Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, policy responses remain fragmented and insufficient in relation to the magnitude of the challenge. This study presents a structured review and a policy-oriented synthesis of the economic and political factors underlying the persistent gap between scientific urgency and political action. Drawing on the environmental economics and political economy literature, it examines key concepts such as negative externalities, the Social Cost of Carbon, and central policy instruments, including carbon pricing, public investment, and regulatory approaches. Instead of offering new empirical estimates, the article develops an integrated conceptual framework for climate policy design that explicitly links economic efficiency, social equity, and political feasibility. It uses it to systematically evaluate the trade-offs and complementarities among alternative policy instruments. It argues that no single policy instrument can simultaneously optimize these objectives and that effective climate governance requires coordinated policy packages that combine carbon pricing, redistribution mechanisms, and strategic industrial policy. By synthesizing theoretical contributions and empirical findings from the existing literature, the article proposes a structured approach to complementarities of climate policies, highlighting the institutional and political constraints that shape implementation. The analysis emphasized that bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and political action is fundamentally an issue in policy design and political economy, rather than a lack of empirical evidence or analytical tools.
Antonieta Lima (Tue,) studied this question.