There has been enormous progress in the field of climate research in determining the causes and severity of global warming. Yet development of effective policies to mitigate (i.e., stop) global warming have been lagging. This paper argues that climate research for mitigation needs to be strengthened through development of a climate accounting system using simple budgetary analysis, to assist policy makers, consumers, and businesses in bottom-up decision-making concerning investment and utilization of green technologies, and in top-down mitigation planning. The paper briefly reviews the economic background to climate change, highlighting key obstacles to designing and implementing solutions – specifically, that fossil fuels are embedded in the economy, global warming is an externality, and that global political and economic decision-making is highly decentralized and generally embedded in markets. It then discusses the importance of further developing budgetary analysis, specifically measuring two crucial budgets – the Global Energy Budget and the Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Budget. Budgetary analysis is an essential tool for mitigation purposes, simplifying the problem and enabling proper evaluation of mitigation options and development of an effective climate action plan. Building on the substantial work already done by scientists and government and international agencies, the development of a comprehensive climate accounting system is recommended, with crucial metrics identified, explained, and measured. Proposed mitigation solutions should be climate scored, i.e., assessed based on their impact on these two budgets and on their financial desirability and technical feasibility. A central climate data agency is needed to define, collect, organize, and distribute the data, and perform the climate scoring. This will provide critical information needed to make decisions on which green technologies deserve investment, and which ones should be adopted by consumers and businesses. This accounting system will also enable policy makers to design and implement those regulatory interventions that provide the most effective, least disruptive and fairest solution to achieve a safe climate
