Prem Shankar Jha is an independent columnist, a prolific author and a former information adviser, Prime Minister’s Office (India). He completed his master’s in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford in 1961. After working for five years for the United Nations Development Programme in New York and Damascus, he returned to India to pursue a career in journalism. Over the past few decades, he has been Editor in The Economic Times, The Financial Express, and Hindustan Times, and the Economic Editor in The Times of India. Jha has been a visiting scholar at Nuffield College, University of Oxford; Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; University of Virginia; University of Richmond and the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. He began research on alternate fuels in 1980. He has written extensively on them and their significance for the environment. In 1985, he was nominated to the energy panel of the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 1988, he was awarded the Energy Journalist of the Year award by the International Association for Energy Economics. Jha has many published works to his credit. Some of them are given as follows: India: A Political Economy of Stagnation (1980), In the Eye of the Cyclone: The Crisis in Indian Democracy (1993), A Jobless Future: Political Causes of Economic Crisis (2002), The Perilous Road to the Market: The Political Economy of Reform in Russia, India and China (2002), The Origins of a Dispute: Kashmir 1947 (2003), The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War (2006), Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (SAGE, 2009), A Planet in Peril (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India Dominate the West? (2010).

The author is one of India’s most renowned journalists and a former member of the Bruntland Commission. He has been at the heart of India’s national discussion of sustainable development for decades and brings to the subject a wide international experience, a fierce understanding of technology and science, and a gift for communicating complex subjects in accessible and engaging language. Since the brief surge of optimism that followed the signing of Paris Agreement a starker sense of reality has set in. The pledges agreed in Paris take the world to an increase of 3.5°C, well beyond any idea of safe levels. Already there is alarming evidence of an accelerating warming that risks pushing the world beyond the threshold at which human action could prevent catastrophe. The Trump administration is spearheading a pushback by fossil fuel interests that will slow the effort further. Against this background, Prem Shankar Jha offers a clear way forward. The book is an exploration of the options for avoiding dangerous climate change, starting from the essential question: Given that we know how to effect a transition to a low-carbon economy, and given the catastrophic risk to human civilisations that climate change represents, why have we failed to respond?

• Foreword by M. S. SwaminathanPrefaceAcknowledgementsPart I: Where We Are TodayElements of a Perfect StormA Desperate Search for RemediesBlind Alleys and Red HerringsPart II: What Can Save UsSolar Thermal RevolutionThe Strange Neglect of BiomassTransport Fuels Are the Place to StartLimitless Potential of BiomassCompleting the Energy Shift—Hydrogen from SunlightPart III: The Market Economy Is Not a FriendThe Inertia of the Market EconomyWhere the World Went WrongBacklash: Attack on Climate SciencePart IV: Gateway to a Better WorldHow the Sun Will Change Our WorldCatch Up: India as a Case StudyRetreat from War IndexIndex

Prem Shankar Jha is an independent columnist, a prolific author and a former information adviser, Prime Minister’s Office (India). He completed his master’s in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford in 1961. After working for five years for the United Nations Development Programme in New York and Damascus, he returned to India to pursue a career in journalism. Over the past few decades, he has been Editor in The Economic Times, The Financial Express, and Hindustan Times, and the Economic Editor in The Times of India. Jha has been a visiting scholar at Nuffield College, University of Oxford; Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; University of Virginia; University of Richmond and the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. He began research on alternate fuels in 1980. He has written extensively on them and their significance for the environment. In 1985, he was nominated to the energy panel of the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 1988, he was awarded the Energy Journalist of the Year award by the International Association for Energy Economics. Jha has many published works to his credit. Some of them are given as follows: India: A Political Economy of Stagnation (1980), In the Eye of the Cyclone: The Crisis in Indian Democracy (1993), A Jobless Future: Political Causes of Economic Crisis (2002), The Perilous Road to the Market: The Political Economy of Reform in Russia, India and China (2002), The Origins of a Dispute: Kashmir 1947 (2003), The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War (2006), Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (SAGE, 2009), A Planet in Peril (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India Dominate the West? (2010).

