Economics of Climate Change Uncertainty

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Economics of Climate ChangeUncertainty

• Rebecca Baldwin
• Value of Nature
• Spring 2003

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Last Presidential Campaign

• incomplete state of scientific knowledge (Bush)

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Physical studies

• Lots of different studies
• Lots of different results in each

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How do we decide?

• We need to formulate policies that make sense
  under this degree of uncertainty.The important
  thing is to understand what the risks are.
• Dr. Jacoby, MITs Joint Program on the Science
  and Policy of Global Change one of the authors
  of article in our text (page 517)
• Program founded in 1991, greenhouse gamble wheel

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Public Good Problem

• Page 502 in text
• Implies government likely source of solution
• What government
• Page 510 costs more upfront and likely to be felt
  by one set of countries, benefits to future
  generations of a different set of countries

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Cost Benefit Analysis

• ?net benefit or net cost
• ?distributional impacts
• Then treat like an insurance issue

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