e-journal

The Climate Policy Dilemma

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Most environmental problems—for example, SOx and NOx emissions from coal-burning power plants—are amenable to standard benefit-cost analysis. There will always be uncertainties over the benefits and costs of any proposed abatement policy, but the characteristics and extent of those uncertainties will usually be well understood and comparable in nature to the uncertainties concerning many other public and private policy or investment decisions. Of course, economists can (and will) argue about the details of the analysis. But at a basic level, we’re in well-charted territory and confident that we know what we’re doing. If we come to the
conclusion that a policy to reduce SOx emissions by a particular amount is warranted, that conclusion will be viewed, at least by most economists, as defensible and reasonable.
Not so with climate change. Climate policy poses a serious dilemma for environmental economists. In part because of declining economic growth and rising unemployment in much of the world, there has been waning political enthusiasm for implementing stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement policies, and climate change is taking a back seat to other environmental—and nonenvironmental—policy problems. More importantly, the economic argument for stringent GHG abatement is far from clear. There is disagreement among both climate scientists and economists over the likelihood of alternative climate outcomes, as well as the nature and extent of the uncertainty of those outcomes. There is also disagreement about the framework that should be used to evaluate the potential benefits from an abatement policy, including the social welfare function and the discount rate to be used to put future welfare benefits from abatement in present value terms. These disagreements make climate policy both difficult to evaluate and hard to sell to the general public.

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists., 2013

Deskripsi Fisik

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, volume 7, issue 2, 2013, pp. 219–237

Bahasa

English

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Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

EKONOMI

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

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