Author: Toman, Michael

Source: Environmental Values, Volume 15, Number 3, August 2006 , pp. 365-379(15)

Publisher: White Horse Press

Abstract:

Economics has played an important role in assessing climate change impacts, and the effects of various individual and policy response strategies. Proponents of a key role for economics in analysis of climate change policies and goals argue that its capacity to incorporate and compare a variety of costs and benefits makes it uniquely useful for normative assessment. Critics of economic analysis of climate change have questioned not only its empirical capacities, but also its fundamental usefulness given some of the important but often implicit assumptions on which it is based. After reviewing this debate and its implications for public policy on climate change, the paper sketches a way in which more technical economic analysis and public dialogue might be combined.

Keywords: climate change economics; integrated assessment; cost benefit analysis; discounting; sustainability

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2006-08-01

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