Supercharge Me

A manifesto ... that turns the greatest threat we face into the greatest opportunity. Mark Blyth, William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics, Brown University

Lonergan is probably the finest, and certainly the most thoughtful, Irish economist of his generation. The Irish Times

The hunger for fast, effective policy solutions to the climate threat is deep. Fund manager Eric Lonergan and sustainability adviser Corinne Sawers go a long way to satisfying it in Supercharge Me: Net Zero Faster. Their short, readable book is a polite rebuke to the economists who have dominated climate policy thinking, especially those focused on the idea that the best way to fix a negative externality such as carbon pollution is to tax it. The trouble is carbon taxes are easy to demonise and slow to produce results. Also, carbon pricing alone may not change behaviour fast when there are no obvious alternatives to, say, petrol-fuelled cars or beef burgers. The answer, say Lonergan and Sawers, is to relentlessly prioritise green electrification, which could cut up to 75 per cent of emissions, and use carbon taxes to complement what they call EPICs: extreme, positive incentives for change. These are measures that 'supercharge' behavioural change, such as the fixed-price energy contracts in Germany that drove a global solar power boom. Weak inducements won’t do: if a plant-based burger is only priced 3 per cent lower than a regular burger no one will change behaviour, but if it’s 30 per cent cheaper who wouldn’t give it a try? Financial Times, Best New Books on Climate Change

The challenge of getting to net zero is not primarily budgetary but structural: how do you design politically viable policies to ensure the transition actually happens? That is the question Eric Lonergan, an economist and fund manager, and Corinne Sawers, a climate consultant, take on in their new book Supercharge Me: Net Zero Faster. The authors are not kind to economists, who typically want to put a price on emissions and then let the market do the work ... they argue that getting people to make the big leaps needed to decarbonise instead requires 'extreme positive incentives for change' (EPICS) ... a more politically viable route to doing so than raising the carbon price ... Lonergan and Sawers are right that some EPICS are needed to make the journey politically easier ... The path to net zero will involve more than set-it-and-forget-it carbon pricing. The Economist

... [a] positive response to the challenge of climate change. The authors are well qualified for making this case. Eric Lonergan is an Irish economist and co-author of the superb Angrynomics. Corinne Sawers is an advisor to governments and businesses on environmental sustainability ... The authors interrogate difficult issues thoroughly. The questions are relevant and the answers are clear and succinct ... their concept of supercharging is central to how decarbonisation can be radically accelerated ... We need books like this. Paschal Donohoe, The Irish Times

The authors pile into the climate debate with welcome gusto, offering two big suggestions: to power all cars, homes and industry entirely with renewable electricity, and to influence mass behaviour with 'extreme positive incentives' - more carrot and fewer sticks. John Vidal, in Literary Review

• Watch an Interview with the Authors of Supercharge Me
• Eric Lonergan & Corinne Sawers present Supercharge Me, with Bruce Usher
• Listen to an Interview with Eric Lonergan and Corrine Sawyers