Graeme Maxton is the author of seven internationally acclaimed books on climate change, energy, economics and the automotive industry, published in more than 20 different language editions. He was previously Secretary General of the Club of Rome. He was an Advisory Board Member on the UN’s Energy Pathways Project, is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board at Population Matters and a Research Affiliate of the Rachel Carson Center at Ludwig Maximilian Universität in Munich, Germany.
His most recent book, A Chicken can’t lay a Duck Egg: How Covid-19 can solve the climate crisis, written with Dr Bernice Maxton-Lee, was published in 2020. The German edition, published in 2021, is F*ck the System: Was Covid-19 uns lehrt und warum die liberale Demokratie uns bei der Klimakrise nicht weiterhilft. The book explains how societies can use the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus epidemic to make radical social and economic changes and slow the pace of climate change. The book is also published in Slovak and Czech.
His previous book in German, Globaler Klimanotstand (Global Climate Emergency), was also published in 2020. It shows how societies can overcome the hurdles which stop them responding effectively to climate change. The book was listed among the top climate change books of 2020 by JBZ.
A trenchant critic of modern economic thinking, Graeme’s previous book, Change! Warum wir eine radikale Wende brauchen (why we need a radical turnaround), (2018) was a No. 1 Amazon best-seller in Germany and has also been published in English and Slovak. He is also the co-author with Jorgen Randers of Reinventing Prosperity: Managing economic growth to reduce unemployment, inequality and climate change (2016). The German edition, Ein Prozent ist genug: Mit wenig Wachstum soziale Ungleichheit, Arbeitslosigkeit und Klimawandel bekämpfen was also a No. 1 best-seller. As well as German and English, the book has been published in Italian and Ukrainian.
Graeme also wrote The End of Progress: How modern economics has failed us (2011), which was nominated for the FT’s Best Book about Business Award and has been translated into Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Romanian, and German. It was a top-20 Spiegel best-seller.
He is the co-author of two books on the automotive industry, Time for a Model Change (2004), which was Cambridge University Press’ Feature Book of the Year, and Driving Over a Cliff (1995), which was nominated for the FT’s Best Book about Business Award.
Before his election as Secretary General of the Club of Rome, he was a Regional Director with the Economist Group in Asia where he also chaired The Economist’s Conferences on aviation, energy, business in China, manufacturing and automotive as well as Government Roundtables. He was previously with strategy consultants Booz.Allen & Hamilton, in banking with Citibank and American Express, and a visiting professor at Cass Business School in London.
Born in Scotland he currently lives in Asia.
“Maxton is a thinker of astonishing depth and breadth, one to speak the tough truths that many other academics, politicians, and commentators avoid.” Huffington Post