Climate policy has failed because it has been designed by and for the fossil fuel industry, argues journalist Kate Aronoff in this polemic against market-based environmentalism. Since the 1980s, oil and gas companies have not merely denied climate science but shaped the policy responses to ensure their survival. Carbon trading, voluntary commitments, and technological fixes all allow continued extraction while shifting costs to consumers and future generations. Aronoff traces how industry-funded think tanks and captured regulators ensured that the most effective policies, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, remained politically unthinkable. The book covers the history of climate politics from the Reagan administration through the Paris Agreement, showing how each apparent breakthrough contained loopholes that industry exploited. Aronoff is particularly critical of mainstream environmental organizations that accepted industry framing and celebrated inadequate compromises. She argues that effective climate policy requires breaking the political power of fossil fuel companies, not negotiating with them. The book advocates a Green New Deal approach that combines decarbonization with economic justice, treating climate change as an opportunity to address inequality rather than merely a technical problem. Aronoff discusses climate reparations for frontline communities and the Global South. Readers convinced that market mechanisms will eventually solve the crisis may find her arguments uncomfortable, but those seeking to understand why thirty years of climate policy have produced so little will find her diagnosis compelling.