Economics and Policy Issues in Climate ChangeWilliam D. Nordhaus Resources for the Future, 1998 - 324 pages Although the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol focused world attention on the global climate, it was just one step in the ongoing process of addressing climate change in all its facets. Research by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been ongoing since 1988. An extensive IPCC Working Group report published in 1995 examined the economic and social aspects of climate change. In this volume, eminent analysts assess that IPCC report and address the questions that emerge from it. The result is an instructive and cogent look at the realities of climate change and some methods (and difficulties) of dealing with them. William Nordhaus's introduction establishes the context for the book. It provides basic scientific background on climate change, reviews the IPCC's activities, and explains the genesis of the analyses. Subsequent contributions fall into two categories. Early chapters review analytical issues critical to social and economic understanding of climate change. A second set of chapters address specific economic questions surrounding climate-change policy. The result is an original and significant contribution to the evolving debate on this crucial hot-button topic. |
Contents
Policy Analysis for Decisionmaking About Climate Change | 4 |
Equity and Discounting in ClimateChange Decisions | 85 |
Applicability of CostBenefit Analysis to Climate Change | 111 |
Greenhouse Policy Architectures and Institutions | 137 |
ix | 140 |
25 | 149 |
The Costs of GreenhouseGas Abatement | 167 |
The Costs of Carbon Emissions Reductions | 191 |
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abatement adaptation Alcamo approach areas assumed assumptions authors bottom-up Cambridge capital carbon emissions carbon tax climate-change policy CO₂ CO2 emissions complex consumption cost-benefit analysis damages decision decision analysis decisionmaking developing countries discount rate discussion economic ecosystems Edmonds effects efficiency emissions reductions energy environmental equity estimates example Fankhauser fossil fuel framework future global warming greenhouse gases greenhouse-gas Group growth IAMs impacts of climate implementation implies important increase integrated assessment chapter integrated assessment models intergenerational equity Intergovernmental Panel investment involve IPCC IPCC report issues joint implementation Kolstad literature marginal Mendelsohn ment mitigation cost nations nomic Nordhaus OECD options policy optimization models policymakers pollution potential programs projections questions radiative forcing rate of return reduce regions Richels scenarios Schmalensee sectors sions social specific SRTP studies sulfur technologies tion top-down tradable uncertainty Weyant WGIII report
Popular passages
Page 235 - Mendelsohn, R., W. Nordhaus and D. Shaw (1994), The impact of global warming on agriculture: a Ricardian analysis', American Economic Review 84: 753-71.