Daron Acemoglu, professor of economics at MIT, is co-author of “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty” (Profile, 2019) and “The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty” (Penguin, 2020)

Environmental tariffs may be humanity’s last hope for mitigating climate change, which is on course to become increasingly devastating if we do not curb our greenhouse-gas emissions.