Carbon

Renowned economic historian and "crisis whisperer" Adam Tooze (Crashed) tells the story of climate change as the first truly global crisis of our time—and the struggle that is shifting the center of power from the West to China

For decades, climate change was framed as a Western drama: American oil companies, European carbon markets, UN summits, and partisan battles in Washington. The solution seemed clear: liberal democracies would lead, markets would innovate, and global agreements would bend the curve of emissions downward. In Carbon, Adam Tooze argues that this vision belonged to a fleeting moment of American supremacy—and that it no longer describes the world we live in.

Beginning in the waning days of the Cold War and moving through Rio, Kyoto, the financial crisis, and the turbulence of the 2020s, Tooze traces how climate politics emerged from an era of Western dominance before giving way to a profound shift in the global economy. Today, China is not only the world’s largest emitter; it dominates the supply chains of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles and stands at the center of the new energy economy. The energy transition is no longer Western-led but increasingly shaped by China’s extraordinary industrial ascent.

Tooze examines the forces behind this transformation: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the globalization shocks of the 1990s and 2000s, the explosive growth of Asian manufacturing, the shale revolution, the global financial crisis, and America’s wavering commitment to climate action. He shows that climate politics was never simply a fight between scientists and oil companies but a struggle over trade, development, state power, and who gets to build the industries that will define our future.

Drawing on his unparalleled authority as one of the world’s leading historians of political economy, Tooze brings historical depth and analytical precision to the contemporary climate emergency. At its core, Carbon asks who will build the technologies and energy systems of the future, and what it means for the balance of power to shift away from the West. Urgent and provocative, it reveals the climate crisis as the defining struggle of the twenty-first century.