Carbon and Climate

We can learn from the two converging trends of increasing mission-orientation in support of public health and decreasing energy demand in support of planetary health. Both are outcomes of the Covid-19 crisis. The former intentionally, through the mobilisation of resources as the impossible has become inevitable regarding state intervention and collaboration. The latter unintentionally, as restrictions on the freedom of movement have scaled back demand for goods and services. This mission-orientation experience around public health needs to be translated into international collaborative mission-orientation around planetary health to ensure there is no return to business-as-usual, with energy demand and carbon emissions rebounding accordingly. This essay explores mechanisms within the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to operationalize such collaboration through climate clubs. Such clubs allow the market-fixing carbon tax/cap-and-trade dichotomy to be overcome through the reducer-receives principle based on the positive pricing of carbon emission mitigation actions. Economic stimulus to foster a Green Deal is the first step to embody planetary health objectives in our economic trajectory.