Economics has failed on the climate crisis. This complexity scientist has a plan to fix that

Doyne Farmer says a super-simulator of the global economy would accelerate the transition to a green, clean world

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t’s a mind-blowing idea: an economic model of the world in which every company is individually represented, making realistic decisions that change as the economy changes. From this astonishing complexity would emerge forecasts of unprecedented clarity. These would be transformative: no more flying blind into global financial crashes, no more climate policies that fail to shift the dial.

This super simulator could be built for what Prof Doyne Farmer calls the bargain price of $100m, thanks to advances in complexity science and computing power.

If you are thinking this sounds crazily far-fetched, then you’re betting against a man who, with friends, beat the casino at roulette in the 1970s using the first wearable digital computer and beat Wall Street in the 1990s with an automated rapid-trading computer company that was later sold to the bank UBS.