions cut in half by 2030?
Government is waiting for technologies to save the day
Technology and productivity could solve it all
Only positive regulations could help

Monetary changes have bypassed politics more than once