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Climate
Economics
Researchers Publications
A growing sense of urgency surrounds the problem of global warming, as the scientific evidence becomes steadily more ominous and compelling. Indeed, as the climate skeptics sink into obscurity, conventional economic analysis is fast replacing them as the leading argument against vigorous, near-term climate policy initiatives. A handful of widely cited economic models and analyses are often taken as having “proved” that climate change mitigation would be impossibly expensive. Cynicism about the cost of government initiatives in general feeds into the new economic arguments for inaction. Moreover, many people may informally suspect that a little warming might not be so bad – an argument that is reinforced by several leading economic studies that identify near-term benefits from climate change.
As in other areas, environmental advocates are often much better prepared to address the science than the economics of the issues they are working on. As the grounds of the debate are shifting, there is a need for development of a progressive economic analysis of climate change. To counter the argument that doing anything about climate change is prohibitively expensive, GDAE, in collaboration with Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), is seeking to reframe the debate.
The Costs of Inaction: The costs of climate inaction – the difference between costs under the “business-as-usual“ scenarios of the IPCC reports and an optimistic “rapid stabilization” scenario – are the human, economic, and environmental damages that may be avoidable with vigorous, timely actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An increasingly common argument is that it will be expensive to do something about climate change; our research demonstrates that it will be much more costly to do nothing about it. We have undertaken a number of focused studies on different geographic areas to estimate the locally specific costs of climate inaction.
Toward a New Climate Economics: An ongoing series of articles and reports examine the economists’ debate about the Stern Review, the challenge of climate change for conventional economic theory, the conflict between scientific and economic analyses of climate change, and the shortcomings of some of the well-known “integrated assessment models” of climate and economic growth.
Carbon Content of Trade: Frank Ackerman has collaborated with a team of Japanese researchers led by Professor Masanobu Ishikawa of Kobe University, in an analysis of the carbon content embodied in trade between the US and Japan. This study highlights the impacts of international trade on carbon emissions, and suggests new priorities for US and Japanese policy toward trade and climate change. Current research is analyzing the carbon content of China’s trade.
International Climate Negotiations: GDAE Co-Director and IPCC lead author William Moomaw is also active on the international level, working to improve the outcome of climate negotiations.
Waste, Recycling, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Research at GDAE has highlighted the importance of greenhouse gas emissions from waste management, primarily landfill methane. This is the largest non-energy source of carbon emissions in developed countries, and one of the easiest and cheapest areas for reduction. Work on this subject has included academic publications on the climate benefits of recycling, and a report for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change evaluating international data on carbon emissions from waste management systems.
Researchers
Frank Ackerman
Liz Stanton
William R. Moomaw
Publications
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“Did the Stern Review underestimate US and global climate damages?,” by Frank Ackerman, Elizabeth A. Stanton, Chris Hope, Stephane Alberth, Energy Policy 37 (2009) 2717–2721. An earlier version of this article appeared as SEI Working Paper 08-02, October 2008.
Can We Afford the Future? The Economics of a Warming World, Frank Ackerman, Zed Books, 2009.
“Climate Economics in Four Easy Pieces,” by Frank Ackerman; Development volume 51, no. 3, pp. 325-331.
“Out of the Shadows: What’s Behind DEFRA’s New Approach to the Price of Carbon,” by Elizabeth A. Stanton and Frank Ackerman. July, 2008.
“Generated User Benefits and the Heathrow Expansion: Understanding Consumer Surplus,” by Elizabeth A. Stanton and Frank Ackerman. July, 2008.
“The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction,” Ramón Bueno, Cornelia Herzfeld, Elizabeth A. Stanton, and Frank Ackerman, June 2008.
"The Cost of Climate Change: What We’ll Pay if Global Warming Continues Unchecked," by Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton, May 2008.
"Hot, It’s Not: Reflections on Cool It!, by Bjorn Lomborg," by Frank Ackerman; Climatic Change, volume 89, numbers 3-4, August 2008.
"Critique of Cost-Benefit Analysis, and Alternative Approaches to Decision-Making,” by Frank Ackerman, January, 2008.
"Florida and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction," by Elizabeth A.Stanton and Frank Ackerman; report commissioned by Environmental Defense, November 2007.
"Debating Climate Economics: The Stern Review vs. Its Critics," by Frank Ackerman; report to Friends of the Earth-England, Wales and Northern Ireland, July 2007.
"Law and Economics for a Warming World," by Lisa Heinzerling and Frank Ackerman; Harvard Law and Policy Review volume 1, no. 2, pp.331-362.
"The Carbon Content of Japan-US Trade," by Frank Ackerman, Masanobu Ishikawa, and Mikio Suga; Energy Policy, volume 35 no. 9, September 2007, pp.4455-4462.
"The Economics of Inaction on Climate Change: A Sensitivity Analysis," by Frank Ackerman and Ian Finlayson; Climate Policy, volume 6 no. 5 (2006), pp.509-526. An earlier version of this article appeared as GDAE Working Paper 06-07. October, 2006.
"Climate Change - The Costs of Inaction," by Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton; report released with Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, October 2006.
"Can Climate Change Save Lives? A comment on ‘Economy-wide estimates of the implications of climate change: Human health’,” by Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton; Ecological Economics, volume 66 (2008), pp. 8-13. An earlier version of this article appeared as GDAE Working Paper 06-05. September, 2006.
“Greenhouse Emissions from Waste Management. A survey of data reported to UNFCCC by Annex I countries,” by Frank Ackerman, William Moomaw, and Robin Taylor, May 20, 2003.
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