The Climate Policy Dilemma
Name
Pindyck_The climate.pdf
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608.47 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
afe2b16f9c2b4dea540baa306ebc648f
Author(s)
Pindyck, Robert S.
Date Issued
May 2013
Journal
Review of Environmental Economics and Policy
Publisher
Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
Citation
Pindyck, R. S. “The Climate Policy Dilemma.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 7, no. 2 (July 1, 2013): 219–237.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Climate policy poses a dilemma for environmental economists. The economic argument for stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement is far from clear. There is disagreement among both climate scientists and economists concerning the likelihood of alternative climate outcomes, the nature and extent of the uncertainty of those outcomes, and the framework that should be used to evaluate potential benefits from GHG abatement, including key policy parameters. I argue that the case for stringent abatement—if it can be made at all—cannot be based on the kinds of modeling exercises that have permeated the literature thus far, but instead must be based on the possibility of a catastrophic outcome. I discuss how an analysis that incorporates such an outcome might be conducted.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/ret007
