He makes the following points:
- Global GHG emissions continue to rise
- The UN’s goal for sharply reducing emissions over the next few decades will be a very difficult target to reach
- It will be very costly to reach this goal
- He cites current cost estimates of what we would have to sacrifice to achieve the carbon reductions…
To my deep surprise, he never mentions climate change adaptation. That a very serious Harvard economist is not willing to even mention this topic says something on several levels.
The IPCC has only made a small investment in investigating the possibilities for adaptation to help us to minimize several of the threats we will face from climate change.
In my humble opinion, too many economists are working on the economics of climate change mitigation in part because there is so much demand by policy makers (and private consulting) for such studies. But from a research perspective, we have hit sharp diminishing returns.
In contrast, we need active researchers to more fully explore the politically incorrect topic of climate change adaptation.
via Environmental and Urban Economics: Professor Stavins’ Climate Change Piece in the NY Times Today.
Environmental and Urban Economics: Professor Stavins’ Climate Change Piece in the NY Times Today
25 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in climate change, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, global warming Tags: climate change adaptation, global warming
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