The author is one of India’s most renowned journalists and a former member of the Bruntland Commission. He has been at the heart of India’s national discussion of sustainable development for decades and brings to the subject a wide international experience, a fierce understanding of technology and science, and a gift for communicating complex subjects in accessible and engaging language. Since the brief surge of optimism that followed the signing of Paris Agreement a starker sense of reality has set in. The pledges agreed in Paris take the world to an increase of 3.5°C, well beyond any idea of safe levels. Already there is alarming evidence of an accelerating warming that risks pushing the world beyond the threshold at which human action could prevent catastrophe. The Trump administration is spearheading a pushback by fossil fuel interests that will slow the effort further. Against this background, Prem Shankar Jha offers a clear way forward. The book is an exploration of the options for avoiding dangerous climate change, starting from the essential question: Given that we know how to effect a transition to a low-carbon economy, and given the catastrophic risk to human civilisations that climate change represents, why have we failed to respond?

• Foreword by M. S. SwaminathanPrefaceAcknowledgementsPart I: Where We Are TodayElements of a Perfect StormA Desperate Search for RemediesBlind Alleys and Red HerringsPart II: What Can Save UsSolar Thermal RevolutionThe Strange Neglect of BiomassTransport Fuels Are the Place to StartLimitless Potential of BiomassCompleting the Energy Shift—Hydrogen from SunlightPart III: The Market Economy Is Not a FriendThe Inertia of the Market EconomyWhere the World Went WrongBacklash: Attack on Climate SciencePart IV: Gateway to a Better WorldHow the Sun Will Change Our WorldCatch Up: India as a Case StudyRetreat from War IndexIndex

Prem Shankar Jha is an independent columnist, a prolific author and a former information adviser, Prime Minister’s Office (India). He completed his master’s in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford in 1961. After working for five years for the United Nations Development Programme in New York and Damascus, he returned to India to pursue a career in journalism. Over the past few decades, he has been Editor in The Economic Times, The Financial Express, and Hindustan Times, and the Economic Editor in The Times of India. Jha has been a visiting scholar at Nuffield College, University of Oxford; Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; University of Virginia; University of Richmond and the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. He began research on alternate fuels in 1980. He has written extensively on them and their significance for the environment. In 1985, he was nominated to the energy panel of the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 1988, he was awarded the Energy Journalist of the Year award by the International Association for Energy Economics. Jha has many published works to his credit. Some of them are given as follows: India: A Political Economy of Stagnation (1980), In the Eye of the Cyclone: The Crisis in Indian Democracy (1993), A Jobless Future: Political Causes of Economic Crisis (2002), The Perilous Road to the Market: The Political Economy of Reform in Russia, India and China (2002), The Origins of a Dispute: Kashmir 1947 (2003), The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War (2006), Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (SAGE, 2009), A Planet in Peril (2009) and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India Dominate the West? (2010).

The author is one of India’s most renowned journalists and a former member of the Bruntland Commission. He has been at the heart of India’s national discussion of sustainable development for decades and brings to the subject a wide international experience, a fierce understanding of technology and science, and a gift for communicating complex subjects in accessible and engaging language. Since the brief surge of optimism that followed the signing of Paris Agreement a starker sense of reality has set in. The pledges agreed in Paris take the world to an increase of 3.5°C, well beyond any idea of safe levels. Already there is alarming evidence of an accelerating warming that risks pushing the world beyond the threshold at which human action could prevent catastrophe. The Trump administration is spearheading a pushback by fossil fuel interests that will slow the effort further. Against this background, Prem Shankar Jha offers a clear way forward. The book is an exploration of the options for avoiding dangerous climate change, starting from the essential question: Given that we know how to effect a transition to a low-carbon economy, and given the catastrophic risk to human civilisations that climate change represents, why have we failed to respond?

• Foreword by M. S. SwaminathanPrefaceAcknowledgementsPart I: Where We Are TodayElements of a Perfect StormA Desperate Search for RemediesBlind Alleys and Red HerringsPart II: What Can Save UsSolar Thermal RevolutionThe Strange Neglect of BiomassTransport Fuels Are the Place to StartLimitless Potential of BiomassCompleting the Energy Shift—Hydrogen from SunlightPart III: The Market Economy Is Not a FriendThe Inertia of the Market EconomyWhere the World Went WrongBacklash: Attack on Climate SciencePart IV: Gateway to a Better WorldHow the Sun Will Change Our WorldCatch Up: India as a Case StudyRetreat from War IndexIndex