Tackling the Climate Emergency - A “No Regrets” Plan

Sir Dieter Helm, professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Economics, outlines a plan to solve climate change in the final chapter of his book, ‘Net Zero. How we stop causing climate change’. It will rapidly bring emissions down if implemented.

Carbon consumption pricing is at the core of professor Helm’s plan. It works by making consumers pay more for carbon intensive products and this alters their buying habits and rapidly brings emissions down.

The alternative, carbon production pricing, puts a price on emissions from producing goods. However, the production of goods that would have been made in the UK is exported to developing countries instead. Additionally, China and India have less effective environmental regulation and polluting coal powered manufacturing. This way the UK government can claim that UK emissions are down but globally they rise.

The government should...