The failure of Integrated Assessment Models as a response to ‘climate emergency’ and ecological breakdown: the Emperor has no clothes

In this brief commentary we provide some parallel points to complement Steve Keen’s paper in the recent Globalization’s special forum on ‘Economics and Climate Emergency’. Keen’s critique of climate and economy Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) is wide-ranging, but there is still scope to bring to the fore the general issues that help to make sense of the critique. Accordingly, we set out six key inadequacies of IAMs and argue towards the need for a different approach that is more realistic regarding the limits to growth.