reading log: net zero by dieter helm

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 ## 2026-04-15
 
+## @{net-zero}
+
+A very calm, practical book. Economics for a popular audience. The big idea: we
+need unilateral action, not multilateral. Each nation that obeys these three
+principles will eliminate their contribution to climate change in the cheapest
+and most effective way: polluter pays, public money for public goods, net
+environmental benefit. Decarbonisation is costly, a carbon tax is the most efficient way of pricing this cost in.
+
+I found him persuasive.
+
+I was surprised to see his statistics showing that the world as a whole has done
+nothing to stop causing climate change, and has continued to accelerate at the
+same rate. However, I was convinced, because of his pivot from looking at
+production to looking at consumption. While Europe has hugely decreased its
+contribution to carbon production, its contribution to carbon consumption has
+not budged, because it has offshored its heavy industries to China, where those
+industries are fuelled by coal.
+
+It was not particularly hope-inspiring. It put the onus on national politicians,
+and I already don't feel hopeful that national politicians in the UK or much
+anywhere else are capable of doing anything sensible. He persuaded me that this
+is a sensible, practical course of action, but not that there is any likelihood
+that it will happen nor that there is anything beyond mere token acts that I can
+do to change anything.
+
 ### @{heat}
 
 George Monbiot had a hard-nosed pop-science proposal for the cheapest way we